"Knock down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prodigious feat, but the danger gave him for the moment the power of a madman. Twice he swung the shrieking little sailor, and twice that body smashed back the attack, while Harrigan leaped to his feet in time to knock down a man who sprang at McTee from behind with ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... flure, makes at him; the lad, however, had the door of him, and was off beyant his reach like a shot. He then turned into the house, and meeting Dick, felled him with a blow of his fist at the dresser. 'Tundher-an-ages, Larry,' says Art, 'what has come over you at all at all? to knock down the gorsoon with such a blow! couldn't you take a rod or a switch to him?—Dher manhim, (* By my soul!) man, but I bleeve you've killed him outright,' says he, lifting the boy, and striving to bring him to life. Just at this ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... thousand other boys of fourteen, all legs, blunder, and bluster. Indeed the family called him the "Blunderbuss," and always expected to see him tumble over the chairs, bump against the tables, and knock down any small articles near him. He bragged a good deal about what he could do, but seldom did any thing to prove it, was not brave, and a little given to tale-telling. He was apt to bully the small boys, and flatter the big ones, and without being at all bad, was just the sort ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... folding doors were opened, and a crowd of children rushed in, as though they wanted to knock down the whole tree, whilst the older people followed soberly. The children stood quite silent, but only for a moment, and then they shouted again, and danced round the tree, and snatched off one present ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... the attempt, promising to defend him against all evil spirits which we might encounter. While he was speaking, the light attracted some of the birds, which in their eagerness flew towards us; and the doctor and I managed to knock down two, greatly to ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... down a volume of reports, and showed them the case he had cited; and, on reading the unanimous decision of the judges, and the learning by which they were supported, Wheeler said at once: "Mr. Bassett, we might as well try to knock down St. Paul's with our heads as ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... length," answered the Tanner. "My staff is long enough to knock down a calf; so look to ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... that the ancient players had become so expert that they could always knock down any single kayle-pin, or any two kayle-pins that stood close together. They therefore altered the game, and it was agreed that the player who knocked down the last pin ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... stones, thrown either with the hand or sling, and bludgeons; for though they have bows and arrows, the arrows are only fit to knock down a bird, none of them being pointed, but headed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... far as was possible, to the new religion, grafting on such things as the people would not or could not renounce. The wisdom of the custom was obvious. The new converts, who believed in one God Whose Prophet had come to knock down all graven images in the temples, were still allowed the protection and comfort of their personal amulets, which were powerful enough to protect them from every evil imaginable, or to bring them all the blessings their ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... sex in general, and upon Mrs. Bazalgette in particular. This sweet lady maneuvered on a carpet like Marlborough on the south of France. She was brimful of resources, and they all tended toward one sacred object, getting her own way. She could be imperious at a pinch and knock down opposition; but she liked far better to undermine it, dissolve it, or evade it. She was too much of a woman to run straight to her je-le-veux, so long as she could wind thitherward serpentinely and by detour. She ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... spend the best part of your days exercising. Waste of time! Waste of time! A strong man never comes to anything. They're simple, mostly. It's the head that counts! How many of those ruffians did you knock down?" ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... the peasants in almost savage wrath, and in his tract "Against the Murdering, Thieving Hordes of Peasants," he urged the princes to crush the insurrection. "In the case of an insurgent," he says, "every man is both judge and executioner. Therefore, whoever can should knock down, strangle, and stab such publicly or privately, and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, and devilish as an insurgent.... Such wonderful times are these that a prince can merit heaven better with bloodshed than another ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... the head and stern, so that her freight could be discharged. The men on the beach waded out through the surf (though it took them up to the armpits), and the men in the lugger passed the kegs and boxes to them. Waves which were unusually big would knock down the men in the water, burden and all, and then there would be laughter from all hands, and grumbles from the victim. I never saw men work harder. The freight was all flung out and landed and packed in half an hour. ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... sill; for, if a man lingered with his lips glued to the rim of the bucket after Gaspar Ruiz had said 'You have had enough,' there would be no tenderness or mercy in the shove of the foot which would send him groaning and doubled up far into the interior of the prison, where he would knock down two or three others before he fell himself. They came up to him again and again; it looked as if they meant to drink the well dry before going to their death; but the soldiers were so amused by Gaspar ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... a shame!" Ned repeated. "Mind, I say it's a brutal thing to ill treat a cat like that. If she did knock down inkstands and get fellows into rows it was not her fault. It's natural cats should run after mice, and the wainscoting of the schoolroom swarmed with them. One can hear them chasing each other about and squeaking all day. If I knew any of the fellows had killed the cat I should ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... Imperial Guard who were run through the body apparently without any resistance on their parts. I observed a big Welshman of the name of Hughes, who was six feet seven inches in height, run through with his bayonet, and knock down with the butt end of his firelock, I should think a dozen at least of his opponents. This terrible contest did not last more than ten minutes, for the Imperial Guard was soon in full retreat, leaving all their ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... shags, and grebes, and penguins, and albatrosses, and sea-rooks, and oyster-catchers, and gulls with pink breasts, and many others, of whose names I have no note. As we believed that we had plenty of time, we landed near some cliffs to have a nearer look at them. So tame were they that we could knock down as many as we liked with our sticks; but it was murderous work, and as we did not want them to eat—indeed many were not fit for ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... he said, "to knock down an old woman that way and then not stop to see how badly she was hurt. I wish you could have won out to-day. Could you give a good ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... distrust, and their impulse is to brush the claim aside. This tendency is strengthened by the legal presumption, which the prosecutor invariably calls to their attention, that the defendant is sane. Every expert who has testified for the defence in the ordinary "knock down and drag out" homicide case must have felt with the prisoner's attorneys, that it was "up to them" not so much to create a doubt of the defendant's sanity as to prove that he was insane, if they expected consideration from ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... will have them dropping in on us all the winter. In the meantime leave the liquor where it is. Don't bring a gallon of it into this clearing. It will keep, and we can't take chances with the Mounted. There will be enough in it for us, with what we can knock down here, and what the boys can take out of MacNair's diggings. They know the gold is there; most of them were in on the stampede when MacNair drove them back a few years ago. And when they find out that ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... say that it rolls along like distant thunder, and that when he is angry his eyes flash with a gleam almost like lightning. His strength is so enormous that one blow of that soft paw, which looks so harmless, will break the back of a horse, or knock down the strongest man; and he will carry off a young cow as a cat carries off a mouse. Young lions are very pretty, and as playful as kittens. I have seen a happy family all in one cage—a great African ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... round, and laid hold of Hector from behind; the other made a move towards him in front. Hector stood motionless for an instant, watching his chief, but when he saw him knock down the man before him, he had his own assailant by the throat in an instant, gave him a shake, and threw him beside ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear before the "up-town" world as a Christian citizen and an example of domestic virtue. The type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and proper gentleman, prompt to knock down any one daring to asperse his veracity after five any evening and all day Sunday, but who considers himself free to engage in any dirty juggle or misrepresentation from 9 A.M. to 4.45 P.M. In office hours you run no risk in calling him a liar, for ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... if I am sentenced to penal servitude for stealing your uncle's gig, and robbing his little nephew of L10. By the by, that choleric relation of yours meant to knock down somebody else when he struck at me. He asked, 'Are you the villain?' Pray who is the villain? he is ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Leipsic student Goethe, is their teacher in the art of sewing as well as making a courtly bow—which latter accomplishment they have occasion to practise when one day in the park they almost knock down the corpulent Grand Duke by running against him, and are then treated by him to good things to eat. With his knowledge they slip into the theatre without tickets, and when they have witnessed a performance of Tasso at ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... to thrive in flattery deal, Must learn your passions to conceal; And likewise to regard your friends As creatures sent to serve your ends. Be prompt to lie: there is no wit In telling truth, to lose by it. And knock down worth, bespatter merit: Don't stint—all will your scandal credit. Be bumptious, bully, swear, and fight— And all will own the ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... and the climate severe, the animal heat of the cattle is a substitute for fuel, except as sun-baked cakes of manure are used once a day for cooking, as is the practice also on the plain. In such houses the buffaloes sometimes break loose and fight furiously, and instances are not rare when they knock down the posts on which the roof rests, and thus bury all in ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... by his flight and the tremendous knock down, he fought viciously, and kept all his smaller foes at a respectful distance by repeated charges, until Chand Moorut again came up and laid him flat with another irresistible charge. He staggered ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... rush across it at the imminent risk of her life, dart down it again on the other side, rush sideways, like an excited crab, into a grocer's shop, run three times round the shop, upsetting the whole stock-in-trade, come out of the shop backward and knock down a postman, dash into the roadway and spin round twice, hover for a moment, undecided, on the curb, and then away up the hill again, as if she had only just started, all the while screaming out at the top of her voice for somebody to ...
— Evergreens - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... works. I wouldn't be much surprised if it was learned that somewhere about the place, unknown to most people, these clever Germans had long ago built a heavy concrete floor, to be used in their business; but which would make the best kind of foundation for one of those big siege guns they used to knock down ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... hill, fired into the temporary barricade of the English; but at this moment a sloop hove in sight, and bore down toward the shore. It had two or three small cannon on board with which it proceeded to knock down the stone house. The sloop was commanded by a resolute man, Captain Golding, who effected the embarkation of the company, taking off only two at a time in a canoe. During the embarkation the Indians who were ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... infantry opened fire. Then a tremendous volley was poured into the allies, and a great number of men and officers fell. Still they moved forward, and Rowe, marching in line with his men, struck the palisade with his sword before he gave the order to fire. Then desperately the British strove to knock down the palisade and attack their enemy with the bayonet, but the structure was too strong, and the gallant force melted away under the withering fire kept up by the great force of French ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... at Beza-Town told me, moreover, as you will remember, that the Kendah are a very great people who live by themselves and will allow none to enter their land, which is bordered by deserts. Therefore no force that you could take with you and feed upon a road without water would be strong enough to knock down their gates like an elephant, and it seems better that you should try to creep through them like a wise snake, although they appear to be shut in your face. Perhaps also they will not be shut since did you not say that two of their great doctors promised to meet ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... you be good enough to listen to me? I am not to be trifled with. To-morrow sometime I shall enter the east wing of this building if I have to knock down all the doors on the place. Do you ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Jim," was the prompt reply. "It will take them an hour more at least to get it big enough and then 'twill do no great harm. We can knock down our barricade so that they can't use it and fall back into the cave where it's dark and cool and where the smoke and flame can't reach us. Keep your eyes on your corner, man!" But though he spoke reassuringly, the old soldier felt ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... As we knock down the barriers to growth, we must redouble our efforts for freer and fairer trade. We have already taken actions to counter unfair trading practices and to pry open closed foreign markets. We will continue to do ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... manufacture of pig iron. It was the agency, above all others, most needful in the manufacture of iron and steel. The blast-furnace manager of that day was usually a rude bully, generally a foreigner, who in addition to his other acquirements was able to knock down a man now and then as a lesson to the other unruly spirits under him. He was supposed to diagnose the condition of the furnace by instinct, to possess some almost supernatural power of divination, like his congener in the country districts who was reputed to be able to locate an oil well ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... his pistol, clutched his bare arm, and with the blood spouting up between his fingers he turned to flee. Two white men sprang out in from of him, and the Major shouted: "Don't kill him—he is to be hanged on the public square. I was trying to take him alive—and had to knock down two of ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... conceived: so many bellows have blown the fuel, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder!" "If all this had happened to me," he said on another occasion, "I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened to Cibber and Quin, they'd have jumped over the moon. Yet Garrick speaks to us," smiling. He admitted at the same time that Garrick had raised the profession of a player. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... I don't know what they called it, but it sooted me fust rate. When I got home, the more I thought about it the more I made up my mind I'd learn that dance. Wall I went out in the corn field whar none of the neighbors could see me, and I'll be durned if I didn't knock down about four akers of corn, but I never got that dance right. I wuz the talk of the whole community; mother didn't speak to me fer about a week, and Aunt Nancy Smith sed I wuz a burnin' shame and a disgrace to the village, but I notice Nancy has asked me a good many questions about jist ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house—fire its contents—murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even ask you again for toll! Do this, and you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the stage very boisterously. Fleetwood, the master of Drury-Lane, has omitted nothing to support them as they supported his house. About ten days ago, he let into the pit great numbers of Bear-garden bruisers (that is the term) to knock down everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... - 'In the summer time a few of us assemble together, and live about amongst the plains and hills, and by doing so we frequently contrive to pick up a horse or a mule for nothing, and sometimes we knock down a Busne, and strip him, but it is seldom we venture so far. We are much looked after by the Busne, who hold us in great dread, and abhor us. Sometimes, when wandering about, we are attacked by the labourers, and then we defend ourselves as well as we can. There ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... silence, a flush on her cheek and a pallor about her lips, which Tom Tubbs saw, secretly shaking his fist and thinking how he would like to knock down the man who could speak so to a wife as beautiful and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... amongst them a boy of the name of Best, who, after having heard what Scott had to say, at once declared that it was impossible for any one but the boy who had slept with him in the same bed to have stolen the money. I instantly fired up, and endeavoured to knock down the scoundrel, who had by implication charged me with the theft. A battle ensued, in which Best got the worst of it, and amongst other things a black eye; which being perceived by Mr. Evans, when we got into the school, I was punished with an imposition ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... upon the enraged trio. He saw the man he'd hired to help him take the first knock down and get up swiftly. He saw Theodore King make another dive at the wood gatherer. The cobbler was in direct range of Jordan's vision, and he slipped his hand into his pocket, from which he took a ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... law books) hoped he might be permitted to make a few more remarks. His honor bowing assent, the well-looking legal gentleman, in blandest accents, proceeded to say Jonathan must not lay a foundation for others he was first to knock down; for if a rule applied to great principles it must not be made subservient to small exigencies of an opposite character: Jonathan must bow to his own stumbling-blocks. It did, however, seem that this Commission had been viewed by certain parties ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... cruelty that too often degrades human nature had awaked in the populace: all heads were turned with hatred and frenzy; all imaginations inflamed with the passion for revenge; groups of men and women, roaring like wild beasts, threatened to knock down the walls of the prison, if the condemned were not handed over to them to take to the place of punishment: a great murmur arose, continuous, ever the same, like the growling of thunder: the queen's ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Mr. Prohack, admiringly, conscious anew of his passion for her and full of trust in the virtue of his passion to knock down the wall sooner or later. "But you are a very naughty and ungrateful creature, and you must be punished. I will now proceed to punish you. We have much to do before the lunch. Go and get ready, and simply put on all the clothes that have cost the most money. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Jim, and I had another; and the three stranger chaps another. We'd had a couple of knockabouts to help with the cooking and stockyard work. They were paid by the job. They were to stay at the camp for a week, to burn the gunyahs, knock down the yard, and blind the track as much as ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... trousers, red coats, white cross-belts and brass plates, at about four hundred yards, and thought what a raking that rifle would give a body, of troops in such colors for a mark. A ball of that weight with an ounce of powder, would knock down six or eight men in a row. A dozen of such weapons well handled on board a ship would create an astonishing effect; but for most purposes the weight of the ammunition is a ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... is in the milk a great many birds which feed upon it are captured by means of a broom-like bundle of runo. As the birds fly over the sementeras a boy sweeps his broom, the ka-lib', through the flock, and rarely fails to knock down a bird. The ka-lib' is about 7 feet long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and flattened and broadened to 14 or 15 inches in width at the outer end. What the ka-lib' really does for the boy is to give him an arm about 9 feet ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... Kendal; 'he reeled against me, almost stunned, and was hardly himself for some moments. His nose bled violently. That fellow's fist might knock down an ox.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a go of it, somehow," vouchsafed the old skipper. "But who did you have to knock down in a dark place so as to steal his money ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of time Adolphe's nerves improved so much that he could manage to knock down a leash of birds, or roll over a hare; but boars and wolves he declined to have anything further to do with; and when I met him by accident some years after, in the presence of mutual friends, he said, "Ah! de Crignelle, what ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... him very much—she thought. She would knock down any one who even blamed him for anything. Indeed, when things went well, she would sometimes go sound asleep in the door with her fat arm around him—very much as the mother-cat beside her lay half dozing while she licked her ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... elevated oven cook stove in St. Paul and it was in use every day for fifty years. We brought Baker knock down chairs with us and they have been in constant use for fifty-eight years—have never been repaired and look as if they were good for ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... landed, with his boat, within a reef, and caught a number of excellent turtle upon a sandy beach: this island also abounded with a variety of birds, which were so unaccustomed to being disturbed, that the seamen came near enough to knock down as many as ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... in the little ports we are fleeced right and left. Boatmen and shopkeepers charge us two or three times as much as they do their own countrymen, and I am sure that we could get better bargains in hides and other produce if we had someone who could knock down their prices." ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Swiss footman with a baton and an embroidered collar—a fellow looking like a fat, over-fed pug dog. However, friend Kopeikin managed to get himself and his wooden leg into the reception room, and there squeezed himself away into a corner, for fear lest he should knock down the gilded china with his elbow. And he stood waiting in great satisfaction at having arrived before the President had so much as left his bed and been served with his silver wash-basin. Nevertheless, it was only when Kopeikin had been waiting four hours that a breakfast waiter entered ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to one of his officers, "take your company and knock down or blow up all the houses on this side of that lane there. Mr. Wilkinson, you take number two company, and do the same with the lane to the right. The rest follow ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... Delehanty of the Suwanee was anxious to finish his work, so he signalled to the New York, asking permission to knock down the Spanish flag. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... the aspect of the country changed, and the attitude of the inhabitants altered also. Until now, they had collected in crowds, astonished at the sight of the vessels; but upon the cultivated shores of the Paraguay they courageously opposed the strangers' landing, and three Spaniards having tried to knock down the fruit from a palm-tree, a struggle took place, in which 300 natives lost their lives. This victory had disabled twenty-five Spaniards. It was too much for Cabot, who rapidly removed his wounded to the fort San Spirito and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... over the story quickly; I noted that Carpenter was represented as having tried to knock down the Reverend Mr. Simpkinson, and that the prophet's followers had assaulted members of the congregation. I confess to some relief upon discovering that my own humble part in the adventure had not been mentioned. ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... did when I thought so. But I shall never work—or toil rather—for sheer subsistence except behind the bars. I am driven to be a parasite, for honest living there is none. The time is up, and I must leave. Several years ago I ruined whatever robustness I had by tending bar so that Katie might knock down some three hundred dollars. At one meal a day and a place to try to sleep, I think that she and I are about even; she also thinks so, though she never says so, to me. She is willing and able to take care of Marie, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... fighting, they may get very reckless. When men make war, they knock down houses with their guns, and trample on growing corn. In the same manner, when two herds of elephants fight they knock down trees, and trample on shrubs and bushes—sometimes the very trees and shrubs and bushes for which they are fighting! There never is a fight ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... generation, assiduously, yet vainly, strove to clear from perplexities the mutilated books of the Sibyls. I purpose to bring,—parodying a passage of the good Sieur Chanvallon,—not freestone and marble for their restoration, but a critical hammer to knock down the loose bricks that, for more than four centuries, have shown large holes ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... ponderous Law and the solid Police hem us in on each side, as though the nation were a helpless infant, toddling between two portly nurses,—we dare not denounce a scoundrel and liar, but must needs put up with him, lest we should be involved in an action for libel; and we dare not knock down a vulgar bully, lest we should be given in charge for assault. Hence, liars, and scoundrels, and vulgar bullies abound, and men skulk and grin, and play the double-face, till they lose all manfulness. Society sits smirking ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... come folks shout and knock down things so glad they was free. Grandpa come back. Master Harris said, 'You can have land if you can get anything to work.' Grandpa took his bounty he got when he left the army and bought a pair of mules. He had to pay rent the third year ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... you know him, you're as good as gold with me. Come on along to the barn and we'll knock down a feed for ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the two standing bullies and the prostrate one were all outside the tavern door, which was locked behind them. Peace once more reigned in the hotel, and it was in order for Matt and the Grinstun man to congratulate Coristine on his knock down blow. He showed no desire for their commendation, but, with his friend, whom Timotheus helped to pick up the chessmen, retired to his room. The Crew's brother had disappeared before he had had a ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... hours. At this he burst out violently that he would not set foot in England; that he never wanted to have anything to do with England or with the English: "Why, I am a marine!" he exclaimed, "and we marines would sooner knock down any English ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... He thinks she's not so chaste as they say," continued Adrian. "Are you going to knock down ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this, 'My dear World, you and I understand each other well,—we are made for each other,—I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If I get drunk every day in my own room, that's vice, you can't touch me; if I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock down the watchman, that's a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one pound—perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold or flattery ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the other side; so no sooner were they in again than out they had to go. This he did time after time, until at last they su spected him, and decided that one of them would watch. The one who was watching saw Dinewan laugh to himself and go and knock down the bark they had just put up, chuckling at the thought of his wives having to go out in the wet and cold to put it up, while he had his supper dry and comfortably inside. The one who saw him told the other, and they decided to teach him a lesson. So in ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker
... he ought to stop. He can be looking the other way when the conductor sees a passenger coming. He can run too fast, or let the car behind beat his, and so on, annoying the conductor continually. The only way the conductor can keep friends with him is to divide every night. . . . The conductors 'knock down' on an average about thirty-five or fifty cents per day. . . . I don't think the practice can be entirely stopped. We try all we can. Some will do it, and others think they have the same right. We can't stop it, but discharge a man mighty quick if he is detected." The Third Avenue line ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... hand, starts with an idea and clothes it. Of course, Chesterton is not an essayist in the really accepted manner of an essayist. He is really more a brilliant exponent of an original point of view. In other words, he essays to knock down opinions held by other essayists, whether writers or politicians. It would be manifestly absurd to praise Chesterton as being equal to Hazlitt, or condemn him as being inferior to J.S. Mill. Comparisons are ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... course, could not make a great hitting team. In fielding, however, the coach said he had never seen the like. They were all fast, and Homans was perfect in judgment on fly balls, and Raymond was quick as lightning to knock down base hits, and as to the intercollegiate sprinter in left field, it was simply a breath-taking event to see him run after a ball. Last of all was Ken Ward with his great arm. It was a strangely assorted team, Worry said, one impossible ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... an amphibious bird, so well known to most people, that I shall only observe, they are here in prodigious numbers, so that we could knock down as many as we pleased with a stick. I cannot say they are good eating. I have indeed made several good meals of them, but it was for want of better victuals. They either do not breed here, or else this was not the season; for we saw neither ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... ought in common decency to knock down this fellow who claimed the privileges belonging to himself. But he remembered that he had abandoned those privileges. And the fellow looked ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... "I'll knock down the first man who tries to pass me," he cried. "There is plenty of time. For God's sake, control yourselves. Come quietly. Don't you know that the whole theatre can be emptied in three minutes if people will only go quietly? Now come along and don't press." The stern, hard tones were not ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... wager that not one in three of these people ever did an honest day's work in a lifetime. One half is rank idle—the other half is trying to live on the remainder. Work it out and pass me the wine—and mind you don't get setting up any images for time to knock down—eh, what?" ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... prettier sight than that of two parent birds running along, with a numerous progeny of little ones around them. Though in a sense domesticated, they are often dangerous, for they kick forward and claw downward with great violence, and the person whom they knock down and begin to trample on has little chance of escape with his life. Fortunately, it is easy to drive them off with a stick or even an umbrella; and we were warned not to cross an ostrich-farm without some ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... had dried and seasoned under the summer sun. This was stored away in one of the lean-tos. A balsam tree being found, quantities of the branches were cut to furnish beds for the three. The camp was now completed, and it being nearly noon, Dick departed into the woods to knock down a few squirrels for lunch. He was back in less than a half of an hour with three fat squirrels, and these skinned, impaled on a sharp stick, and wrapped with a slice or two of thickly cut bacon, were soon roasted over the red ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... a few of the 'meanest things that live' will gush with sensibility towards a countless multitude, fluttering into rags and gaunt with famine. He will go back to first principles; he will, with a giant's arm, knock down all the conventionalities built by the selfishness of man—(and what a labourer is selfishness! there was no such hard worker at the Pyramids or the wall of China)—between him and his fellow! Hunger will be fed—nakedness will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... thing I ever see? Well, I think de Red Shirt campaign was. You never see so much talkin', fightin', and fussin' as dat. You know de Yankees was still here and they not 'fraid, and de Hampton folks was not 'fraid, so it was a case of knock down and drag out most of de time, it seem to me. Long at de end, dere was two governors; one was in de Wallace House and one in de Capitol. Men went 'bout ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... his debts had been paid; and all was going on swimmingly, when one day he knocked down the parliamentary agent with a blow between the eyes, and then there was an end of that. He himself was wont to say that he had known very well what he was about, that it had behoved him to knock down the man who was to have been his partner, and that he regretted nothing in the matter. At any rate the deed was looked upon with approving eyes by many men of good standing,—or, at any rate, sufficient standing to help George to another position; ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... pioneer days he had been many a time rocked to sleep in a sugar trough. The lights of the town, the few that he could see, looked red and angry. He remembered a newspaper account of the way-laying and robbing of a prominent citizen. It was so easy for a tramp to knock down an unsuspecting man. Tramp and robber were interchangeable terms with him, and often, on a cold night, when he had seen the wanderer's fire, kindled close to the railway track, he had wondered why such license had been allowed in a law-abiding community. ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... kept. Mopstaff fell in love with one of his father's maids, and used to help her to clean the house. Broomstaff was a chimney-sweeper. The Mopstaffs and Broomstaffs are naturally as civil people as ever went out of doors; but alas! if they once get into ill hands, they knock down all before them. Pilgrimstaff run away from his friends, and went strolling about the country: and Pipestaff was a wine-cooper. These two were the unlawful issue ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... this morning to see if we coulden knock down that Spanish old Morro or else knock somthing cruckit around it. Well we pelted away for an hour or more and the flag ship signaled over to the Iowa to close in and pump at the Smith Key Battry. The Iowa signaled Back that her forward Turet was out of order, so ...
— The Voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Santiago in 1898 • R. Cross
... rich enough to pay handsomely, and Mike, young as he was, was too old a miner to abandon a good claim on the chance of finding a better. By this time Jim was feeling himself quite an experienced digger; he could sink a straight shaft, knock down wash-dirt with the best, and pan off a prospect as neatly and with as workmanlike a flourish as any man on the field. He was rapidly coming into close touch with the life about him, adopting the manners of his associates, and slowly wearing down that diffidence which still clung to him in the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... seem to want to go, however, and Mrs. Golden was getting a bit worried. She feared the monkey would leap about and knock down many things ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... facts. Our primitive forefather in the jungle would have died from hunger, cold, heat, blood poisoning or the attacks of wild animals, if he had not used his brain and muscles to take some stone or a piece of wood to knock down fruit from trees, to kill an animal, so as to use his hide for clothes and his meat for food, or to break wood and trees for a shelter and to make some weapons for ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... with the key in the padlock. This chain he looped about the post and the main timber of the gate, snapped the padlock, and threw the key into the distance. Then he stepped back and surveyed his work with satisfaction. It would be a pretty job to file through that chain, or to knock down those ponderous rails of the fence and make a gap. A smile of satisfaction came on the face of Buck Daniels, then, hitching at his belt, and pulling his sombrero lower over his eyes, he started once more ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... Hans was crying because the door was locked and because the window bars looked so strong, Cowslip heard him. She came up beside the window, and standing on her hind-legs she peeped in and said, "Hans, my dear master, do you think that if I tried to knock down the wall with my horns, you could get out?" "I will try," said Hans. It was rather hard work for Cowslip, but at last she made a big enough hole ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... in motion) from the main road, along a diagonal one that led to his extreme left flank, then held by Giles A. Smith's division (Seventeenth Corps), for the purpose of strengthening that flank; and that he had sent some intrenching-tools there, to erect some batteries from which he intended to knock down that foundery, and otherwise to damage the buildings inside of Atlanta. He said he could put all his pioneers to work, and do with them in the time indicated all I had proposed to do with General Dodge's two divisions. Of course I ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... dagger for her late evil deeds, if your Grace had not forbade me so to do at the burial of our gracious lord, Duke Philip II. The devil himself must laugh at our cowardice, that we cannot seize an old withered hag whom a cowboy of ten years old would knock down with his ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... make a few "ideal" alterations in this landscape. First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist and declining sun, we will substitute a bright ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... said he, "a piece of mechanism entirely new. At the first serious attempt upon your lock, an invisible plate will open of itself and vomit forth a pretty copper bullet of the weight of a mark—which will knock down the intruder, and not without a loud report. What do you ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I, "ye take every thing very canny; you're a philosopher, to be sure; but, I daresay, if the moon was to fall from the lift, and knock down the old kirk, ye would say no more than it's gey ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... see, whether I should have had the fifty pounds but for you. You persuaded me to give up that silly drink they call sherry, and drink ale; and what was it but drinking ale which gave me courage to knock down that fellow Hunter—and knocking him down was, I verily believe, the turning point of my disorder. God don't love them who won't strike out for themselves; and as far as I can calculate with respect to time, it was just the moment after I had knocked down Hunter, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... that violent and spirited game. They had not played five minutes till Wringhim was stalking in the midst of them, and totally impeding the play. A cry arose from all corners of: "Oh, this will never do. Kick him out of the play-ground! Knock down the scoundrel; or bind him, and let ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... let's go into the woods and knock down the dry branches of trees. It's fine sport to walk about in the forest and knock off the branches with a stick. And when you shout "Ho-ho-ho!" the echo from the ravine answers back "Ho-ho-ho!" Do you ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... discovered from the footsteps of these animals whither they are accustomed to betake themselves, they either undermine all the trees at the roots, or cut into them so far that the upper part of the trees may appear to be left standing. When they have leant upon them, according to their habit, they knock down by their weight the unsupported trees, and fall ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... DING. To knock down. To ding it in one's ears; to reproach or tell one something one is not desirous of hearing. Also to throw away or hide: thus a highwayman who throws away or hides any thing with which he robbed, to prevent being known or detected, is, in the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... possible answer to this save a knock-down blow, but though Tommy was vanquished in body, his spirit remained stanch; he raised his head and gasped, "You should see how they knock down in Thrums!" It was then that Shovel sat ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... employed him and to human nature. He called me a heretic. We were now in the street and a mob was collected, whereupon I cried 'Viva Inglaterra, y viva La Constitucion.' The populace seemed disposed to side with me, notwithstanding the exhortations of the monster to them that they would knock down the foreigner, for he himself quailed before me as I looked him in the eyes defying him. He at last ran to a neighbouring guard-house, and requested the assistance of the Nationals in conducting me to prison. I followed him and delivered myself up at the first summons, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... to his promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. I lodged the first week at the house of one who desired me to think myself at home, and to consider his house as my own. Accordingly I the next morning began to knock down one of the walls of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and had packed up some of the household goods, of which I intended to have made thee a present; but the false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work but he sent me ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said; "now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever." He was really very sorry for what he ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... the ordinary Tones of an English Voice when we are angry; insomuch that I have often seen our Audiences extreamly mistaken as to what has been doing upon the Stage, and expecting to see the Hero knock down his Messenger, when he has been [asking [2]] him a Question, or fancying that he quarrels with his Friend, when he only bids ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... is said that conductors and omnibus drivers at home 'knock down' a good deal, which is the technical name for taking a portion of the fares. They use 'spotters' in our country to keep ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... and stores would be followed by instant bombardment. Everything yielded to the threat, made by a man whose determined character left no doubt that it would be carried into execution. "Nothing shall be left undone that ought to be done," he wrote to Jervis, "even should it be necessary to knock down Bastia." From time to time interference was attempted, but the demand for immediate desistence, made, watch in hand, by the naval officer on the spot, enforced submission. "The firm tone held by Commodore Nelson," wrote Jervis to the Admiralty, "soon reduced these ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... was a giant of a man—may no evil eye harm him! He had two hands each finger of which might knock down three such Leibels as I. His hands were always sticky, and his nails red from glue. And when he drew one of these nails across a piece of wood, there was a mark that might have been made with a ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... knock down the birds, and you bag 'em. I'll give you more sport in the same way, before I've ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I spoze inherited from the days when our ancestor, the Cave man, would knock down the woman he fancied, with a club, and carry her off into his cave and keep her there shet up. But little by little men are forgettin' their ancestral traits, and men and wimmen are gradually comin' out of their dark caverns into the sunshine (for women too have inherited queer traits ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... now urging me to knock down was one of pace, and I am afraid that in all my stage life subsequently I never quite succeeded in kicking it or walking ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the cause of Jim Irwin's sudden irruption into the educational field by her scoffing "Humph!" at the idea of a farm-hand's ever being able to marry, she also gave him the opportunity to knock down the driver of the big motor-car, and perceptibly elevate himself in the opinion of the neighborhood, while filling his own heart with something ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... be like a great fist ready to smash and to strike. It should be ready to knock down what stands in its way," he cried, astonishing the crowd in the street and frightening into something like hysterics the two women who sat with him beside the dead woman in the ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... equipage in which the prime minister proceeded to Perpignan; the size of the litter often made it necessary to enlarge the roads, and knock down the walls of some of the towns and villages on the way, into which it could not otherwise enter, "so that," say the authors and manuscripts of the time, full of a sincere admiration for all this luxury—"so that he seemed a conqueror entering by the breach." We have sought in vain with ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... that. They must take the trouble to provide instruments of death from without; they must lay siege and starve me; they must attack in soldierly fashion; I will not save them the exertion by developing the means of destruction from within. There I stand at bay. They shall knock down the citadel of my mind and will, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... breakfast was still a little behindhand, but she would not let me help. Anyhow, I felt in spite of my talk that I wanted to do some other sort of service for her: I wanted to show off, to prove myself a protector, to fight for her, to knock down or drive off her foes and mine; and as I saw the light smoke curling up through the tree-tops I asked myself where those men were who had made their way past us in such a dark and secret sort of way and with so much ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... he kept repeating to himself, and as he did so, his resentful indignation grew toward the man who had so cruelly deceived her, until at last he abruptly left the room, lest his hot temper should get the mastery, and he knock down his dastardly brother-in-law, as he greatly wished ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... suit at Corinthian House, by Corinthian Tom's tailor. Then away for the career of pleasure and fashion. The park! delicious excitement! The theatre! the saloon!! the green-room!!! Rapturous bliss — the opera itself! and then perhaps to Temple Bar, to knock down a Charley there! There are Jerry and Tom, with their tights and little cocked hats, coming from the opera — very much as gentlemen in waiting on royalty are habited now. There they are at Almack's itself, amidst a crowd of high-bred personages, with the Duke of Clarence ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... batteries were neither heavy nor near, nor could they be advanced as is usual in regular sieges, nor had they any advantage over the defence except in the number of gunners, while in regard to position and calibre they were inferior. To knock down a wall nearly forty feet high and fourteen feet thick at a distance of more than half a mile seemed a tough undertaking, even when unresisted. It was discovered also that the side of the fortification towards Fort Johnstone, its only weak point, had been strengthened so as to make it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... sun. Regular May weather. Clouds of coal-dust from track. Pretty girl not there at all. Start confidently. Endeavour to knock down a wall. Wall does not suffer much. Start again. Faster this time. The pretty girl has just come. Will show what I can do now. Career over large hole. Bicycle sinks, and then takes a mighty leap. Unprepared for this. Am cast into the air. Picked up. Can't stand. Something broken. Doctor will ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... ducked, and caught the axe on his poker. The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the plum-tree totem was performed by four actors, who simply pretended to knock down and eat imaginary plums from an imaginary plum-tree.[151] An interesting point in this very simple drama is that in it the men of the plum-tree totem are represented eating freely of their totem, which is ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... to the mart in time to hear his master knock down Lot thirteen, a very sweet-looking girl, to Saturius himself, who proposed, though with a doubtful heart, to take her to Domitian ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... built two batteries on An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view; The first was to bombard it, and knock down The public buildings and the private too, No matter what poor souls might be undone. The city's shape suggested this, 't is true; Form'd like an amphitheatre, each dwelling Presented a fine mark to ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... to put a finger on me,' and he grasped a chair ready to knock down the officer who advanced to obey the order. 'I am within my lawful rights. Dod, wee Henderson would ask nothing better than to prosecute you before the lords of session were you to keep me in jail even for an hour. Release this innocent man ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... though much against my will. I was obliged to knock down a reverend shaveling and strip him. But the gown hath served fairly ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... attempting to run away, or is rising upon an officer, the officers are held at liberty to shoot, knock down, or use whatever means may be needed in self-defense or in preventing their escape. Otherwise prison rule does not allow an officer to strike a man, but he must be punished by the solitary or ball and chain at the discretion of the warden, who found it needful to use no little precaution ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby |
