"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of their presence as much as possible for anthropological measurements, but I could not always find willing subjects. Everything depends on the humour of the crowd; if they make fun of the first victim, the case is lost, as no second man is willing to be the butt of the innumerable gibes showered on the person under the instruments. Things are more favourable if it is only fear of some dangerous enchantment that holds them back, for then persuasion and liberal gifts of tobacco generally overcome their fears. The best subjects ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... know—the solemn person in the frock coat! What preposterous nonsense! Lettice is a baby! We must not let the young people at home hear of this, or they will tease the poor girl to death. Young Newcome is a favourite butt, and they often mimic him for my benefit. Well, I hope you let the poor fellow down gently, and saved me a ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... many animals, with the power of locomotion and appearance of snakes, as there were hairs in the bundle. I have raised them one-eighth of an inch in diameter, with perceptible eyes and mouth on the butt end or root part of the hair. Take such a snake and dip it in an alkaline solution, and the flesh or mucus that formed about the hair will dissolve, and the veritable horse hair is left. They will not generate in limestone water, only in freestone ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... their common Master Laotse; and above all—and herein lies the real importance of him—the real Liehtse treats Confucius as a Teacher and Man of Tao. But by Chwangtse's time the two schools had separated: Confucius was Chwangtse's butt;—we shall see why. And in the scum of Liehtse he is made fun of in Chwangtse's spirit, but without Changtse's wit ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... so thick yer could cut it 'Thout reachin' a foot over-side, The dory she'd nose up ter butt it, And then git discouraged an' slide; No noise but the thole-pins a-squeakin', Or, maybe, the swash of a wave, No feller ter cheer yer by speakin'— 'Twas lonesomer, lots, ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... then edged his way over and made a motion to take Harry's place, to which he assented. It was now impossible for Harry to regain his place at the tree, and when it fell he acted and looked like a conqueror, and Harry patted him on the back as a token of his good work. A section of the butt of the tree was cut off, and loaded on the truck, and dragged to the sawmill. The end had to be squared off, and Chief insisted on doing this, the use of the exceedingly novel tool being the greatest pleasure, evidently, that he ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... SIR WILLIAM] you've mistaken your man, sir. Because I'm a rotter in one way, I'm not necessarily a rotter in all. You put the butt end of the pistol to Dunning's head yesterday, you put the other end to mine to-day. Well! [He turns round to go out] Let ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... like lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round—for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder—struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained the trees, and, pausing ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... and the other day pa and I were huskin' corn in the barn, and there was a horse jibbed on our hill, and the driver got down and licked him with the butt end of his whip, and kicked him with his great cowhide boots, and I asked pa if I might take out a measure of oats and see if I couldn't coax that horse to take his load up the hill—you see pa owned a jibber once ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... quarter of a mile, when his hook was struck by a trout, and then commenced a struggle that was pleasant to witness. No sooner had the fish discovered that the hook was in his jaw, than away he dashed towards the middle of the lake. The rod was bent into a semicircle, but the game was fast; with the butt firm between his knees and his thumb pressing the reel, the sportsman gave him a hundred and fifty feet of line, when his efforts began to relax, and as Smith began to reel him in, a moment of dead ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... "What is this No-tail?" And she and her sons and their sister came up to him and fell to examining the back parts of Abdullah of the Land, and saying, "Yea, by Allah, he is tailless!"; and they laughed at him. So he said to the Merman, "O my brother, hast thou brought me hither to make me a butt and a laughing-stock for thy children and thy consort?"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... which at once gave him and his partner liberty of action. They knew where the arms lay, and each in the twinkling of an eye secured a large navy revolver without disturbing the Indians. They then simultaneously struck the two sleeping guards a powerful blow on the head with the butt of their revolvers. The Indian struck by the herder was nearly killed by the heavy blow, while Glazier's man was only stunned. They then made for the ponies, leaped into the saddles, and before any of the other ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Sherwood—or, to give her her maiden name, Mary Butt—was a clergyman. He had a beautiful country living called Stanford, in Worcestershire, not far from Malvern, where Mary was born on May 6, 1775. She had one brother, a year older than herself, and a sister several years younger, ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... and we set forth; at a deserted spot in the woods near Warsaw he tried to kiss me—I struck him in the face with the butt ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... house!" indignantly echoed the farmer, to Lyon's great astonishment. "Don't you go to say that; for if you do, devil burn me if I don't knock you down with the butt end of ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... reading, writing, and arithmetic, because they've got to go to a fashionable private one to learn hog-Latin, hog-wash, and how much the neighbors are worth. Of course, the rich children are going to say that they're pushing little kids, but they've got to learn to push and to shove and to butt right in where they're not wanted if they intend to herd with the real angora billy-goats. They've got to learn how to bow low to every one in front of them and to kick out at every one behind them. It's been my experience that it takes a good four-year course in snubbing before you ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... "The Butcher's Dog, in the corner of Mr. Mulready's 'Butt,' displays, perhaps, the most wonderful, because the most dignified, finish ... and assuredly the most perfect unity of drawing and colour which the entire range of ancient and modern art can exhibit. Albert Durer is, indeed, the only rival who might be suggested."—JOHN RUSKIN ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... tramp, name unknown, died last night. He had been admitted on the previous evening, but, for some unexplained reason, it was not noticed until the next morning that he suffered from illness, and, therefore, he was allowed to mix with the other inmates in the general ward. Drs. Butt and Clarkson, who were called in to attend, state that the cause of death was the worst form of smallpox. The body will be buried in quicklime, but some alarm is felt in the district owing to the deceased, who, it is said, arrived here from Dunchester, where ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... 'scape? How camest thou hither? swear, by this bottle, how thou camest hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard, by this bottle! which I made of the bark of a tree with mine own hands, since I was cast ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... placed his hand on the butt of his revolver at his hip, meaning to whip out the weapon and fire before the miscreant had finished his high-sounding tomfoolery. His daughter had also grasped hers, intending to obey to the letter the command of her parent, when the Ghoojur chieftain abruptly paused in his speech, staggered ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre, bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse, galloped ahead of the soldiers where there ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fact, over and through almost any thing, chewing their cud all the time, patient and unconcerned. When they were brought up near to one of the trees that had been cut down, Raymond would hook the chain around the butt end of it, and then, at his command, they would drag it out of its place in the line of the fence. After looking on for some time, Caleb began to think that he would go to work; and he went to a little tree, with a stem about as big ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... would most likely lead to two of them being shot; to the third having his brains knocked out with the butt-end of a musket; and to the fourth,—himself,—being strangled in the powerful grasp of Golah, if not beheaded with the scimitar in the hands of Fatima. On reflection, the young Scotchman yielded, and permitted his hands to be tied behind his back; ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... lady's lips. One could see that he was entire master of the rifle, and a trick which always brought rounds of applause was the hitting of a target while standing with his back to it, simply by the aid of a mirror held at the butt ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... the question how to prevent the degeneration of mankind would be a simple and natural one, if history and proverb had not taught us that as often as a new truth appears "the very oxen butt their horns against it." They cannot help this, the "disposition" is natural; for when Pythagoras had found the Master of Arts, Mathesios, he was so overjoyed that he sacrificed one hundred oxen to ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... Shall he speak in religion otherwise than he thinks? Truth is truth, whoever hath spoken itt or howsoever itt hath bin abused. If this libertie be not allowed to the Universitie wherefore do wee study? We have nothing to do butt to get good memories and to learn by heart."[19] Finally, to the impression expressed by Dr. Tuckney that his sermons are less edifying and heart-searching, he replies with dignity and evidently with truth: "I am sure I have bin ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... walking, after my horse had fallen twice, and with this object proceeded to dismount, but on bringing my leg to the ground, as I imagined, I made a rapid descent of about eight feet. On clambering up I was met with a sharp blow on the face from what I believe to have been the butt of a Turkish musket, and my horse was not to be found. About half an hour later, while feeling for the road, to my great satisfaction, I placed my hand upon my English saddle, and thus repossessed myself of my steed. No need to dilate farther ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... behind? What! have you lost your sense with your estate? Me!—look on me—come from the same condition! How sleek! how neat! how clad! in what good case! I've ev'ry thing, though nothing; naught possess, Yet naught I ever want."—"Ah, Sir, but I Have an unhappy temper, and can't bear To be the butt of others, or to take A beating now and then."—"How then! d'ye think Those are the means of thriving? No, my friend! Such formerly indeed might drive a trade: But mine's a new profession; I the first That ever struck into this ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... meanwhile beatin' with the butt of his six-shooter on the poker-table, 'is some sudden an' permiscus; but the objects is easy an' plain. We-alls convenes ourse'fs to consider the physical condition of this party from Yallerhouse, which report says is locoed an' can't talk none for himself. To make this inquiry a success, we-alls ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... purpose than either," she answered coldly. Her right hand, concealed by the folds of her skirt, was uplifted, the fingers grasping the black butt of a Colt. Her lips smiled. "I suppose you know the efficacy of this weapon, Lieutenant, and ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... swirling around and around in swift and endless gyrations—but he was conscious, too, that he was master of himself. The muscles of his face twitched—but it was to express incredulity. His tongue carried the cigarette butt languidly back to the other corner of ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... occasion, however, the episode was all our own, and had a sporting flavour in it which made it dramatic. I know now the feeling of tense expectation with which the driven grouse whirrs onwards towards the butt. I have been behind the butt before now, and it is only poetic justice that I should see the matter from the other point of view. As we approached Ronchi we could see shrapnel breaking over the road in front of us, but we had not yet realised that it ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lowest many pet measures. His determination to economize, as well as his peculiarity of dress and appearance, soon made him an especial object of amusement to newspaper correspondents. He was the butt of many cheap jokes; one being his alleged complaint that hundreds of towels were being daily used by members at the Capitol, at the public expense, while at his home, on his farm, one towel would last a week, with eleven in the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... climbed out and returned to the fallen tree. There he picked up one of the long branches in his mouth, grasping it near the butt, twisted it over his shoulder and started to drag it to the canal. When he reached the latter he entered the water and began swimming, still dragging the branch in the same way. Once more Old Mother Nature stopped him. "You've ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Boort Meerbeek 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 murder from ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and thinking that he might as well show, from the very first, that he was not to be bullied, or made a butt with impunity, he walked straight to the stove, and looking full at Jones (who had inspired him already with strong disgust), he said, "You called me a coward just now; I'm not a coward, though I don't like fighting for nothing. I'm not a bit afraid of you, though you forced that ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... as Gwaigullean and Gwaimudthen, Muggulu and Bumbirra, etc., which have the meaning of "sluggish" and "swift" blood respectively. The bloods again are sometimes subdivided. In the Ngeumba tribe Gwaimudthen is divided into nhurai (butt) and wangue (middle), while Gwaigulir is equivalent to winggo (top). These names refer to different portions of the shadow of a tree and refer to the positions taken up in camping by the persons belonging ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... and for the practical jokes which the license of the Carnival permits. In fact, his sad and contracted brow so ill accorded with the scene, that the revellers might be pardoned for thus using him as the butt of their idle mirth, since he evidently could not ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... down at the table, loosened his cloak to insure greater freedom of movement, took his pistols from his belt, laid one on the table, and striking three blows with the butt-end of the other, he said, in a loud voice: "The meeting is open; the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... silver shadow, came Aunt Isabelle, and bringing up the rear, General Dick, and the four young people; Leila in a pair of mismated slippers, hippity-hopping behind with Barry, and Porter assuring Mary that he knew he "hadn't any business to butt in to a family party," but ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... would fain be "distinguished" by Madame Schontz, but as for marrying her, that folly seemed debatable to a bachelor of thirty-eight whom the revolution of July had made a judge. Seeing his hesitation, Madame Schontz made the Heir the butt of her wit, her jests, and her disdain, and turned to Couture. Within a week, the latter, whom she put upon the scent of her fortune, had offered his hand, and heart, and future,—three things of ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... petition the more readily that his Emir, he could see, regarded the most exquisite of dragomans simply as a standing joke. They laughed together at his superstition and his boastfulness. But their butt was really serviceable in small ways, knowing where to hire good horses at the lowest price, and pointing out in the course of their rides objects of interest of the very existence of which Iskender ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Mr. Cleveland formed his unimpassioned and polished periods. And as that old Earl, who in the time of Charles the First was the reigning wit of the court, in the time of Charles the Second was considered too dull even for a butt, so every age has its own literary stamp and coinage, and consigns the old circulation to its shelves and cabinets as neglected curiosities. Cleveland could not become the fashion with the public as an author, though the coteries cried him up and the reviewers adored him—and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he cried excitedly; "do but let me get a blow at this fellow with the butt end of my musket, ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... he said, gravely, with the calm which presages a storm; "our Royal person must be no butt for raillery. This sceptre appears light, my lords, but he who ridicules it shall be crushed thereby as with a block of iron. I believe that our holy father the Pope is somewhat indebted to us, so that we do not fear his displeasure at the step which we are about to take. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... looked blue; So did the Corporation too. For council dinners made rare havock With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gipsy coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead can't come to life, I think. So, friend, we're not ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... earlier use of this word, as descriptive of a malt liquor, will be found than the one noticed by our correspondent; for it was only about 1722 that Harwood, a London brewer, commenced brewing this liquor, which he called "entire," or "entire butt," implying that it was drawn from one cask or butt. It subsequently obtained the name of porter, from its consumption ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... law-maker, in spite of his clatter, is without a peer, and he dwarfs none so much as our own, who will become the butt of his own sneer if he ever gets ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... meantime, Osborn and Thorn, who shared his butt, looked about while they waited for the beaters. The row of turf banks, regularly spaced, ran back to the Force Crags at the head of the dale. The red bloom of the ling was fading from the moor, which had begun to get brown. Sunshine and shadow swept across it, and the blue sky was dotted ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... one day the notion seemed to strike his goatish mind that this racket had been quietly endured long enough. With the warning whistle of the approaching engine, Billy, lowering his head, darted furiously up the track, intending to butt the offending thunderer into Kingdom Come. When, a few seconds later, the amazed spectators were gazing after the diminishing train, Hen Waters, addressing the spot where the redoubtable goat had last ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... a plane. If Vard Waymouth is the next Governor of this State there'll be some wire fences that he won't be able to sit on. There'll be too many barbs. We'll put top rails onto all the fences we can. But you can't make any fence safe for those that are bound to butt head-first into barbed wire. Waymouth isn't the kind to do any butting. I'll tell you this, Harlan, and it's straight: if I help to make Waymouth our next Governor, I'll help to make him a good one—provided he needs any of ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... where the targets were set up. The archers shot in turn, aiming at an ordinary target, but Cloudeslee soon grew weary of this childish sport, and said aloud: "I shall never call a man a good archer who shoots at a target as large as a buckler. We have another sort of butt in my country, and that ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... lodged in his hip, causing him to be a cripple for several long months. It is needless to say Paysinger left the field. He said afterwards he "would have turned and cut the rascal's throat, but he was afraid he was only 'possuming' and might brain him with the butt of ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... satisfaction of seeming consistency. In him was eminently illustrated the characteristic strength and weakness of English religion, which naturally comes out in that form of it which is called Anglicanism; that poor Anglicanism, the butt and laughing-stock of all the clever and high-flying converts to Rome, of all the clever and high-flying Liberals, and of all those poor copyists of the first, far from clever, though very high-flying, who now ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... conspires to fill the soul with horror. But this impression on the convict soon passes away, who, feeling that he has here no reason to blush at the presence of any one, soon identifies himself with his situation. That he may not be the butt of the gross jests and filthy buffoonery of his fellows, he affects to participate in them; and soon, in tone and gesture, this conventional depravity gets hold of his heart. Thus, at Anvers, an ex-bishop experienced, at first, all the outpourings of the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... to that. It was sprung, and there was a goose's quill stickin' in it. Now, I leave it to you if a wild goose ain't too smart to go in a trap. And if he did, he couldn't get a feather caught by the butt ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... action, produced a small oblong object from his pocket, lighted the end of it with the glowing butt of one of my Corona Coronas, and placed it underneath the car. In a few moments all that remained of my three-thousand-guinea ten—cylinder twelve-seater was one small nut, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... 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
... The next moment the boy had set a match to the rags, and they were ablaze with wild sputterings and jets of red flame. Eagerly, but carefully, he lowered the fiery ball into the hole, paying out the string till it was evident that the tree was hollow almost down to the butt. ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... 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 ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... did me good, and it wasn't three 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 ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... you land the butt of your rifle brutally on his chest, and he will start up with ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... drove slowly, the horses were sweating at every pore. Pel Frost, then, must have overheard his wife's storm of reproaches, perhaps even her threats of violence. It had come to this, that he was the village laughing-stock, a butt of ridicule at the store ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... minor sword and bayonet wounds. The second squad had a harder fight, as the enraged mob, after spreading a bit, closed in. There was still plenty of fight in the rioters, who now realized how small a military force had assailed them. Dave Darrin was using the butt of the borrowed revolver in clubbing every strange head that got within reach of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... riddled. A few of the old soldiers opposed them and were wounded, but it fortunately happened that they were, to an inconceivable degree, ignorant of the right use of fire-arms—holding their muskets in their hands when they discharged them, without allowing the butt-end to rest against their shoulders or any part of their bodies.[48] This fact accounts for the comparatively little mischief they did in proportion to the quantity of ammunition ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... coffee disordered the action of the heart to a distressing degree. The friends and biographers of M. Jules Noriac are unanimous as to the fact that he was inveterate in the use of tobacco. He was wont to smoke to the butt-end, one after the other, the huge cigars sold by the French "Regie," and known as "Imperiales," and a cynic might opine that if the deceased gentleman had smoked fragrant Havanas in lieu of the abominable ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... her gray flannel shirt, her weather-beaten khaki Norfolk and riding-breeches, looking for all the world like an extraordinarily slim, extraordinarily shabby little boy just starting out to play. Up from the top of one riding-boot the butt of a revolver ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... his head with a sharp snarl: whereupon, in a flash, the man struck him on the snout with the butt ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... man saw. Scarce was I recovered from my confusion, when I saw a knight galloping towards me. All in black was he, and he rode a black horse. Not a word we spoke, but we dashed against each other, and at the first encounter I was unhorsed. Still not a word spoke the Black Knight, but passing the butt-end of his lance through my horse's reins, rode away, leaving me shamed and on foot. So I made my way back to the castle, and there I was entertained again that night right hospitably, none questioning me as to my adventure. The next morning, ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... thus situated are doubled. Exceptions: ebb, add, odd, egg, inn, bunn, err, burr, purr, butt, fizz, fuzz, buzz, and a few very uncommon words, for which see the chapter in ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... amusing. The agony depicted on the faces of the "raw"; the hauteur of the seasoned campaigner; the blunders of the clerks; the leggings of the lieutenants: made spectators risk martial law and laugh in the face of it. Ever and anon, the butt of a rifle would come in contact with some head other than that of him who carried the gun, and the victim—not the assailant—would be sharply reprimanded for omitting to "stand at ease." The marching and the turning movements were comical, too; ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... alone behind the usher, acutely conscious of the very grotesque figure he was presenting. I must have been dressed very much as Henry Fairchild was when he went to visit his little friend Master Noble. On returning from church, I threw my velvet cap into the water-butt, where, for all I know, it probably is still, and nothing would induce me to put on the velvet tunic or the floppy collars a second time. I bombarded my family with letters until I found myself equipped with a high hat and Eton ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty feet long, tipped with gleaming ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy's evident alarm lest she and Fred should be alone together, but it did not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor as ever. She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she did not enjoy his follies when ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... hand. During this encounter I raised my spear to kill a Mexican soldier just as he leveled his gun at me; I was advancing rapidly, and my foot slipping in a pool of blood, I fell under the Mexican trooper. He struck me over the head with the butt of his gun, knocking me senseless. Just at that instant a warrior who followed in my footsteps killed the Mexican with a spear. In a few minutes not a Mexican soldier was left alive. When the Apache war-cry had ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... his holsters, and striking those near him with the butt end, opened a way towards his lieutenant, who drew his sword; but at this moment the commissary-general, Vincel, and Captain Cappon threw themselves between the two and asked the cause of ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... let go his sheet and began to paddle back. This bolsa was nothing but a bundle of tule, or bullrush, bound together with grass-ropes in the shape of a cigar, about ten feet long and about two feet through the butt. With these the California Indiana cross streams of considerable size. When he came ashore, I gave him a good overhauling for attempting to desert, and put him to work getting breakfast. In due time we returned him to his ship, the Ohio. Subsequently, I made a ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... bid you; but you are God's sheep, not mine; <"Pastor est tui Dominus."> You find In this the pleasant pasture of our life Much you may eat without the least offence, Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 880 Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock Open great eyes at you and even butt, And thereupon you like your mates so well You cannot please yourself, offending them; Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep, You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats And strike the balance. Sometimes ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... was to ask for the loan of one of the donkeys, and to start back toward Jerusalem. But I had not more than thought of it when men's footsteps pattered on the yard dung, and an indubitable rifle-butt beat on the ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... the youngster cried, glowering into the speaker's face. "That the feller Buck called an outlaw passon?" he demanded. His right hand slipped to the butt of his gun. "Say you," he cried threateningly, "if you got anything to say I'm right here ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... way; and yet the days ran slowly, and Lady Grenville when at home was stupid enough to talk and think about nothing but her husband; and when she went to Stow, and left the Don alone in one corner of the great house at Bideford, what could he do but lounge down to the butt-gardens to show off his fine black cloak and fine black feather, see the shooting, have a game or two of rackets with the youngsters, a game or two of bowls with the elders, and get himself invited home to ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... carefully primed to prevent a "long fire." In taking aim in the offhand shots the gun's barrel was brought upward so the target was always in full view, and as the bead was drawn the body was tilted backward until an easy balance for the long barrel was found. The elbow of the arm against which the butt of the rifle rested was lifted high, awkwardly high, but this position prevented any nervous backward jerk or muscular movement of the arm that might sway the barrel. Only the weight of the forefinger was needed to spring the hair-trigger. ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... book-wars! The proof would not have altered the cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his sarcastic pleasantry; and this object was secured by Warburton's forty pages of preface, in which the chancellor stands to be buffeted like an ancient quintain, "a mere lifeless block." ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... poor, and the people had never heard in their lives, apparently, that a poor man on foot might not be able to talk German, which seemed to me an astonishing thing; and as I sat there ordering beer for myself and for a number of peasants (who but for this would have me their butt, and even as it was found something monstrous in me), I pondered during my continual attempts to converse with them (for I had picked up some ten words of their language) upon the folly of those who imagine the world to be grown smaller ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... the old lady, her eyes flashing as she brought the butt of the gun heavily upon the porch floor. "I'm very glad I did not know it; very glad, indeed; for I might have been tempted to give him what belonged to another, without waiting for him to disobey my order to go. I am very much troubled, sir, that this annoyance ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... according to their liking! Have you never regarded the affair from its practical side? Did you imagine that the girl's relations would support you? And would you yourself endure to be their pensioner, their butt, the scorn of the very domestics, for a poor son-in-law is the standing jest of the very flunkeys—you ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... boy. But as he spoke he gazed down at the face of the man who had tried to crash into him, and he shuddered. He knew that face. At the first glance it had seemed familiar, and at the second he had remembered perfectly. It was the face of the man who had struck him with the butt of a lance on that march in Mexico, when he was the prisoner of Cos. It seemed a vengeance dealt out by the hand of fate. He who had received the blow had given it in return, although not knowing at the time. Ned recognized the justice of fate, but he did not rejoice. Nor did he ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... panic, and shot about the pool as if pursued by a water fiend. Winched in slowly, it plunged into the bank, thought better of it, and ran up stream. At this crisis M. arrived, commandeered the net, and stood around offering advice. It was a monster eel, he said. Give him more butt; be careful; be more energetic; certainly, all right. The last remark was simply a receipt in form of a little speech from S., who had briefly bidden him to mind his own business. The unseen fish abruptly had given in. Was it collapse? Slowly, slowly it followed the revolution of the reel, both ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... thing That confesseth itself but the ape of a King; A tragical Caesar acted by a clown, Or a brass farthing stamped with a kind of crown; A bauble that shines, a loud cry without wool; Not Perillus nor Phalaris, but the bull; The echo of Monarchy till it come; The butt-end of a barrel in the shape of a drum; A counterfeit piece that woodenly shows; A golden effigies with a copper nose; The fantastic shadow of a sovereign head; The arms-royal reversed, and disloyal instead; In fine, he is one we may Protector call,— From ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... our village has become a butt For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er Our peaceful plain ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Wilson was taking Sidney to Schwitter's, making her the butt of garage talk! The smiles of the men were evil. Joe's hands grew cold, his head hot. A red mist spread between him and the line of electric lights. He knew Schwitter's, ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... smarting eyes and a heart that seemed to burst within his breast, he saw his house gutted of everything—his chests torn open, his tools taken, his wife's poor finery divided, and her twenty-dollar sewing machine the subject of a wrangle that ended in its being smashed under the butt of a gun. It was horrible to look on, impotent and raging, and see the fruit of three years the prey of these yelling savages; to realize that he must begin again from the bottom; that all his labor, and care, and thrift, had gone for nothing. Not daring to leave Fetuao ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... often conceal their motions when a great distance off. Thus, often, the woolly flocks as they crop the glad pastures on a hill, creep on whither the grass, jewelled with fresh dew, summons or invites each, and the lambs, fed to the full, gambol and playfully butt; all which objects appear to us from a distance to be blended together, and to rest like a white spot on a green hill. Again, when mighty legions fill with their movements all parts of the plains, waging the mimicry of war, the glitter ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... Lance, "I trust to be back to bonny Martindale before it is long, and to keep the greenwood, as I have been wont to do; for, as to Dame Debbitch, when they have not me for their common butt, Naunt and she will soon bend bows on each other. So here comes old Dame Ellesmere with your breakfast. I will but give some directions about the deer to Rough Ralph, my helper, and saddle my forest pony, and your honour's horse, which is no ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... disturb his serenity. By one means and another the proprietaries mustered a considerable party in the province, and the hatred of all these men was concentrated upon Franklin with extreme bitterness. He said that he was "as much the butt of party rage and malice," and was as much pelted with hostile prints and pamphlets, as if he were prime minister. Neither was the notion of a royal government looked upon with liking even by all those who ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... favour with anybody he robs; catch old Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of his trombone, and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... well-grown ones too—leaped up upon one of our negroes, who stood sentinel, before he saw him, at which he was heartily frighted, cried out, and ran into the tent. Our other man, who had a gun, had not presence of mind at first to shoot him, but struck him with the butt-end of his piece, which made him whine a little, and then growl at him fearfully; but the fellow retired, and, we being all alarmed, three of our men snatched up their guns, ran to the tent door, where they saw the great old lion by the fire of his ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... would never go there.... It's lonesome roads she'll be going and hiding herself away till the end will come, and they find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big spiders, maybe, and they putting their webs on her, in the butt of a ditch. ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge
... of her one a cord too give it mee without askin, to be sur Mrs Etoff herself, nor no other boddi can blam mee for exceptin such a thing when it fals in mi waye. I beg ure Onur not to menshion ani thing of what I haf sad, for I wish ure Onur all thee gud luk in the wurld; and I don't cuestion butt thatt u will haf Madam Sofia in the end; butt ass to miself ure onur nose I kant bee of ani farder sarvis to u in that matar, nou bein under thee cumand off anuther parson, and nott mi one mistress, I begg ure Onur to say nothing of what past, and belive ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... and I was always dead tired on duty. Once I worked forty-three hours at a stretch and after that I had to do a guard in our trench. I felt sleepy all of a sudden. I pinched myself and banged the butt of my rifle on my toes, but everything seemed to swim round me. Then, I don't know how, I went off to sleep. I was awakened by an officer who shook me and swore at me. I was a bit dazed at first and then suddenly it ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... round and round like a demented spirit, so fast that its short arms with the blobs on their ends made a little dark circle in the air. A pool of steamy water lying in the grass beneath the waste-pipe gave off white wreaths that wavered upwards and fell again, while from a huge black butt upon wheels the greedy boiler sucked up more and more through a coiling tube that glittered like ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... last amen From the canting lips of saints that would be; And some once owned by "the best of men," Who had proved-no better than they should be. 'Mong others, a poet's fame I spied, Once shining fair, now soakt and black— "No wonder" (an imp at my elbow cried), "For I pickt it out of a butt of sack!" ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... thow woldest be done unto,' no place here he cane have, Off all he is remised, no mane wyll hym reseave; Butt pryvate wealthe, thatt cursed wreche, and most vyle slave, Over all he is imbraced, and ffast ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... glass he placed some caustic soda and in another some pyrogallic acid, from each of which he took just a drop, as he had done before, inclining the tubes to let the fluid gravitate to the throttle end. Finally in the flame he sealed both the tip and butt of the tubes. ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... I saw them finally. Followed them into a jewelry shop. That lawyer bought her a wrist watch. So I bought one just like it. I thought perhaps we could—" "Give it to me," growled Clutching Hand, seizing it the moment Slim displayed it. "And don't butt in—see?" ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... around asking other men how they expect to meet their obligations a year from now, do you? Then why should you think you've got a right to butt in on my private business, I'd like to know? Put my plane in your cow shed and go to work for you! Huh! I've caused you trouble and expense enough, I should think, without saddling myself on you like that. I appreciate all you have done—but I absolutely will not get under ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... came and sat himself down between them, on which our general gave him a box in the ear and thrust him away. Some of his comrades came presently round our gate, drawing their knives and sables, [hangers,] and began to swagger. Taking the butt-ends of our pikes and halberts, and some faggot sticks, we drove them to an arrack house, where they shut the door upon us; but we forced it open, knocked some of them down, and carried them prisoners to our general. Soon after another troop of Hollanders came down the street to take part with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... ease with which I supposed they had mastered the details of their work. Later I came to know of the difficulty that confronts the young men, raw from the Officers' Training Corps, when they take up their preliminary duties as commanders of trained soldiers. No "rooky" fresh to the ranks is the butt of so many jokes and such biting sarcasm as the young officer is subjected to when he takes his place as ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... open fan. These piles are never completed until they are higher than the woman's arm can reach — several of the last bunches being tossed in place, guided only by the tips of the fingers touching the butt of the straw. The women with their heads loaded high with ripened grain are striking figures — and one wonders at ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... 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 animal ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... in the tenth month. The hills of Hizen soon began to sink below the horizon, but no sooner were they out of sight of land than a great storm arose. The ships tossed about, and began to butt each other like bulls, and it seemed as though the fleet would be driven back; when lo! Kai Riu O sent shoals of huge sea-monsters and immense fishes that bore up the ships and pushed their sterns forward with their great snouts. The ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... the stream here was almost due east. The surrounding country continued low and swampy. Tamarack was the chief timber and much of it was straight and fine, with some trees fully twelve inches in diameter at the butt, and fifty feet ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... 