"Back up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pummelled by Thurston, and all the way back up that prodigious stairway I was roundly kicked, punched, and cuffed by the horde of trusties and guards who got in one another's way in their zeal to assist him. Heavens, if his nose did bleed, the probability is that some of his own kind were guilty of causing it in the ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was not possible to get back up the pear-tree, with a load of vegetables. He led the way boldly towards the other end of the garden. They went along a little walk on planks, under a ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... this time—I arrived here safe and all O. K. and I am well and hope you are the same. Mrs. M—— told me that she reecived the money you sent to her and everybody sends love to you. I found my baby very sick when I come home but he is better now and I am going to try to come back up there in short time. How are times there now since my leaving there. I stopped in Cincinnati Ohio for 4 days then I left for G. but I will be with you some days I hope. Ask J—— W—— did he get my letter I wrote ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... left the preacher while he went down to his father's place for his day's work. He was as nervous as a mother with her first baby all day and he galloped the Moose back up the trail long before sunset. When Mr. Fowler waved at him from the door of the cabin, he gave a gusty ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... easily the fugitives, under cover of darkness, could have escaped. The stable guard could have seen nothing from his station, and just below was the hard-packed road leading to the river and the straggling town. There was nothing to trace, and Hamlin climbed back up the bluff completely baffled but desperately resolved to unlock the mystery. The harder the solution appeared, the more determined he became to solve it. As he came out, opposite the barrack entrance, a carriage drove in past the guard-house, ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... you, sir! It's the very way them tame ones—the common 'yporcrits of the world—get on. When it comes to plunder drifting under one's very nose, there's not one of them that would keep his hands off. And I don't blame them. It's the way they do it that sets my back up. Just look at the story of how he got rid of that pal of his! Send a man home to croak of a cold on the chest—that's one of your tame tricks. And d'you mean to say, sir, that a man that's up to it wouldn't bag whatever he could lay his hands in ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... warn you I have been near breaking point. And if I tumble off the high horse, if I can't keep going regularly there to ride the moral high horse, that Committee will slump into utter scoundrelism. It will turn out a long, inconsistent, botched, unreadable report that will back up all sorts of humbugging bargains and sham settlements. It will contain some half-baked scheme to pacify the miners at the expense of the general welfare. It won't even succeed in doing that. But in the general confusion old ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... do, sir?" retorted Eph. "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to slip moorings and chase after that knockabout. What I wish to know from you, sir, is whether you'll send another marine or two on board, so that I can back up my demand to find ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... then a sudden, dead silence ensued. Then the din began again, to terminate at the instant as before. If they had been long practicing together, they could not have succeeded better. I never before heard the cry of birds so accurately timed. After a while I got up and put them back up the chimney, and stopped up the throat of the flue with newspapers. The next day one of the parent birds, in bringing food to them, came down the chimney with such force that it passed through ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... nowadays the major's walks always led him to the Lake View Inn. Mrs. Price and Maggie did their best to hide the major's missteps, but the children on the streets, seeing the local magnate making heavy work of his journey back up the hill, would giggle and follow on behind, an amused audience. This was another victim of the change ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... very limited order, chiefly exhibiting itself in little jerky questions about the spiritual and temporal welfare of his humble parishioners—questions which, in the vernacular language of agricultural labourers, "put a chap's back up, somehow." ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... they watched it roar up into the sky, and then they crawled back up the face of the cliff, wind-whipped and rosy-faced, and with the taste ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... "Hey, back up," Murphy interrupted. "Let me get ya straight. Are you birds plannin' to show 'Slim' and the ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... got her back up this morning and said she was going alone to Kent's Corners, but of course she didn't. She's started that stunt half a dozen times and always backed ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... Torpenhow, who had made one or two vain attempts at conversation, 'I haven't put your back up by anything I've ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... there?" came the sharp challenge of the sentry, as they drew near the American trench, and they knew that a score of rifles was trained upon them to back up the sentry's demand if the answer were ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... It's a pleasurable sensation to back up right by might. Four years ago I vowed that some day I'd meet him on equal terms. There's a raft of things on the slate, for he has been unspeakable kinds of a rascal; beating harmless coolies . . . and women. I may not see you again. If the letter of credit turns up, ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... Ann replied. "And when we jumped into bed, we remembered that we had left Raggedy Andy's arm lying up on the attic floor, so we had to run back up there and ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... He stalked back up the stairs and headed for the visiphone. First, he dialed his patent attorney's office; he needed some advice. If Power Utilities had their hands on two out of three of his Converters, there might be some trouble over getting ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pitch 'em," also declared Mikey, with evident desire to back up his patroness. "But not as good as her," and his admiration amounted to adoration, as he raised his young eyes ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the boy, as he eat a few blue berries out of a case. "That's what makes me up so early, Pa has been kicking at these pieces of brick with his bare feet, and when I came away he had his toes in his hand and was trying to go back up stairs on one foot. Pa ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... more fuel they had than they needed to get home. When they were moving away from station, she dropped in alarmed little jumps, but when they were headed home, she inched along in serene contentment, or if they were coasting, sneaked triumphantly back up the dial. ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... and here they were met by Martin's men on the Hermitage line of advance. I cannot find this elegant combined movement in the ballad; all this seems to me hypothesis upon hypothesis, even granting that Martin sent Simmy back up Hermitage that he might thence cut sooner across the enemy's path. Colonel Elliot himself writes: "It is certain that after the news of the raid reached Catlockhill" (AND Gorranberry, Telfer passed it), "it must have spread rapidly through ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... to his five chiefest knights and they together followed Ulf's broad back up the slope until they were come within the little wood; and ever as they advanced the strange hum grew louder, hoarser—a distant roar, pierced, ever and anon, by sharper sound, a confused din that was the voice of desperate conflict. ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... But you can't copy her. She is ten times more gorgeous than any man can dare represent her. Ergo, every picture is a failure; and the nearest hedge-bush is worth all your galleries together"—a syllogism of sharp edge, which he would back up by Byron's— ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... blows of Mr. Swain's hatchet broke it up into nice billets and splinters. Part of these went into Matilda's basket, one end of them at least; the rest she took with great difficulty in her apron; and so went back up ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... be all right in its place, Judson,' he says to me, 'although I've never thought it worth cultivating. But,' says he, 'to expect mere words to back up successfully a face like yours in a lady's good graces is like expecting a man to make a square meal on ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... free from personal conceit than Goodenough, and as I came to know more of him later on that characteristic stood out increasingly. He was not so much a man of ideas as one who could recognize them. That done, he made use of his authority to back up his subordinates, claiming no credit for himself but always seeing to it that they ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... going back up the hill for all he was worth and then I sat down beside the road to wait for him. I got to thinking about the house-boat and the fun we'd have cruising up the Hudson and how Skinny would get fat and eat a lot, and especially how he'd stare ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... articles with a word of regret for having so carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back up the canyon, in the direction from which ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... I glanced back up the hill I glimpsed a man flying bareheaded from a doorway and pursuing the car with ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... which rises on the Mount of Mars, from which it derives its name, when found clear and strong appears to back up and reinforce the Line of Life (4-4, Plate X.). It indicates great vitality, power of resistance to illness and disease, and is not ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... pears," I thought; and I was about to run and shout at them, for I knew that would startle them away; but on second thoughts I felt as if I should like to catch some of them, and turning, I ran softly back up the path, ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... manger," Monty answered. "He told me of this man Schillingschen. Said he had sent in a report about him to the Home Government, but couldn't for the life of him get documentary evidence with which to back up his charges." ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Back up the hill we went, much faster than we had come down; for we were running for our own lives now, and bears like running uphill best. On and on we went, as fast as we could go. We had no idea at how long a distance man could hit us with the thunder-sticks, but we preferred to be on the safe ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... lugged it back up to the main saloon, replaced it in its safe and again set the combination lock. Thence to the lifeboat, where Clio cried out in relief as she saw that ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... dismay, however, the spider, quite equal to the occasion, turned and bit him so sharply that he drew back with a cry, and before he could recover himself, the Tarantula had scrambled back up its rope, bearing the pin with it, and was again safe in its hiding place in ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... times, and I realized as never before that great movements, like great bodies, must move slowly. However, two or three wealthy and enthusiastic co-workers came to my financial rescue right nobly. I could usually find some one fool enough to "back up" any scheme I ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the way back up the mountainside, Jim, his arm supporting the little fellow at his side, following as rapidly as the ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... branches, and we were now and then pestered by the flying creatures themselves. Then we had a good laugh. Our pack-horse, Shoshone, got between two trees. His head could pass but his pack couldn't, and there he stood struggling to pull through. He couldn't do it, but stupidly he would not back up. Talk about horse-sense! A burro would have backed up in a minute, but most horses would struggle in such a ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... a sudden suspicion flashed into his eyes, which caused Buck promptly to relinquish all hope of getting any further information from the boy. Evidently he had said the wrong thing and got the fellow's back up, though he could not imagine how. And so, when Jessup curtly proposed that they return to the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... tell me how I could go back up to my apartment, get my coat and hat, get my car out of the garage, and race to the top of that hill so that I could turn around and come at you around that curve? Just tell me ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... you like, but you can't do it, my boy. I knew you before she did, and I'll keep you, or else I'll make such a row that you will be sorry that you ever put my back up. It's all very fine to sit there and preach, but it won't do, Frankie. You can't slip out of things as easily ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... over the little scare, and went back up the hill again to gather more flowers. Snap went with them this time, running ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... and to speak with her, nor was she aware of any reason why she should not. So she stood in the snow at the Greek girl's door, with the frost at sixty below, and parleyed with the waiting-maid for a full five minutes. She had also the pleasure of being turned away from that door, and of going back up the hill, wroth at heart for the indignity which had been put upon her. "Who was this woman that she should refuse to see her?" she asked herself. One would think it the other way around, and she herself but a dancing girl denied at the door of the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... together in a sample room in the last town. We were pretty much crowded but were going to 'divvy' on the space. The boys, you know, are mighty good about this sort of thing; but when I went down the street I learned that my man was out of town—I sold only one man in that place. So I went right back up to the sample room and rolled my trunks out of his way so that my friend could have the whole thing to himself. There's no use being a hog, you know. This didn't hurt me any, and it was as much on account of this as anything else that I was ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... in the white collar took the cigar from his mouth and began to swear violently. The boy stood on the embankment and saw his mother running toward the runway of the mine. A miner gripped her by the arm and led her back up the face of the embankment. In the crowd a woman's voice shouted, "It's Cracked McGregor gone to close the door to ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... with him I feel as bold as a lion. I ain't afeared o' anything. I'd foller him anywheres, and face as many as he'd lead me agen. 'Tain't braggin', for I've done it; but I'm blessed now if I don't feel a reg'lar mouse—a poor, shiverin' wet mouse with his back up, and ready to die o' fright through being caught in a trap, just as the poor little beggars do, and turns it up without being hurt a bit. I can't help it; I'm a beastly coward; and I says it out ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... to go down to Mr Hoskins, and request him, with my compliments, to take the boats back up the river until they are abreast the spot where the wreck lies, and there beach them; after which, leaving a boat-keeper to watch each boat, he will take the men over to the other side of the spit to assist in salving ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... (she had seen one she liked and with a flash of inspiration had seen how she could make one just like it out of her old straw and some feathers long at the bottom of her trunk) had sent her bounding back up her five flights of stairs with a song ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... as to try them and to see whether they could actually work well or not. He at once believed what I said. But as he produced the case and gave it to this one and that one to look at, he somehow or other, I don't know how, managed again to put some one's back up, and she cut it into two. On his return, however, he bade me hurry the men to make another; and when at length I explained to him that it had been worked by you, he felt, I can't ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... as if 'mild, ethereal spring' had got her back up," Burt remarked, "and regarding the return of winter as a trespass, had taken him by the throat, determined to have it out once for all. Something will give way before ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... further addled the brains of this group of French citizens; hatred gleamed out of every eye. Outrage was imminent. The young girl seemed to know it, but she remained defiant and self-possessed, gradually stepping back and back up the steps, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to leave us in the lurch this way!" Habert was denouncing the powers that be of his country. "Mayo'd never have done it. Mark my words, he had to take program from Washington. And here we are, and our dear ones scattered for fifty miles back up country.... Say, if I lose Billy Boy I'll never dare go home to face the wife.—Come on. Let the three of us make a start. We can throw the fear of God into ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... exposed myself to all sorts of petty slights. I was missed over in serving at table; I was met with supercilious coldness, and at last was not noticed at all; I was not even allowed to take part in general conversation, and from my corner I myself used purposely to back up some stupid talker who in those days at Moscow would have ecstatically licked the dust off my feet, and kissed the hem of my cloak.... I did not even allow myself to believe that I was enjoying the bitter satisfaction of irony.... What sort of irony, indeed, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... yard is full of Mandans, Arickarees, and Osages. They love not the Sacs, and Black Hawk is a turbulent fellow if any misunderstanding should arise. You see," he said to Captain Clarke, lapsing again into French, "these fellows have usually started back up the Missouri long before this time, but they have all waited this year to see the brother of the great Captain of the Long Knives. They planned their exit from Auguste's yard at the exact moment to get ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... got to the end of their slide, they got off and started back up the hill. It being pretty steep, Stone boy waited for them, so as to lend a hand to pull the big coaster up the hill. As the two little fellows came up with him he knew at once that they were twins, as they looked so much alike that the only way one could be distinguished from the ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... of provisions offered a refreshing intervention of the commonplace. Bright air had sharpened his appetite: he said he had been sure it would, and anticipated cheating the doctor of a part of the sentence which condemned him to lie on his back up to the middle of June, a log. Jane was hungry too, and they feasted together gaily, talking of Kathleen on her journey, her strange impressions and her way of proclaiming them, and of Patrick and where he might be now; ultimately of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Rose Mary. Come on up to the house with me and see it and set with Sister Viney a spell, can't you? She's got mighty sore joints this morning, though Rose Mary rubbed her most a hour last night" And in response to the eager invitation they all three went back up the front walk together. The thrifty Mrs. Rucker cast a satisfied glance back towards her own side yard, where upturned tub and drying wash were in plain view. Mrs. Poteet had put off the task of ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... suddenly and went back up the moor by the way she had come. She didn't want to see Dr. Kendal. She was afraid he would say something ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... She went back up the street, walking fast now to get away from them all. Once or twice she pretended not to see a familiar face. But when she passed the mirror in an insurance office window, she saw her reflection and at its appearance ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... that she said the child stopped pulling that cat's tail and went to stroking her just as soft and pitiful, and the cat put his back up and rubbed and purred as if he liked it. The cat never seemed a mite afraid, and that seemed queer, for I had always heard that animals were dreadfully afraid of ghosts; but then, that was a pretty ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... ordered, "go back up to that there path and see what them folks wants. If they're strangers let 'em go on. If they're the fellers I think they is, toll 'em along and lose 'em. You'll know where to find me at the factory if I lose ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... superior. Without capital there's no prospects; one draper in a hundred don't even earn enough to marry on; and if he DOES marry, his G.V. can just use him to black boots if he likes, and he daren't put his back up. That's drapery! And you tell me to be contented. Would YOU be contented if you was ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... still exposed to yearly peril by overflow. The violent autumnal storms, driving the waters of the gulf into the channel of the stream, back up terrible floods. The spring-time rise in the lakes which feed the Neva threatens similar disaster. In 1721 Peter himself narrowly escaped drowning in the Nevski Prospect, now ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... way back up the beach. The other blacks caught hold of the man-horse and pulled and tugged. There were among them those whose fondest desire was to drag the rider in the sand and spring upon him and mash him into repulsive nothingness. ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... away, and easily enough. That woman Polsue put everybody's back up. His words had been just a piece of bluff to ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... not, for I could not jump far enough to get out of the lion's reach. I raised my legs and began to slide myself back up the branch. The lion leaped, missing me, but scattering the dead twigs. Then the beast, beside himself with fury, half leaped, half stood up, and reached for me. I looked down into his blazing eyes, and open mouth and ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... cautioned Carl in an undertone. "Don't go rowing at Ma now. If you do she may get her back up and not take you to the party at all. I hate to be scrubbed within an inch of my life as much as you do, but I'm not saying so to-day. I'd be boiled in oil sooner than not go to this party. Besides, your neck is black. I'll bet it will take sapolio ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... vicinity, placed the house on wheels, and, while the opposing faction were soundly sleeping in their beds, hauled the holy edifice to the spot where it now stands, and where it has since remained. As it was utterly impossible to move the house back up the hill again, the surprised hill residents could only vent their rage in unchurchly language. Although the old building is still standing, the present society worship in a more ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... there was an infinity of detail which would require six months of preparations to carry out. Then, again, the word forgery began to look black in our vocabulary. We knew John Bull was an obstinate fellow when he once got his back up, and we began to think it wise to keep ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Bascomb now," said Frank, calmly. "I have expressed my opinion of him in public, and I shall be forced to back up my words if ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the States will at last set the patient British back up. And if our people begin to bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating war-party on both sides, there will be great ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... inflict unnecessary torture?' said Ursula. 'Why make her stand all that time at the crossing? You might just as well have ridden back up the road, and saved all that horror. Her sides were bleeding where you had spurred her. It ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... saw the small black whirlwind hurling itself at her, she was either too brave or too frightened to retreat, so she put her white back up as high as possible and stood her ground. She expressed her opinion of the performance in a series of sputtering yowls that drew Dolly's attention from her book to the ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... he throws soap and rag into the river; then, turning, strides back up the bank. At its summit he stops to readjust his plumed head-dress, as he ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... he's wiped it out! What a record he has written on the new leaf he promised to turn over if I gave him the chance! Do you know," the Governor interrupted himself with a pleasantly reminiscent laugh, "I was rather annoyed with Grace when she hinted that you had promised to back up Ashford—I told her you didn't aspire to distribute patronage. But she might have reminded me—if she'd known—that it was you who persuaded me to give Fleetwood ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... shirts and collars, in another a stack of papers and books. An English stenographer sat at the window, J. K. strode up and down and talked. It was real enough, this narrative. Facts and figures, he had them down cold, to back up with a crushing force the points he was making against the Czar. Poverty, tyranny, bloody oppression, wholesale slaughter of a people in a half-mad monarch's war—Joe pounded them in with sledgehammer blows. He not only made you sure they were true, he made you sure ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... stream turned abruptly round the foot of the hill close to them, and I wondered what would happen when Bruin appeared suddenly round the bend. Evidently Bruin had the best eyes—or nose—for, on coming to the bend, he turned suddenly and started back up-stream; but again changing his mind he made up over the hill where we had first seen him. I was still panting and trembling with the exertion of my climb, but I took out my revolver and sent a few shots after him. It is hardly needful to say they did not hurt the bear. When Job and ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... straight that if he didn't back up plum five hundred feet I'd sure punch his frozen nose into ice-cream an' chocolate eclaires. He backed up, an' I've got in the center-stakes of two full an' honest five-hundred-foot creek claims. He staked next, and ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... you did last night—interferin' between me and my help. You wouldn't let me give Will Watson the threshin' he deserved, an' I won't let you pass through my creek. I want you to back up your boat, too, and go back where you come from. I own that part of the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... majority to either House of the Congress would, moreover, certainly be interpreted on the other side of the water as a repudiation of my leadership. Spokesmen of the Republican party are urging you to elect a Republican Congress in order to back up and support the President, but even if they should in this way impose upon some credulous voters on this side of the water, they would impose on no one on the other side. It is well understood there as well as here that the Republican leaders desire not so much to support the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... next few months he had a big job on his hands if he kept up the record of his family, and the fact that Miki was apparently abandoning the fat and juicy carcass of the young bull filled him with alarm and rebellion. Straightway he forgot all thought of play and started back up the slope on a mission that was 100 ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... a nation, as for an individual, to use high-sounding language to proclaim its purposes, or to take positions which are ridiculous if unsupported by potential force, and then to refuse to provide this force. If there is no intention of providing and of keeping the force necessary to back up a strong attitude, then it is far better not to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... cart used to haul up the currency from the Printing Bureau to the door of the Treasury Department. Every morning, as regularly as the morning came, that old mule would back up and dump a cart-load of the sinews of war at the Treasury. [Laughter.] A patriotic son of Columbia, who lived opposite, was sitting on the doorstep of his house one morning, looking mournfully in the direction ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps, slamming the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... fly just as often as they could recover our ships and send us back up here for another launch. And that would go on until the economy on both sides broke down so far they couldn't make any more missiles for us to chase, or boosters to send us up after them. No thanks. I don't want to fly ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... shoulder, "I'm very glad to hear you say that. As a matter of fact, whatever happens, I don't care how soon you marry my dear girl. She wants it with all her heart, and I have always been fond of you myself. The only thing that has held me back up to now is the question of money, and, possibly, a little selfishness. I'm not a rich man, as you know, and if it were not for my pension I couldn't even live in my father's house. But now my one desire is to see my poor little ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... started back up the stream bed, towards the narrow little valley where he had wakened after that fall. Finally, finding shelter within the heart of a bush, he crouched low, listening to the noises of another world which ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... observed her brother, shaking his head, 'you know I stand by you whenever I can, and on most occasions. But I must say, that, upon my soul, I do consider it rather an unaccountable mode of showing your sisterly affection, that you should back up a man who treated me in the most ungentlemanly way in which one man can treat another. And who,' he added convincingly, must be a low-minded thief, you know, or he never could have conducted himself ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... actually did, much to Frank's secret amusement, camping out there on the floor as close to the locked door as he could get, and bracing his back up against the same. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... shall never see him again," sighed Dave. "It's too bad, too, for I'm not satisfied with the one blow that I had the pleasure of giving him. I'd like to meet the fellow in a place where I could express and fully back up my opinion ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... the Rue Chartres, passed several corners, and by and by turned into a cross street. The parson stopped an instant as they were turning and looked back up the street. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... accompanied him to Pisa. They then settled at Florence; and this summer I have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her once more in London with a lovely boy at her knee, almost as well as ever, and telling tales of Italian rambles, of losing herself in chestnut forests, and scrambling on mule-back up the sources of extinct volcanoes. May Heaven continue to her such health ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... planned in his head from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... want to stay here and look a little longer for Simon Moultrie's claim then I guess the others will have to stay too. There's going to be no journeying across the desert or back up the gulch and the canyon by any party of one or two. We've had enough ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... erected ears, eyes intently directed forwards, hair on the neck and back bristling, gait remarkably stiff, with the tail upright and rigid. So familiar is this appearance to us, that an angry man is sometimes said "to have his back up." Of the above points, the stiff gait and upright tail alone require further discussion. Sir C. Bell remarks[1] that, when a tiger or wolf is struck by its keeper and is suddenly roused to ferocity, every muscle is in tension, and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... then threw a long high pass. The crowd came up roaring. Twenty yards from the goal line a smaller, sturdier player swerved quickly around the end and took the pass in his stride. With a beautiful curving run he tricked the fullback, crossed the line and then, showing no sign of effort, trotted back up the field and threw the ball to ...
— Mother America • Sam McClatchie
... Martian descended, cut out some large, juicy chunks as his fancy dictated, and brought his loot back up the tree. The meat was delicious and apparently wholesome. They gorged themselves and threw away what they could not eat, for food spoils very quickly in the Inranian jungles and uneaten meat would only serve to attract ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... match was to be broken off without any notice to him; and when he requested, at any rate, to hear this decision from the mouth of the only person competent to make it, he was told that it was indelicate for him to wish to do so. This put his back up. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... back up the stairs to take refuge in my own room. If there had been time to think, my thoughts, when I was alone again, would have caused me bitter suffering. But there was no time to think. Happily for the preservation of my calmness ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... her back up some more," commented the second mate, starting for the storeroom. "I don't blame her much. This is no place for an old lady, out here to-night." He ordered Mayo to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... long. It was heavy. I put my leaves in a basket bout so high [three or four feet high]. I couldn't tote it—I drug it. I had to get leaves in to do a long time and wait till the snow got off before I could get more. It seem like it snowed a lot. The pigs rooted the leaves all about in day and back up in the corners at night. It was ditched all around. It didn't get very muddy. Rattle snakes was bad in the mountains. I used to tote water—one bucketful on my head and one bucketful in each hand. We used wooden buckets. It was lot of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... you you must give me a chance. You cannot take a child from a mother in this way. I tell you, if you will only help me I can crawl back up the road that I've traveled. I was not always like this. There was another life, before—before—Oh, since then there have been years of blackness, and hunger, and cold and—worse! But I never dragged the boy ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... good, it goes off as quick as the white beads off of champaign does, and then leaves a stupid head-ache behind it. But give me the subject and a horn of lignum vitae (of the wickedest kind), and then let a feller rile me, so as to get my back up like a fightin' cat's, and I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd sarve him as our Slickville boys sarve the cows to California. One on 'em lays hold of the tail, and the other skins her as she runs strait an eend. Next year, it's all growed ready for another ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of his withdrawal, a Rogan turned toward the lever to push it back up into contact and release the red kingdom from the burden of Jupiter's unendurable gravity. And now ensued a curious struggle. The lever, placed for the convenience of creatures twelve feet or more tall, was about five feet from the floor. And ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... ship's side laden with good things from the sailors, the latest newspapers from home, smokable tobacco, and good canteen stores. They were fine men, the sailors whom Mac came across at Gallipoli, generous, hospitable fellows when they had the chance, and ready always to back up their comrades ashore, and to share with them the dangers, discomfort and disease of life ashore whenever they ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... is to find the rest of our crowd and get off this island. The Kennebunk will be coming back up the coast and we'll miss ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... pause. No one had seen the missing members of the party since they had left the head of the drift, although they had supposed them to be following close behind their companions. Turning, they looked back up the cross-cut, but there was no Mrs. Pennypoker in sight. It seemed impossible that they could have lost their way, in a long, straight corridor, less than ten feet wide; some accident must have befallen them. Worst of all, there was no time for ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... from all on the cliff above and those already scrambling back up the zigzag. Stephen kept encouraging the men to bring fuel to ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the way, I have just used the forbidden word "nature," which, after reading your essay, I almost determined never to use again. There are very few remarks in your book to which I demur, but when you back up Asa Gray in saying that all instincts are congenital habits, I ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... the sandy beach, in which its eight-foot-wide steel treads sank almost a yard. Men dropped down from ports in its swelling sides. They made swift, careful inspections of predetermined points. They darted back up the ladders again. The thing roared once more. Then it swung about, headed for the sand-dunes, and with an extraordinary smoothness and celerity ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... who conveys the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of an autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a car. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she might have been a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him they did it in whispers ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... You ain't goin' to want much after the first edge is worn off. Tea's the boy." The Indian shoots a few rapid words across the discussion. "He says you'll want some iron shoes to fit on canoe poles for when you come back up-stream," interprets your friend. "I guess that's right. I ain't got none, but th' blacksmith'll fit you out all right. You'll find him just below—never mind, don't you bother, I'll see to ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... arrest him afterwards, they had to do it at night in a garden. He could have argued with them as he had often done in the temple, and justified himself both to the Jewish law and to Caesar. And he had physical force at his command to back up his arguments: all that was needed was a speech to rally his followers; and he was not gagged. The reply of the evangelists would have been that all these inquiries are idle, because if Jesus had wished to escape, he could have saved himself all that trouble by doing what John describes ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... away from him with the eyes of a terrified animal. "Oh no, Dr. Masterman! Please! I don't want to take that long walk. I'll go back up the path—the way I came. I ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... far-off detonation, followed swiftly by louder and fainter echoes, broke suddenly upon the rushing noises of the river. We commenced feverishly to scramble back up the cliff. Half-way to the top we heard another shot, a second later a third, and after a longer interval, as if to put a quietus upon some final show of ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... downright cowardice, denying him a single noble quality of all those that have from earliest times been ascribed to him! Others, on the contrary, assert that he knows no fear, either of man or beast; and these endow him with many virtues besides courage. Both parties back up their views, not by mere assertions, but by an ample narration of ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... state of faint-heartedness. The Hammal was deputed to obtain permission for fetching the Gerad and all the Gerad's men. This was positively refused. I could not, however, object to sending sundry Tobes to the cunning idiot, in order to back up a verbal request for the escort. Thereupon Yusuf Dera, Madar Farih, and the other worthies took leave, promising to despatch the troop before noon: I saw them depart with pleasure, feeling that we had bade adieu to the Girhis. The greatest danger ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... way," said Elmer, "you had better invite Crashaw to be present. He will put Purvis's back up, and that'll enlist the difficult ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... old man was speaking, Rolf was examining his hand. He held it out with the back up; there, sure enough, was visible, through the brown, hairy skin, a deep mark, evidently ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... like one. He says that about two o'clock in the morning of Saturday, two weeks ago, an engine and a single car backed down from the west to the Gloria bridge, and a crowd of men swarmed off the train, loaded those bridge-timbers, and ran away with them, going back up the line to the west. He tells it all very circumstantially, though he neglected to explain how he happened to be awake and on guard at ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... a little below where the highest waves came, and began to dig a hole in the sand. He called me to come and help him. The waves impeded our work a little, but we persevered until we had dug a hole about a foot deep. We put our clock-weights into this hole and covered them over. We then ran back up upon the beach. The waves that came up every moment over the place soon smoothed the surface of the sand again, and made it look as if nothing had been done there. My father measured the distance from the place where he had deposited his treasure up to a certain great ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... of it—even the long walks back up the hill. Once the double-runner struck into a riderless sled that had drifted on to the course, and was overturned immediately. Nobody was hurt. Rosie, Dicky and Arthur were cast safely to one side in the soft snow. ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... credible when considered collectively. I promise you, captain, that I shall tell you the whole story one of these days. Meanwhile, I think that the sooner we are at Aden the better it will be for Mr. Fenshawe and the ladies, and I offer you the respectful advice that you should back up Miss Fenshawe if she tries to persuade her grandfather to ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... these, and the multitude of tents, gleamed dully like a great encampment. Voices sounded constantly, echoing across the water; hammering never ceased; music floated—strains of violin and trumpet and piano! From the water-front clear back up the sides of the hills San Francisco was alive by night as by day. And on the hour all the vessels in the harbor struck their bells, in a great, ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... seemed to be heaving up and down. I blinked my eyes and looked again. It was not an illusion. With a regular dip and rise we were approaching to within a few feet of the rocky floor and moving back up again. Also we were floating faster than at anytime previous. The bottom was bare again; we had left ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... I led Margaret back up the street; "Go home with uncle, dearest," I said, "I cannot be happy with you in this fearful crowd. The sooner you are out ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... that stood along the crest of Brineweald Hill, overlooking the little seaside town of Stonechurch. It took a little over fifteen minutes to walk down from Brineweald to the beach at Stonechurch, and perhaps a little over twenty minutes to walk back up the steep hill. Sir Joseph's place, Brineweald Park, lay inland on the far side of the village of Brineweald, about a mile from "The Fastness," but the distance was soon covered by the young people, even when they could not dispose of one of Sir ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... He stopped playing his pipe and began to rise from the ground. He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed as though he were moving at all, but at last he stood on his feet and then the squirrel scampered back up into the branches of his tree, the pheasant withdrew his head and the rabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop away, though not at all ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she saw the prahu turn back up stream, but now her mind was suddenly engaged with a new danger, for the girl realized that the strong current was bearing her down stream more rapidly than she had imagined. Already she could hear the increasing roar of the river as it rushed, wild and tumultuous, through the entrance to ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
