"Rifling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between what the Spaniards may do (and, in all likelihood, will do) for themselves, and what Frenchmen would do for them. But,—waiving this,—the sweeping away of the most splendid monuments of art, and rifling of the public treasuries in the conquered countries, are an apt prologue to the tragedy which is to ensue. Strange that there are men who can be so besotted as to see, in the decrees of the Usurper concerning feudal tenures and a worn-out Inquisition, any other evidence than that ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the penalty of the suspicious type of mind that it suffers from its own activity. From the moment he detected Mr. Peters in the act of rifling the museum and marked down Ashe as an accomplice, Baxter's repose was doomed. Nor poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, could ever medicine him to that sweet sleep which he ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... order that the dwellings of the inhabitants were not to be plundered or injured, the soldiers soon stripped the palaces and temples of the valuables they contained, even taking the golden ornaments of the royal mummies and rifling the Peruvian graves, which often contained precious treasures. Believing that the natives had buried their wealth, they put some of them to the torture, to induce them to disclose their hiding-places, and by seeking everywhere they occasionally stumbled upon mines ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... notice the little square projection on the back surface of the cylinder. That was evidently made to fit a washer or wad—probably a thin plate of soft metal which would be driven by the pressure from behind into the grooves of the rifling and thus give a spinning motion to the bullet. When the latter left the barrel, the wad would drop off, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... equerry, the Chevalier de Magny. This afternoon the Chevalier's servant came from his master's lodgings, accompanied by the Hebrew; was heard to make inquiries as to the route the man intended to take on his way homewards; followed him, or preceded him rather, and was found in the act of rifling his victim by my police in the Kaiserwald. The man will confess nothing; but, on being searched, a large sum in gold was found on his person; and though it is with the utmost pain that I can bring myself to entertain such an opinion, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... empty tomb could only be accounted for by the rifling hands that had taken away the precious body, but could not guess that the Rifler of the perquisites of death was none other than ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... came they written?"—You task me, Who can tell, who! Stripping a butterfly's pinions To learn how they grew; Wasting a violet's dominions To search for the dew; Spoiling the odor, the juices, The flavor, the hue; Rifling the haunts of the Muses, ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... he was lying in the cellar, beside our other victim. Very little blood flowed from the wound; he bled internally. He had on a very fine shirt; and after rifling his person, and possessing myself of his pocketbook, I took off his shirt, and put on the one I ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... watching the operations of the other robbers for some moments, turned on his heel, and remained humming an opera tune with dignified indifference until the pair had finished rifling the carriage, and seizing Mauleverer, proceeded ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a cry of 'murder, murder!' drew the student's eyes to the street below him; and there, to afflict his heart, stood his graceless Juno, having just upset the servant of a cook's shop, in the very act of rifling her basket; the sound of the drum was yet ringing through the streets; the crowd collected to hear it had not yet withdrawn from the spot; and in this way was Juno expressing her reverence for the proclamation of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... They had as much water as they could drink, a great thing for the Egyptian native, there was fruit for the picking on the trees, and everything was free! So they imagined, but the exasperated ladies who were continually coming to complain that a sportsman in a blue galabeah was rifling their orchards ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Paul's throat, and undid his collar and his waistcoat. "A pocket inside the waistcoat! Very useful, very useful—and more papers, yes! Take a drop, my friend, it will do you good." Thus alternately ministering to Paul's bodily comfort and rifling his person of what valuables he carried, Dieppe offered to the philosophic mind a singular resemblance to a Finance Minister who takes a farthing off the duty on beer and puts a penny on ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... while his comrades had been attending on Giuseppe, the third Corsican (whom they called Ste, or Stephanu) had filled up his time by rifling our camp; and of all our possessions he had chosen to select our half-dozen spare muskets and a burst coffer, from which he now extracted and (for his comrade's admiration) held aloft our chiefest ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... off-course. If worst came to worst, they could roll Valier over and use the six o'clock auxiliary; there was a small arc through which the motors could turn on their mounts. But the trouble was unknown, and they might end up rifling or pinwheeling if they ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... had been a cannon-ball; and though she sat with her book in her lap by the fire in Mary's room, all the dear old furniture and pictures round her, her head was weaving an unheard-of imagination, about robbers coming in rifling everything—coming up the stairs—creak, creak, was that their step?—she held her breath, and her eyes dilated—seizing her for the sake of her watch! What article there would be in the paper—"Melancholy disappearance ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... short iron bar curved at the ends, and known as a ship carpenter's "dog." A struggle ensued, which resulted in the murder, the assassin striking his victim on the head nine times with terrible force. Then, rifling the safe of its valuable contents, he had gone stealthily down the stairs, had unfastened the front door, which had been carefully secured at half an hour after midnight, and, laying the "dog" down on the hall floor, had passed out ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the Chassepot, and now it appears that Russia claims to have a new rifle which surpasses them both. If we may judge from Prussia's actions in this war, this improvement in rifles leads to improvement in rifling; and though it is difficult to imagine how Russia could surpass Prussia's proficiency in this art, which in civil parlance would be called robbing, yet there is no knowing to what further point of perfection ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... generally very devout, and keep all the days of the church with becoming reverence. There is a story that a moujik waylaid and killed a traveler, and while rifling the pockets of his victim found a cake containing meat. Though very hungry he would not eat the cake, because meat was forbidden in the fast then ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... was such a matter of merriment to Margaret Dunscombe and the maid, that they could hardly contain themselves. She did not find out that Miss Margaret's fingers were busy with her paper of sweets, which only a good string and a sound knot kept her from rifling. Yet she felt very well that nobody there cared in the least for her sorrow. It mattered nothing; she wept on in her loneliness, and knew nothing that happened, till the carriage stopped on the wharf; even then she did not raise her head. Mrs. Dunscombe got out, and saw her daughter and servant ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... strengthen her resolve. There had been nothing in her valise to show who she really was, or why she was in Haskell, and consequently, if any vague suspicion had been aroused as to her presence in that community, the searchers had discovered no proof by this rifling of her bag. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... replied Mr. Murch. "Lodged in the bone at the back of the skull. Dr. Stock got it out within the last hour, and handed it to the local officer, who has just sent it on to me. These bright scratches you see, were made by the doctor's instruments. These other marks were made by the rifling of the barrel—a barrel like this one." He tapped the revolver. "Same make, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... loaded with several different kinds of missiles. There was, for instance, the cartridge charged with shot of various sizes— from dust-shot for the killing of humming-birds and such like, up to ordinary buck-shot—enclosed in a case so fragile that the friction of its passage along the rifling of the barrel destroyed it, causing it to crumble to dust as it emerged from the muzzle of the weapon, and leave the charge of shot free to do its work in the same manner as though fired from an ordinary shot-gun. Then there was the cartridge charged with the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... important of affairs, and a dandy the most important of individuals. If we liked, we could give you a description of the fete which should make all your mouths water; but everyone cooks now, and ekes out his page by robbing Jarrin and by rifling Ude. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... great favourer of Frenchmen in their occupiengs and trades, contrary to the laws of the Citie. If the people had found him, they had surelie have stricken off his head; but when they found him not, the watermen and certain young preests that were there, fell to rifling, and some ran to Blanch-apelton, and broke up the strangers' houses and spoiled them. Thus from ten or eleven of the clock these riotous people continued their outrageous doings, till about three of the clock, at what time they began to withdraw, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Erie, the two comrades, Black Jack and the Kid, moved cautiously in the rear of the troops as they fell down the river; their intention being to remain concealed in the vicinity of any point at which an engagement might take place, and then trust to chance for an opportunity of rifling the dead or picking up whatever spoils happened to drop in their way. While deliberating upon this creditable resolve, about noon, as they had made a detour and pushed ahead of the troops, who were going into camp, their attention was arrested by the noise of some vehicle coming up a side road ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... ever casting a look behind. The count desiring the thief to withdraw his pistol, as the lady was in great terror, delivered his purse without making the least resistance; but not satisfied with this booty, which was pretty considerable, the rascal insisted upon rifling her of her car-rings and necklace, and the countess screamed with affright. Her husband, exasperated at the violence with which she was threatened, wrested the pistol out of the fellow's hand, and turning it upon him, snapped ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... lying in the palm of his hand, a little out of shape through passing the rifling, but still ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... This rifling of his honey-pot Awoke our Elfin's wrath full hot. He made a rope of linden bast, By either end he held it fast, And creeping up behind the beast, Intent upon the honey feast, Before it had the slightest inkling, The rope was round it in ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... for R.M.L. guns were at first fitted with a number of gun-metal studs arranged around them in a spiral manner corresponding to the twist of rifling. This was defective, as it allowed, as in the old smooth-bore guns, the powder gas to escape by the clearance (called "windage") between the projectile and the bore, with a consequent loss of efficiency; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in her bureau she herself might have disturbed. She might have taken a handkerchief in a hurry, hunted for something under the lingerie impatiently. Still she could not rid herself of the feeling that alien hands had been rifling her belongings. Not ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... only wak'd at the crack. To be short, Ascyltos came in and briefly told us what he had done for our sakes: On this we got up; and as we were rigging our selves, it came into my head to kill the guard, and rifle the village; I told Ascyltos my mind. He liked the rifling well enough, but gave us a wish'd delivery without blood, for being acquainted with every corner of the house, he pick'd the lock of an inner-room where the movables lay, and bringing us into it, we lifted what was of most value, and got off while it was yet early in the ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... on board our own craft, and carried below—I into my cabin, and the rest into the forepeak, where others of the crew had been already conveyed. I won't attempt to tell you how I felt, as I saw the villains rifling my boxes and lockers, and carrying off everything worth having. They made quick work of it, being hurried on by their captain; and then they set-to to take possession of our cargo. They left me in ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... that hapned of more fatal consequences was this:—it being that time of the year when young lads are busie in rifling jackdaws nests to get their young, a scholar of the free-school, a son to a parliament officer, was got upon the top of the minster about this employment; who going along the cieling in the body of the church, and treading unwarily on some rotten boards, fell down from thence, upon the loft ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... snowy table, in the pleasant light of the shaded lamps, eating chicken-salad, and abasing and rifling the great red pyramids of strawberries and raspberries, but talking not much. We young ones never can talk out loud before father. He has never heard our voices raised much above a whisper. I do not think he has an idea what fine, loud, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... introduced as his particular friends. After a few moments' conversation, the Count d'Horn suddenly sprang upon his victim, and stabbed him three times in the breast with a poniard. The man fell heavily to the ground, and, while the Count was employed in rifling his portfolio of bonds in the Mississippi and Indian schemes to the amount of one hundred thousand crowns, Mille, the Piedmontese, stabbed the unfortunate broker again and again, to make sure of his death. But the broker ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... adventure down the slip, ignominious though it was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded hilariously once more in ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... to the crevice—which extended upward the length of the door—they peered eagerly into the room. Moxley had not returned empty handed. He had employed his brief absence in rifling the canoes, and was laden with their entire contents, excepting the dishes and the ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... though he keeps the old homestead And sends the children down there with their mother To run wild in the summer—a little wild. Sometimes he joins them for a day or two And sees old friends he somehow can't get near. They meet him in the general store at night, Pre-occupied with formidable mail, Rifling a printed letter as he talks. They seem afraid. He wouldn't have it so: Though a great scholar, he's a democrat, If not at heart, at least on principle. Lately when coming up to Lancaster His train being late he missed another train ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... once stung him, as he was rifling honey from the hives, and pricked his finger-tips all; then he was in pain, and blew upon his hand, and leaped, and stamped the ground. And then he showed his hurt to Aphrodite, and made much complaint, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... developed the dog, the latter was incapable of rising, and was one of man's most dangerous foes,—the fox robbing his hen-roosts and grape-vines, the wolf eating him and his children, and the jackal and hyena picking his bones and rifling his grave. The same ridiculous claim of being the corner-stone of human society has been made by some wiseacre in behalf of the goat. The plain truth is that only one animal can justly lay claim to such a distinction. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... here the space to enter upon a disquisition concerning these progressive changes; but suffice it to say that nearly all the peculiar styles of fire-arms were well known at an early period, and that the rifling, etc., of guns and cannon, with the other modifications now adopted, are merely the development and consummation of old ideas. For instance, the rifled arquebuse was known and used at the close ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the party whom no threat of punishment, or sense of pity, could deter from taking advantage of their comrades, rifling stores, cheating on duty and even stealing arms in the hope of doing away with other survivors. When repeated offense showed that they ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense |