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 ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... war struck the land! Why the barefooted band It just nailed up that door: and the very next day, With master for Cap'en, went marchin' away; And Bally the butt of the whole Wabash band. But he bore with it all, yet once firmly said, "When I get back home, I'm ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... going on in this wild, stupid way, and treating me as if I were some stupid boy whom you meant to make your butt." ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... no answer. I felt that he was watching the struggle which was going on behind my back. I heard Isobel shriek, and the sound maddened me. I left it to the Baron to do his worst. I sprang backwards, and brought the butt end of my revolver down upon the skull of the man who was dragging her across the lawn. Then I passed my arm round her waist, and called out once more to the Baron who had passed through the gate, and was ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... everything you would like to have thought and said, but did not," and, "Introducing to each other words which never had thought of being acquainted." Both of these perhaps hit the modern forms of the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Hans, seizing an electric torch, dashed to the door, and pulling it wide, rushed forth, his torch lighting the way before him. Before he even had time to see the men gathering there and cry an alarm, a blow from the butt of Carter's revolver stretched ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... studying "the Shepherd" pretty close, fully to appreciate three other persons, all greater, and one infinitely greater, than himself; namely, Wilson, Lockhart, and Scott. To the two first he was a client in the Roman sense, a plaything, something of a butt, and an invaluable source of inspiration or at least suggestion. Towards the last he occupied a very curious position, never I think quite paralleled elsewhere—the position of a Boswell who would fain be a Boswell and is not ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... news of so magnificent a coup would create upon the minds of the rest of the Slave Squadron. The Psyche, from her phenomenal lack of speed, and general unsuitability for the service upon which she was employed, had, with her crew, become the butt and laughing-stock of every stupid and scurrilous jester on the coast, and many a time had we been made to writhe under the lash of some more than ordinarily envenomed gibe; but now the laugh was to be on our side; we were going ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a mistake in not placing the butt of the spout against something solid. And so, after putting in a couple of pounds of powder, he turned the spout up and rested the end upon the ground, propping it against the pump. Then he lighted the slow-match, and the crowd scattered. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Pietro Galletti, misled by a pleasing self-delusion that he was born a painter, made himself the butt and ridicule of all the artists of Bologna. When they extolled his works and called him the greatest painter in the world, he took their irony for truth, and strutted with greater self-complacency. On one occasion, the students assembled ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... time the Baron, with the help of Mr. Saunderson, had indued a pair of jack-boots of large dimensions, and now invited our hero to follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample staircase, tapping each huge balustrade as he passed with the butt of his massive horsewhip, and humming, with the air of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... said belligerently. "I'm not going to do an investigation of some silly subject like The Transience of Venusian Immigrants in Relation to the Martian Polar Ice Cap Cycle. Solarian sociologists are the butt of enough ridicule now. Do something like that and for the rest of your life you get knocking of the knees whenever anybody inquires about the specialty you worked in and threatens to read ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... was truly awful. Our people told us, that these formidable animals frequently upset canoes in the river, when every one in them was sure to perish. These came so close to us, that we could reach them with the butt-end of a gun. When I fired at the first, which I must have hit, every one of them came to the surface of the water, and pursued us so fast over to the north bank, that it was with the greatest difficulty imaginable we could keep before ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... German states. As for England, she's scarcely to be feared; if she budged ever so little I should send a hundred thousand men to India. Add to that I should send the Sultan back to Mecca and the Pope to Jerusalem, belaboring their backs with the butt end of a rifle. Eh? Europe would soon be clean. Come, Badingue, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... country stores, and listen to the graphic country talk. I heard the greetings of old friends, and their minute details of neighborhood affairs, their delightful jokes and Munchausen-like reports of tracts of timber-pines ever so many feet through at the butt. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Win coolly. "I believe it was an English admiral who backed Dewey up at Manila when the Germans tried to butt in. After that battle somebody wrote a poem about it and wrote the truth, too. ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... and reel Wi' her he wad be babbin'; When she sat down, then he sat down, And till her wad be gabbin'; Where'er she gaed, or butt or ben, The coof wad never leave her, Aye cacklin' like a clockin' hen, But Jenny dang ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... sought to prosecute me on the charge of corruption, for which I had once already been prosecuted, condemned, and punished. Confidently I demanded my release, and Philip must have ground his teeth in rage to see his prey escaping him, to see himself the butt of scorn and contempt for the wrongs that it became clear he ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini |
