"Contraption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... serene! Wait a minute and I'll take a look at your reservoir. I can see it from the tent where you got this talkin' contraption strung. You say the water stopped ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... I looked up jest now, an' dere he be, in dat air-contraption ob his'n he calls de Hummin' Burd. He's ketched up fast on de balloon shed roof, an' dere he's hangin' wif sparks an' flames a-shootin' outer de airship suffin' scandalous! It's jest spittin' fire, dat's what it's a-doin', an' ef somebody don't do suffin' fo' Massa Tom mighty quick, dere ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... can, just as well as not, eh, Felix? Suppose you go out right now, and I'll finish the milking. In the morning I want to take a look at that contraption myself. I've seen you boys sailing around more'n a little, but never got close up to examine the aeroplane. Well, I guess all the money going couldn't tempt me to go with one of you. Skip along, ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... tin from his pack and with a few magic passes turned it into a roof-shaped structure resting on its side on two short steel legs. Another twist of the wrist lifted a little tin shelf into place. This contraption was set about a yard from the glowing fire and the pan of biscuits was placed on the shelf. As I stared at the open-work baker the biscuits puffed into lightness and slowly turned a rich tempting brown. After we had eaten the last one and the camp was put in order, we sat watching ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... for efficiency and astuteness the British Secret Service entrusted its mysteries to an antiquated contraption ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... missie, that you can drive the contraption so as not to run away with us? Old folks is tetchy, like a basket of pullet eggs," he said, as Sam seated him in the back seat and sprang to ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and began to settle nearby, and there was Van Artevelde leaning over its rail and fiddling frantically with whatever it was that stuck up on it—a weird, angled contraption of pipes and belts topped by a whirring blade. A boy stood at his shoulder and tried to help him. As the platform descended to a few meters above ground, the Dutchman slashed at the contraption, the cut ends of belts whipped out wildly and the platform slid to the ground with a rush. It hit ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay
... napkin, a cup an' saucer, a little chiney coffee-pot, a little pitcher of cream, some loaf sugar in a silver dish, a little pancake of butter, a silver knife, two little spoons like what the childern play with, a silver pepper duster an' salt dish, an' an orange. Oh, yes, the' was another contraption—a sort of a chiney wineglass. The feller set down the tray an' says, 'Anythin' else ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... wouldn't work, and that, even if they would work, would be of little consequence. There was an attempt to make a self-oiler for buggy wheels, a half-finished contrivance that was supposed to keep cordwood stacked in neat rows; an automatic contraption to prevent coffeepots from burning; a cornsheller that would all but work; a molasses faucet with an alcohol burner which was supposed to make the sirup flow faster—but which instead sometimes blew up and burned down grocery ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... that. The vertical-rays-of-the-tropical-sun (pronounced as one word to save time after you have heard and said it a thousand times) are supposed to get tangled and lost somewhere between the two hats. It is not, however, a good contraption to go in all day when the ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Miss Prissy is what you call a kinder crank," answered Mother Mayberry as she paused at the foot of the steps. "A married woman have got to be the hub of a family-wheel, but a old maid can be the outside crank that turns the whole contraption backwards if she has a mind to. I wish Miss Prissy had a little more understanding of the children, 'cause the rub all comes on Mis' Pike, and she's fair wore out with it. But I must be a-going so as to be the sooner a-coming. I wisht you would tell Tom Mayberry to go ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... not know she had one, and followed her into her retreat to see it. But alas! it was a grievous disappointment, being nothing but a drawer set in some sort of a fancy contraption of chintz-covered pasteboard, like a toy bureau, which stood on her work table. No doubt it contained buttons, and was serviceable. But a button box! To call it that were to libel a noble ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... fully occupied. She did start to put this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to receive the pressure of a foot—if one could reach them—and as similar as the steps of a stair. This involved a further hesitation, and ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... made his audiences accept some of his fatuous platitudes as great utterances, nor was it the histrionic talent alone of Richard Mansfield that enabled him to wring success from such an obvious theatrical contraption as Prince Karl. Both Webster, with his fathomless eyes and his ponderous voice, and Mansfield, with his compelling personality, ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... moved on four legs. Six tentacles curled outward from their cubical bodies. One of the machines stood close before him. A tentacle shot out from the object and rubbed his head. How strange it felt upon his brow. Instinctively he obeyed the impulse to shove the contraption of metal from ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones
... with the lever. He'd pried loose one of the wires that hooked to the transformer, and short-circuited it, not knowing, of course, just what he was doing. The result was that when Tode pressed that lever, instead of blowing the whole contraption to pieces, he got a couple of billion volts of electricity through his body, combined with a larger amperage than has ever been imagined. It burned him to a few grease spots. He simply—vanished. You don't remember what you did at the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... hairpin. Maybe he did. But they got oot o' their cells anyway, climbed the rope one at a time, crawled up the airshaft and out. Just look at that airshaft—it would hold a half a dozen men at a time nearly. They might as well have left an open door for them as have that contraption,—no wire protection over the ends, nothing but hinged lids that anyone ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... every other day. Sometimes it is brown bread that is the way to salvation. If you eat brown bread you will never die, or at any rate you will live until everybody is tired of you. Sometimes it is a new tax or a new sort of bath that is the secret key to the whole contraption. For one period he could talk of nothing but dried milk; for another, acetic acid was the thing. Rub yourself with acetic acid and you would be as invulnerable to the ills of the body as Achilles was after he had been dipped by Thetis in the waters ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... second," announced Mr. Yollop, backing gingerly toward the table. With his free hand he felt for and found the rather elaborate contraption that furnished him with the means to counteract his auricular deficiencies. The hand holding the revolver wobbled a bit; nevertheless, the little black hole at which the dazed robber stared as if fascinated was amazingly steadfast in its regard for the ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon |
