"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whole, Archelaus Libby's best proved to be better than she had expected. The boys made a butt of him from the beginning, but could get no real advantage over one who laughed with them at his own discomfitures. He belonged to those meek ones who (it is promised) shall inherit the earth; and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... night. Before day, Monday morning, he called me up to whip me; called me into his dining-room, locked the doors, then ordered me to pull off my shirt. I told him no, sir, I wouldn't; right away he went and got the cowhide, and gave me about twenty over my head with the butt. He tore my shirt off, after I would not pull it off; he ordered me to cross my hands. I didn't do that. After I wouldn't do that he went and got his gun. and broke the breech of that over my head. He then seized up the fire-tongs and struck me over the head ever ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... above the leaves. Almost instantly Jacopo levelled his rifle and fired. Stephen gave a loud cry and dropped the cap. The Peruvian, with a yell of exultation, threw away the gun, drew his knife, and bounded forward. As he came up, Stephen sprang out, and brought the butt end of his gun down with all his strength on the Peruvian's head, striking him senseless to the ground. Stephen picked up the murderer's knife and placed it in his belt, took the musket from his shoulder, and then with a cord he had brought with him bound his feet, and turning ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... go to Claypool, Nic.? Wilt thou buy there some high heads of the newest cut for my daughters? How comest thou to go with thy arm tied up? Has old Lewis given thee a rap over thy fingers' ends? Thy weapon was a good one when I wielded it, but the butt-end remains in my hands. I am so busy in packing up my goods that I have no time to talk with thee any longer. It would do thy heart good to see what wagon-loads I am preparing for market. If thou wantest any good office of mine, for all that has happened ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... light of a martyr is evident from the words of Pitt himself. In one of his speeches, having accused his rival of filling his speech with everything that was personal, inflammatory, and invidious, he remarked:—"I am not surprised if he should pretend to be the butt of ministerial persecution; and if, by striving to excite the public compassion, he should seek to reinstate himself in that popularity which he once enjoyed, but which he so unhappily has forfeited. For it is the best and most ordinary resource of these political apostates to court, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "the Inhabitants of Northampton Countie doe complanye that from tyme to tyme wee have been submitted & bine obedient unto the paymt of publeq taxacons. Butt after ye yeare 1647, since yt tyme wee Conceive & have found that ye taxes were very weightie. But in a more espetiall manner ... the taxacon of fforty sixe pounds of tobacco p. poll (this present yeare). And desire yt ye same bee taken off ye charge of ye Countie; ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... O'Connell, whose attachment to law was so strong that in 1843, when the Repeal agitation had reached seemingly irresistible proportions, he deliberately restrained it, was tried for sedition. So, too, were dissipated the brilliant talents of the Young Ireland group and the grave statesmanship of Isaac Butt. Fits intervened of a penitent and bungling philanthropy which has left its traces on nearly all Irish institutions. For example, it was decided in 1830 that the Irish must be educated, and a system was set up which was deliberately designed to anglicize Ireland and ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... was no place for him ... I am sorry to confess that, for a while, I helped to make his life miserable for him ... each night the beak-nosed pugilist-lad and I raised a merry roughhouse in the place.... Pfeiler was our chief butt. We put things in his bed ... threw objects about so they would wake him up. One night I found him crying silently ... but somehow not ignobly ... this made me shift about in my actions toward him, and see how miserable my ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... "Yes, but the butt end of my rod is twice as hard as his head," replied Dabney. "I was almost afraid to strike him with it, because I might have broken ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... gravelly shallows, on which the fish lie to feed in a flood, a few yards above the deep water. A white trout or two rise, and presently I am fast in something which excites momentary hopes. The heavy rod bends to the butt. A yard or two of line runs out, but a few seconds show that it is only a large trout which has struck at the fly with his tail, and has been hooked foul. He cannot break me, and I do not care if he escapes, so I bear hard upon him ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the crystal ball was pictured a vast underground workshop somewhat like the one in the great dome through which they had entered the copper-clad world. In place of the telescope there was the butt of a gigantic cannon-like tube that towered and was lost in the shadows of the vaulted chamber. Tom Farley, moving jerkily and staring with glazed unseeing eyes, was working there with a cube of the glittering k-metal. In the open breech block of the tube was a heaped-up ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... legs apart, bent a little at the knees, as if he intended to make a jump. His right hand was near the butt of his gun, his fingers were clasping and unclasping, as if he limbered them for action. Taterleg slipped up behind him on his toes, and jerked the gun from Jim's scabbard with quick and sure hand. He backed away with it, presenting it with determined mien as Jim ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... Daniel, as he brought the butt of his gun down on his own foot with such force that he was obliged to give immediate ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... and in dry countries; but a ewe-sheep is not worth milking under those circumstances, as her yield is a mere nothing. Goats are very mischievous—they make their way out of all enclosures, and trespass everywhere. They butt at whatever is bright or new, or strange to them; and would drive an observer, who employed astronomical instruments on stands, to distraction. In an open country, where there are no bushes for a kraal, nets must ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... was taking a long drink at the scuttle butt, I saw some of the niggers creeping back to the village through the trees, and watching what I was doing. I ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... end, close, termination; desinence[obs3], conclusion, finis, finale, period, term, terminus, endpoint, last, omega; extreme, extremity; gable end, butt end, fag-end; tip, nib, point; tail &c. (rear) 235; verge &c. (edge) 231; tag, peroration; bonne bouche[Fr]; bottom dollar, tail end, rear guard. consummation, denouement; finish &c. (completion) 729; fate; doom, doomsday; crack of doom, day of Judgment, dies irae, fall of the curtain; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... joviality; and, as it is difficult to keep up mirth entirely upon one's own resources, we were beginning to be a gloomy party. What I had unconsciously said regarding my master's voice, was wormwood to him. He had long been the butt of all his acquaintance respecting it, and what followed was the making that unbearable which was before too bitter. Many questions were put by the visitor, and the answers appeared to grow more and more unsatisfactory as they were elicited. The lady was beginning to look ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the building were illuminated, while a quagmire in front of the door reflected the beams from the same. Meanwhile the rain continued to beat sonorously down upon the wooden roof, and could be heard trickling into a water butt; nor for a single moment did the dogs cease to bark with all the strength of their lungs. One of them, throwing up its head, kept venting a howl of such energy and duration that the animal seemed to be howling for a handsome wager; while ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... figure—a caricature of a man, His Grace of Richmond was the last degenerate scion of the Stuarts of Richmond-d'Aubigny, a man of depraved tastes and besotted brain, the butt and the clown of Charles's Court. That this middle-aged buffoon should aspire to the hand of the loveliest and most elusive woman in England was only less amazing than that she should smile on his suit. The Court was struck with consternation—and ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... some of his natural brusqueness, "and the rankest folly. But to some follies we have to pay attention, and I fear that we shall have to pay attention to this one if only for your daughter Reuther's sake. You cannot wish her to become the butt of ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... he rose from the heap of fish nets with the folded paper clinched like a club in his hand. He was going to get out of that boathouse if he had to butt a hole through its boards with ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... She's served them butt, she's served them ben, Intill a gown of green, But her e'e was ay on Brown Robin, That stood low ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... deprived me of my natural gaiety. One day when the king was with me, he perceived my want of spirits. "What ails you?" said be, with the greatest solicitude. "What ails me!" replied I, "I wish I were dead, rather than see myself the butt of all the scandal of the foul-mouthed gossips of your court." The king, suspecting the confidence I was about to repose in him, was sorry he had asked for it, and was silent. He began to play ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... faces. So much has happened the last two days that here in the dark I begin to feel as if it all were a nightmare. Ah! how cosey and home-like this room seems after prowling in the dangerous streets with my hand on the butt of a revolver! Come now, Marian, sit down quietly and tell the whole story. I can't trust Merwyn at all when he is the hero ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the order from any position in the manual, the motion next to the last concludes with the butt of the piece about 3 inches from the ground, barrel to the rear, the left hand above and near the right, steadying the piece, fingers extended and joined, forearm and wrist straight and inclining downward, all fingers of ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... their mothers. A large proportion of the blacks have their shoulders, backs, and arms all scarred up, and not a few of them have had their heads laid open with clubs, stones, and brick-bats, and with the butt-end of whips and canes—some have had their jaws broken, others their teeth knocked in or out; while others have had their ears cropped and the sides of their cheeks gashed out. Some of the poor creatures have lost the sight of one of their eyes by the careless blows of the whipper, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain; as this tree must certainly have ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... &c. If men truly virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but a poor investment of their moral capital. Was Job so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the world's scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like some old dreary stump which the lightning has scathed, rotting away in the wind and the rain? Happy! if happiness be ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... have said triumphantly: "There, I knew you could not manage it!" but he calmly drew a chair to the side of the couch, stood the glass within reach of his father's hand, and then went behind his head, forced his arm under the pillow, lowered his brow so that he could butt like a ram, and slowly and steadily raised the invalid's shoulders, keeping him upright till the draught had been taken and ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... look where, how, or at whom he struck. All he knew was that his rifle blazed, and as he clubbed at soft flesh with the butt, blood spurted, and new screams filled the night. He felt and half saw big, stinking bodies going down, and clawed his way forward, around them, over them. Then he felt no more bodies, and knew that he was through. A little farther ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... break out in Ireland, which seem to them very absurd, if not very wicked; but they do not know how much grave cause there is for discontent in Ireland. The very able and valuable pamphlets which have been written on these subjects by Mr. Butt and Mr. Levey, and on the Church question by Mr. De Vere, do not reach the English middle classes, or probably even the upper classes, unless their attention is directed to them individually. The details of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... arranges his defences, not forgetting to lay in a large stock of water. The savages return in force, and then—this is most important—at the most thirsty moment of the siege it is discovered that the water is all gone! Generally a stray arrow has pierced the water-butt, but in Masterman Ready the insufferable Tommy has played the fool with it. (He would.) This is the Hero's great opportunity. He ventures to the spring to get more water, and returns with it—wounded. Barely have the castaways wetted their lips with the precious ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... wished to train her like a boy, and that she was paying the penalty for undue application, in nearsightedness, awkward manners, extravagant tendencies of thought, and a pedantic style of talk, that made her a butt for the ridicule of frivolous companions. Some seasons later, I call to mind seeing, at the "Commencements" and "Exhibitions" of Harvard University, a girl, plain in appearance, but of dashing air, who was invariably ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... two men on horseback looked at her in passing. One spoke to the other, and turning their horses they put after and overtook her. He who had spoken touched her with the butt of his whip. "Ecod!" he exclaimed. "It's the lass we saw run for a guinea last May Day at Jamestown! Why so far from home, light ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... shakes before I had 'em yelping. Quick as a wink, mother, she jumps in to help me, and I just laughed to see her. It was so like old times. And Nolan, he made me laugh too. He was like a hen on a bank, shaking the butt of his whip, but not daring to cut in for ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... "Butt I shan't want youre advice. I have as good an estate as you have, and am as much a lord as yourselfe.—Why the devill then, am I to be treated as I am?—Why the plague—But I won't sware neither. I desire ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... for his soul; When mighty profits by the trash were made, Pride built a palace, Avarice groan'd and paid; Pride placed the signs of grandeur all about, And Avarice barr'd his friends and children out. Now see him Doctor! yes, the idle fool, The butt, the robber of the lads at school; Who then knew nothing, nothing since acquired, Became a doctor, honour'd and admired; His dress, his frown, his dignity were such, Some who had known him thought his knowledge much; Nay, men of skill, of apprehension quick, Spite of their knowledge, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... put flagons or mixing-bowls on the tables; the steward filled the cup from the butt, and there was ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... huts, where the two remaining prisoners were kept. It was then about one o'clock in the morning, and as he passed he saw the Onondaga runner at the door of one of the prison lodges. He was about to cry out, but the Onondaga turned and struck him such a violent blow with the butt of a pistol, snatched from under his deerskin tunic, that he fell senseless. When a Mohawk sentinel found and revived him an hour later, the door of the hut was open, and the oldest of the prisoners, the one ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... the abuses; it was in vain to think that he would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary and violent in the extreme. His prompt reply to all complaints and remonstrances was—the butt-end of a handspike, so convincingly administered as effectually to silence the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... on the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him in the malmsey-butt in ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a German soldier was seen to fire three times at a little girl 5 years old. Having failed to hit her, he subsequently bayoneted her. He was killed with the butt end of a rifle by a Belgian soldier who had seen him commit this ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Copperhead's part to have something belonging to him which he could always jeer at, and in this way the match was highly successful. Mrs. Copperhead the second was gushing and susceptible, and as good a butt as could be imagined. She kept him in practice when nobody else was at hand. She was one of those naturally refined but less than half-educated, timid creatures who are to be found now and then painfully earning the bread which is very bitter to them in richer people's houses, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... "Shorty" and "Gravy" Worley became chums inseparable, except on one occasion, when their friendship was temporarily ruptured by a dispute over the ownership of a fishing hook. Anger grew hot, but when they were about to come to blows, "Shorty" suddenly dropped on "all-fours" and essayed to butt his adversary with his head, which surprising mode of combat so disconcerted "Gravy" that he ran for his quarters, wildly yelling, "Take him off, ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... at the Follies. He was a hound for numbers, dates and etc. He had a better memory than a loan shark, and a encyclopedia would look stupid alongside of him. No matter what the subject was, this guy knowed more about it than the bird which wrote it and would butt in with the figures to prove it. Fin'ly, when I struck a match and he tells me they is 9,765,543 of them used in New York every fiscal year, I went out into ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... was on the butt of his revolver as he made his way through the black night. He could not see the gravel path under his feet but could only feel it. Something that was more than a guess made him feel that Shan Tung was not far away, ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... sun shone he buttoned his greasy, threadbare overcoat across his breast, and crawled to the public garden of the Luxembourg, where he might be seen shuffling slipshod along the sunniest walk, an object of contempt and aversion in the eyes of nursery-maids and grisettes—a butt for the dare-devil ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... a hook was a worn and blackened holster from which peeped the butt of a large Colt's revolver, showing evidence of many years' service. It spoke mutely of the white-haired Dextry, who, before her inspection was over, knocked at the door, and, when she admitted ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... that terrific right-hand cross-counter. Macpherson never even knew what happened to him. The canvasser's right hand, which had been adjusted by his inventor for a high blow, had landed on the butt of Macpherson's ear and dropped him like a fowl. The gasping, terrified bull-dog fled the scene, and the canvasser stood over his fallen foe, still intoning the virtues of his publication. He had come there merely as a friend, he said, to give the inhabitants of Ninemile ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... won't say a word, and Sandy makes wise remarks about girls who try to butt into men's affairs. I'm left out, and it's the first time that has ever happened to ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorous guide, froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopeless phantasms, dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight, and the like), butt of the High Gods' stinging laughter, deserving of nothing kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise—which is doubtless why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting cracked voices and withered hands, that we are no longer ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... my heart from parting agony: My frame is wasted and my vitals wrung * And love-fires grow and eyes set tear-floods free: And when the fire burns high beneath my ribs * With tears I quench it as sad day I see. Love left me wasted, baffled, pain-begone, * Sore frighted, butt to spying enemy: When I recal sweet union wi' their loves * I chase dear sleep from the sick frame o' me. Long as our parting lasts the rival joys * And spies with fearful prudence gain their gree. I fear me for my sickly, langourous ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... foliage. Scarcely had he done so, when a horseman dashed up to the house, forced his steed up the three or four broad steps leading to the door, and, without dismounting or looking for a bell or other means of announcing his arrival, struck several blows upon the oaken panels with the butt of his heavy riding-whip. Whilst the party above-stairs hurried to the windows, and endeavoured to discern who it was that disturbed them in so unceremonious a manner, a servant opened the small grated wicket in the centre of the door, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... gave me a simple gun, the butt end of which, made of steel, hollow in the centre, was rather large. It served as a reservoir for compressed air, which a valve, worked by a spring, allowed to escape into a metal tube. A box of projectiles in a groove in the thickness of the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... voice became savage. "You come along with me—quick an' quiet. This old Colt ain't loaded, but ef I hit you over the head with the butt of it, ye'll ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... stand erect, well balanced on the arches of the feet. The butt of the flag stick is held lightly in the right hand; the left hand steadies and directs the flag at a distance from six to twelve inches above the right on the stick. The length of the stick will determine the position of the left hand; the ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... came; I had to go. I tried to run away, but I was caught by brutal soldiers, and they banged me with the butt-end of muskets till my mustachios curled with pain. I had a cousin a linen-draper, well-to-do, but very ugly. He had drawn a good number, and sympathized when they thumped me. "To thee, my cousin," I said, "to thee, in whose veins flows the blue blood of our ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... the act of crossing, were vigorously assailed by several Indians, who throwing down their guns, rushed upon them with their tomahawks. The young man defended his sister gallantly, firing upon the enemy as they approached, and then wielding the butt of his rifle with a fury that drew the whole attention upon himself, and gave his sister an opportunity of effecting her escape. He quickly fell, however, under the tomahawk of his enemies, and was found at daylight, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the salons made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies. According to the Memoires authentiques pour servir a l'histoire du ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... crossed Brandes' features, and Stull snatched at the pistol he had whipped out. There was a struggle; Brandes wrenched the weapon free; but Neeland tore his way past Curfoot and struck Brandes in the face with the butt ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... hands with us and says, "Any friend of Billy's on your meal ticket! Where you crowd of sand skinners headed for?" So, after some talk, he understood. "You want a town," says he. "Well," p'inting with the butt of his whip, "eighteen miles over yonder you'll find your place, if you're looking to make the sidewalks stand perpendicular; and twenty mile over there, if you want to find some of the nicest people outdoors. Pretty girls there, bet ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... wore a heavy black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... die sword in hand, making a tomb for his body of his enemies on the field of battle, than to be hated of his own and poniarded by the hands of his nearest and dearest, or to die of poison or of drowning in a wine-butt." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Ossaroo lightly grasping his bow, but not thinking of the weapon; Karl holding his rifle with its butt resting on the ground, and Caspar gazing interrogatively in ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... that the earliest story about painting relates to Zeuxis, who is said to have painted a bunch of grapes with such skill that the birds ignored the fruit and pecked at the picture. In later times we hear of Rembrandt being the butt of his pupils, who, knowing his love of money, used to paint coins on the floor; and there are plenty of stories of people painting flies and other objects so naturally as to deceive the unwary spectator. Vasari ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... drawing up his twelve sons in double military rank, "I fought under good King Henriot, and can play at sword and pistol as well as the worthy 'ligueurs';" and shaking his head he leaned against a post, his knotty staff between his crossed legs, his hands clasped on its thick butt-end, and his white, bearded chin resting on his hands. Then, half closing his eyes, he appeared lost in recollections ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... which the men had dressed down had been lifted from their supports, the cod livers dumped into the gurry-butt, and the tables removed from the rails. The two men on the first watch were sharpening the splitting knives on a tiny grindstone and walking forward occasionally to see that the anchor and ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... screamed and rushed in every direction, but the other soldier came behind the Prince and knocked him down with the butt of his gun. Then he tied his legs with another rope, and, seeing him thus bound, the crowd of monkeys, which had scattered and fallen over one another in their efforts to escape, came creeping timidly back, and looked on him with ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... Butt we be admonished by Abrahams example / that we sholde not in beholding of our imbecyllitie / fainte in faith / nor fall from beleauinge certainly the truithe of the promises: he considered not the barren wombe of Sara / nor his ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... you could not have held the butt close against your shoulder when you fired," Thad ventured, as ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... "They bought 'em at the same store like as not. Don't butt in with foolishness. Le's go home and tell mom ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... and cultured men are to be pitied, for they are ever the butt, byword and prey of the untaught, who are often the knowing. As success came to Southey he lost the sense of values, that is to say, the sense of humor. He attacked Byron with great severity, and Byron's reply was the dedication of Don Juan, "To the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... very well satisfied with himself; re-tied the door carefully with Johnny's own peculiar kind of hitch, stooped and felt the hard-packed earth to make sure he had not inadvertently dropped a cigarette butt that might possibly betray him, and rolled a fresh smoke before leaving for home. He had just lighted it and was moving away toward the creek when the telephone jingled a second summons. He would have to answer it, of course. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... had him by the throat. They swayed and gulped for breath, rutting the earth with sharp heels; they rolled to the floor and floundered with legs tight tangled, the boy blindly striking at Mr. Adams with the pistol-butt, and the audience drawing closer to lose nothing, when the bright knife flashed suddenly. It poised, and flew across the room, harmless, for a foot had driven into Mr. Adams's arm, and he felt a cold ring grooving his temple. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic, a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New World betimes, with ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... with France or Germany, a defective reverence for the State as such; and a positive irreverence towards the laws of the Commonwealth, and towards the occupants of high political positions. Mayor, Judge, Governor, Senator, or even President, may be the butt of such indecorous ridicule as shocks or disgusts the foreigner; but nevertheless the personal joke stops short of certain topics which Puritan tradition disapproves. The United States is properly called a Christian nation, not merely because the Supreme Court has so affirmed ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... horse. This man who was shot from his horse was surrounded by two of his friends who dismounted to defend him. As soon as I saw this man lying on his back, I made a hard charge at him; I struck at his head. An enemy standing near discharged his gun at me, and took the butt of the gun to strike me on the head. Just at this moment my horse stumbled and fell forward which saved me from receiving the blow. As I did so I made a circle and came back again to my own people. But I was mad at him in my heart because he had struck ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... Quickly the good knight sprang back again and snatched the spear that she had driven through his shield. Stout Siegfried's hand now sent it back again. He thought: "I will not pierce the comely maid." So he reversed the point and cast it at her armor with the butt, that it rang out loudly from his mighty hand. The sparks flew from the armor rings, as though driven by the wind. Siegmund's son had made the throw with might. With all her strength she could not stand before the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... joke, and I'm the butt of it. She was in that house by the same authority she rode ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... breaking up earth. The human origin of both of these classes is contested. Flints of Strepy type are nodular and partly trimmed into cutting edges, the smooth surface being left as a handle. The Chelles types are remarkable for regularity and fine bold flaking; the worn butt (though best for handling) was eventually flaked away to obtain an artistic uniform finish. The St. Acheul series has finer flaking, the crust being completely removed: there is a tendency to ovate or almond shapes, and the edges are often curved, the reverse S-curve ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... a very dark, miserable place, very low and very damp; the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate was screwed up so tight as to hold no more than a thin sandwich of fire. Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked. There ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... chickens," said Borel, opening his long riding coat and showing the butt-ends of two pistols, which stuck out of his trousers pockets, "I have something ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... audience by wrangling with her husband. In the Crucifixion play Herod is a prankish kind of tyrant who leaves the stage to rant among the audience; so that to "out-herod Herod" became a common proverb. In all the plays the devil is a favorite character and the butt of every joke. He also leaves the stage to play pranks or frighten the wondering children. On the side of the stage was often seen a huge dragon's head with gaping red jaws, belching forth fire and smoke, out of which poured a tumultuous troop of devils with clubs and pitchforks ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... about it, they went out again. When the horses had left, the gentlemen came in on the run two by two, forming eight couples, with their liveries, and lances in hand. Brandishing the latter in their hands, it looked as if the butt ends of the lances of some of the gentlemen were joined with the points [of others]. The horses, spurred on by cries and wounded by the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... the old steeple with its rent side looked down on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical endurance ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... was arraigned for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr.,—as Richard Kildene,—and yet he had seen his cousin lying dead before him, during all the years that had passed since he had fled from that sight. In battle he had seen men clubbed with the butt end of a musket fall dead with wounded temples, even as he had seen his cousin—stark—inert—lifeless. He had felt the strange, insane rage to kill that he had seen in others and marveled at. And now, after he had felt and done it, he was arrested as ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Mississippi, is the power of its waters during the spring flood. Trees carried from above are piled on the heads of islands, and also lie, like vast stranded rocks, on its sand bars and lower shores. Generally the butt ends and roots are elevated in the air, and remain like gibbeted men by the roadside, to tell the traveler of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... rough stone and reddish clay. Says Burton: "I walked into a vast hall between two long rows of Galla spearmen, between whose lines I had to pass. They were large, half-naked savages, standing like statues with fierce, movable eyes, each one holding, with its butt end on the ground, a huge spear, with a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered down them coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their dangerous-looking faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt, and determined, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... a kind of spacious platform on my saddle by piling on it carpets, blankets, and a mattress, and on the high butt of the saddle in front he had fastened a ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... cases which naturally suggest themselves again concern animals. Experience as interpreted by the English law has shown that dogs, rams, and bulls are in general of a tame and mild nature, and that, if any one of them does by chance exhibit a tendency to bite, butt, or gore, it is an exceptional phenomenon. Hence it is not the law that a man keeps dogs, rams, bulls, and other like tame animals at his peril as to the personal damages which they may inflict, unless he knows or has notice that the particular ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... too proficient scholar. Having once tasted victory, "Billy" needed no further incitement to his performances. The small wagon which he sometimes consented to draw for the benefit of the children never hindered his attempts to butt the passer-by. On the contrary, on well-known scientific principles he added the impact of the bodies of the children projected over his head in his charge, and the infelicitous pedestrian found himself not only knocked off his legs by Billy, but ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... butt in on the young ladies' day together," returned John. Benny's recital had touched him, but he could not forbear a smile at the youngster's courage of conviction. "I tell you, I'm the aggrieved party ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... was diving to the right, breaking his fall with the butt of his auto-carbine, rolling rapidly toward the cover of a rock, and as he did so, the thinking part of his mind recognized what was wrong. The tank-tracks had ended against the vine-grown side of the ravine, what he had smelled had ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... carriage and under the breech of the gun, and raise it so that the quoin may be eased and the lower half port let down, or, when housed, the bed and quoin adjusted. Then each Handspikeman will lay his handspike on deck, on his own side of the gun, parallel with its axis, clear of the trucks and butt to the rear. ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... land the butt of your rifle brutally on his chest, and he will start up with a cry ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... butt, as a butt should be strod, I gallop the brusher along; Like a grape-blessing Bacchus, the good fellow's god, And a sentiment give, or ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... Wingate himself rode over to the canyon; it was a good mile, and the trail was rough in the extreme. He did not dismount when he reached the lonely log lodge, but rapping on the door with the butt of his quirt, he awaited its opening. There was some slight stirring about inside before this occurred; then the door slowly opened, and she stood before him—a rather tall woman, clad in buckskin garments, with a rug made of coyote skins about her shoulders; she wore the beaded ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... called for more. There was a strange silence in the house—a silence in decided contrast to the screams I had heard, and I wondered if the wretches had shot the woman. I started to knock on the door with the butt of my pistol, but ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... already in giving ye warnings," he added, gathering himself for the effort, "and if your indifference causes your ruin, it's your own fault, as the bull remarked when he come down on a butt agin the engine." ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... tongue-tied. Silence was particularly golden in these days, and in the stillness of the night the little click of a sheep's trotters descending a mountain pathway was often mistaken for the clank of a scabbard point, or the clink of a gun-butt ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... during the Mexican War at Cerro Gordo, and was promoted for his bravery in that battle. Scarcely anyone was immune from his practical jokes, but, fortunately for his peace of mind, Mr. Gouverneur was acquainted with an incident of his life which, if known, would make him a butt of ridicule; and he accordingly felt perfectly safe in his companionship and well enjoyed his humorous exploits. One day Derby and Mr. Gouverneur were sauntering through the streets of Washington when the keen eye ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... standard, a long spear's length in front of our line. But by this I had leapt to my feet; and it was time, for he was almost on me. Spear had I none; so I dragged out the standard shaft from the ground where I had struck it, and levelled that sharp butt end full at his chest. Overhead was his axe again, and I had no shield to stop the blow; but I must ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... decided to ride up to him without reply, but he cocked his piece and called on us to halt. I waved my hand to him and we all rode on quickly. He seemed puzzled and irresolute for a moment, but he ended by clapping the butt of his rifle to his shoulder, and sang out ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... at the least with his new friends, which grieved me, who knew, by the captain's groom and gentleman, how they talked of him at Mount Juliet's Town, making him quite, as one may say, a laughing-stock and a butt for the whole company; but they were soon cured of that by an accident that surprised 'em not a little, as it did me. There was a bit of a scrawl found upon the waiting-maid of old Mr. Moneygawl's youngest daughter, Miss Isabella, that laid open the whole; and her father, they ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... fell and the wind still blew; but we found a double-bedded room with plenty of furniture, real water- jugs with real water in them, and dinner: a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. After having been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the elements during the whole of the next day, these comfortable circumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. There was an English fruiterer at dinner, travelling with a Belgian fruiterer; in the evening at the cafe, we watched our compatriot drop a good deal of money ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into their scheme of life as a well-made reel fits the butt of a good rod. He was a steady oarsman, a lucky fisherman, with a real genius for the use of the landing-net, and a cheerful companion, who did not insist upon giving his views about artificial flies and advice about casting, on every occasion. By the end of June he found himself ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... spot by some running stream, where there is plenty of red willow, has been fixed upon for a camping-place, and a fire has been lighted, the squaws cut a quantity of the willow, and, making a rude framework of the larger branches, of which the butt-ends are fixed firmly into the ground, and the small ends bound together to look like a small dome, they weave the smaller branches and twigs in and out until the whole affair looks like a great leafy basket turned upside down. The entrance is ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Clancy, as it struck him that this man, in spite of the foolish look on his face, was the prime agent. Clancy fired and missed. Then he strove to close with Jennings. The latter hammered him over the head with the butt of his revolver. Shouts and oaths came from the infuriated thieves, but the police fought like bulldogs, with ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... found a detachment of the infant population of the quarters busily crabbing; all of whom, save two little Indians who fished stoically on, scrambled to their feet, and pulled a forelock. The overseer touched one urchin upon the shoulder with the butt end of his whip. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... thought to him, I fired; but it did him no mischief and only made him take himself off at once. I nearly got into a scrape through it, however, for I was fired at myself in return, the bullet fortunately only taking the butt end off my musket. I turned to run off, and another shot hit the knapsack on my back, but I soon got out of reach of their shot again, luckily, as it happened, without any injury; but it must have been a near thing, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... I'll butt in a moment," he said. "How are you, Mallett? How are you?" giving Grandcourt an impertinent look; and added: "Do you, by any chance, expect your friend ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... kept watching him with the corner of his eye. Little by little he drew nearer and nearer to Salar, and waited till the youngster came to a part where the water was not at all deep. Then suddenly his Papa gave Salar a butt with his head. Down went Salar under the water, snorting ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... undischarged. Two were fired—one, aimed at Bob Harvey, did not wound him, or at any rate only slightly, and Ayrton, profiting by the momentary retreat of his adversaries, rushed towards the companion-ladder to gain the deck. Passing before the lantern, he smashed it with a blow from the butt of his revolver. A profound darkness ensued, which favored his flight. Two or three pirates, awakened by the noise, were descending the ladder at ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... woods so as to approach the cabin on the side away from the path, where there was little likelihood of those inside keeping a lookout. Very cautiously they advanced from the concealment of the woods, Frank Brandon with his right hand on the butt of a deadly looking automatic pistol. They crept close to the wall of the cabin, and listened intently for some sign of ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... completed what had been for them a daring undertaking, now looked about for release from an atmosphere grown suddenly boresome. The elder by four seconds went to the door and, affecting intense maturity, spat out from it. The younger, dipping his head in the water-butt near the leader, took a small comb from his pocket and, using the disturbed water-butt as a mirror, began parting into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... in the holster on the wall, handy to one's hand from the bed, caught her eye. She reached to it and lifted gently at the butt. It was as she had expected—loose—Dick's way. Trust him, no matter how long unused, never to let a pistol freeze in ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... sway in our direction, wagging a greeting with her hind quarters, as bulldogs do. Two of the puppies loped off to meet her. The long-suffering way in which she permitted them to mouth her argued that she was accustomed to being the kindly butt of their exuberance. The third turned to follow his fellows, hesitated, caught my lady's eye, and rushed back to his ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... be of long-leafed or southern pine, not less than 14 in. at the butt. They shall be free from defects impairing their strength, and shall ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 - Tests of Creosoted Timber, Paper No. 1168 • W. B. Gregory
... Saul Vance, the butt of cruel small boys, who deported himself as any rational creature might so long as he walked a straight course; but so surely as he came to where the road forked or two streets crossed he could not decide which turning to take and for hours angled back and forth and to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... often done in the field, but, as just stated, it had better be delayed until the heads are carried to the place for packing. To trim them, take hold of a head near the butt with one hand, holding it upright against you, then with a turning motion, cut clear around the head, leaving the cut ends of the leaves projecting about an inch above the edge of the head. This exposes as much of the head ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... logs it was two stories in height, the first house of more than one story standing on the shores of the southern Ohio. Its roof was the wonder and envy of the whole region for many years. The shingles were of black walnut, elegantly rounded at the butt-ends. They were fastened on with solid walnut pegs driven in holes bored through both the shingles and the laths with a brace and a bit. For there was not a nail in Cedar House from its firm foundation to its fine roof. Even the hinges and the latch of ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... that the regrettable incident occurred. Just as the second prisoner was being launched, Constable Butt, determined to assert himself even at the eleventh hour, sprang forward, and seized the captive by the arm. A drowning man will clutch at a straw. A man about to be hurled into an excessively dirty pond will clutch at a stout ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... up with the whole thing," returned the Captain snapping his cigarette butt viciously into a corner. "What are we out here for anyway; what are we fighting for; what is the whole bally business about; that is what ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... trail was plain from there on. When they hitched up, on the next morning, Cantwell placed the ax, bit down, between the tarpaulin and the sled rail, leaving the helve projecting where his hand could reach it. Grant thrust the barrel of the rifle beneath a lashing, with the butt close by the handle-bars, and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... close behind her she rushed into the house. He sprang toward the gate intending to defend it should the horsemen, as he thought they would, attempt to enter. Had he possessed any weapon he might have held his post, but in another instant one of the horsemen dealt him a blow with the butt end of a pistol, which laid him senseless ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... out and grasped her by the shoulder. She shrank back, struggling with him, trying to grasp the butt of an ivory-handled revolver that swung at her right hip. The big man pinned her arms and the ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... such married life for me," I thought I could hear him responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer. ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... trenches taken by them from the guards and the famous Death's Head Hussars, the Germans showed no bullet wounds. In nearly every attack the men from the desert had flung themselves upon the enemy, using only the butt or the bayonet. Man for man no white man drugged for years with meat and alcohol is a physical match for these Turcos, who eat dates and drink water," said Richard Harding Davis, who saw the end of the fighting ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... Kirstie and the credit of the Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the day over for her old-world tales and local gossip, bidding farewell to her last link with life and brightness and love; and behind and beyond, she saw but the blank butt-end where she must crawl to die. Had she then come to the lees? she, so great, so beautiful, with a heart as fresh as a girl's and strong as womanhood? It could not be, and yet it was so; and for a moment her bed was horrible to her ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... lords, men of this unbounded benevolence, and this exalted genius, deserve such honours as were never paid before; they deserve to bestride a butt upon every signpost in the metropolis, or to have their countenances exhibited as tokens where this liquor is to be sold by the license which they have procured. They must be at least remembered to future ages, as the happy politicians who, after all expedients ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... him a blow with the butt of his pistol and felling him. "Leave him there, Wray—he'll give us no trouble. Now take every one of those rifles out of the rack and put them on the table. There's two kegs of powder and a bag of bullets in Mr. Brant's cabin—get those ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... I'll bet dar's ten fousand million Injines in de wood, atween us and de settlement. I tried to butt my way trough dem, but dar was a few too many, and I had to ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... affectation of similar dress and manner, but this young man was never once seen to alter his plain even coarse costume, and kept aloof from all appearance that would assimilate him with those above him; and yet he was their laughing-stock, the butt against which the pointed arrows of scorn, contumely, ridicule, and censure were ever hurled, with a malevolence that appeared strange to the benevolent hearts of the young Hamiltons, who vainly endeavoured to check the public torrent. ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... night with two cows and a Durham bull. All his talk turned upon religion, and he would ever and anon burst out in some strain of scriptural-styled eloquence, chanted through his nose, like an exhortation at a camp-meeting. A group of Universalists and no-religionists sat around him, making him their butt, and holding wild argument with him; and he strangely mingled humor with his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with his humor, so that it was almost impossible to tell whether he were in jest or earnest. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said that the gods, on Olympus of old, (And who, the bright legend profanes, with a doubt,) One night, 'mid their revels, by Bacchus were told That his last butt of nectar had ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... looked after by the local Antonius Ash-Box inspector of the day, its publication forbidden, and the author incidentally deprived of his clerkship at Washington; Millet did service as the butt for jokes of artistic Paris, and was dubbed "The Wild Man"; Wagner's play ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... proved to be the small clump of trees that I had noticed on the previous day, and my driver pulled up there and jerked the butt of his whip in ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... escape. One man had seized his horse's bridle, and he was forced to gallop on whether he liked it or not. He threw back his head and shouted, thinking his friends might still be within hearing, but a blow on the mouth with the butt end of a pistol silenced him, and bursting with rage and mortification he ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... the lowlands, and is very crooked, has a slow current and divides much into canos and strings of lagoons which flood the flat, low areas of country on either side. It is simply the drainage ditch of districts which are extensively overflowed in the rainy season. Captain Butt ascended it 195 m., to near its ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which Nelson had drawn rose before her: the one man standing alone in his rage on the platform, overwhelmed by his calm young adversary, beaten and made the butt of laughter for a thousand. Her father had been in the wrong in that quarrel, and somehow she was sure, too, he must have been wrong in the "personal" one, as well: the mysterious difficulty over Fanchon's Mr. Gray, who had looked so ashamed last ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... reached the end of the path. Wetzel stopped and dropped the butt of his rifle on the ground. Tige looked on and wagged his tail. Presently the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... hunters, who carry several bullets in their mouths to facilitate loading while running at full speed. The method is simple. The hunter merely pours powder into his left palm, transfers it to his gun, drops a bullet from his mouth into the muzzle, hits the butt smartly on his pommel, which at once sends the charge home and forces priming into the pan, and thus ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... ill as that, I have no desire to butt in for an interview," he said. "Oblige me by ascertaining at your earliest convenience whether or not I may be of service to Mr. Kent in ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... It was even reported; and generally believed, that Farnese himself had been in imminent danger, that Schenk had fired his pistol at him unsuccessfully, and had then struck him on the head with its butt-end, and that the Prince had only saved his life by leaping from his horse, and scrambling through a ditch. But these seem to have been fables. The alarm at last became general, the dawn of a summer's day was fast approaching; the drums beat to arms, and the bold marauders were obliged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Merlin, as if they foretold, that one day that duke should usurp the crown from his children, resolved to put him to death, he only gave him the liberty to choose what death he would die of. The duke being willing to die a merry death, chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Not unlike him on whom this ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... poked with the butt of the whip handle at Shock, but that gentleman only kicked and growled, and so he ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... that a slip, or how explainable? I think he is betrayed into the description by reason of his interest in such strategic matters. The expression is intelligible enough to any one who knows about engines, just as we might speak of the butt or the stanchion, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... Lavender found himself beginning to look upon a two-storied building with windows as something imposing and a decided triumph of human skill and enterprise. But what was the school-house of Tabost to the grand building at the Butt? They had driven away from the high-road by a path leading through long and sweet-smelling pastures of Dutch clover; they had got up from these sandy swathes to a table-land of rock; and here and there they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... Choctaws turned around and shot the unsuspecting Creek who had the gun. He fell dead, without a groan. The other Creek attempted to escape, while the other Choctaw snapped his gun at him repeatedly, but it missed fire. They then pursued him, overtook him, knocked him down with the butt of their guns, and battered his head until he also was motionless in death. One of the Choctaws, in his frenzied blows, broke the stock of his rifle. They then fired off the gun of the Creek who was killed, and one of them uttered the war-whoop which ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... preliminary flourishes; and in the excitement of talking for victory, he would use any device that came to hand. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said Goldsmith, quoting a phrase from Cibber, "for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... lecture. The lad was barefoot, having left his wooden shoon in the hallway "so as not to wear out the floor." He would bow awkwardly to the professor, fall over a chair or two that had been slyly pushed in his way, and taking his seat chew the butt end ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... natural sense of justice would generally have armed me a hundred fold for retaliation; but at present, chiefly, perhaps, because I had no effectual ally, and could count upon no sympathy in my audience, I was mortified beyond the power of retort, and became a passive butt to the lady's stinging contumely and the arrowy sleet of her gay rhetoric. The narrow bounds of our deck made it not easy to get beyond talking range; and thus it happened, that for two hours I stood the worst of this bright lady's feud. At ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... thought it a grave disadvantage that our street was unlighted. Our street was not drained nor graded; no municipal cart ever came to carry away our ashes; there was not a water-butt within half a mile to save us from fire, nor more than the one-thousandth part of a policeman to protect us from theft. Yet, as I paid a heavy tax, I somehow felt that we enjoyed the benefits of city government, and never looked upon Charlesbridge as in any way undesirable for ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... brought himself under censure by venturing, without his wife's authority, to lean forward and tap on the door-frame with the butt of his whip. At the sound, a shrill voice called instantly from the region of the stove pipe, "Clem! Clementina? Go to the front dooa! The'e's somebody knockin'." The sound of feet, soft and quick, made itself heard within, and in a few moments a slim maid, too large for a little girl, too childlike ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
