"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Jack is a curious fellow in some ways—some call him a crank, but he isn't that. Still, he is something of a 'character,' and absolutely unconventional. I remember his making a bet, once, that he would punch out a boastful pugilist at the National Sporting Club—no, it wasn't ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... early date conjured up hard feeling, and divided household against household, and family against family. Among these Garrison was regarded as a hero, and to some extent as a martyr, while the bitterness of his invective earned for him the title of fanatic and crank from the thousands who disagreed with him, and who thought he was advocating legislation in ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... piece of heavy iron rod which we procured from the blacksmith at Lumberville. Under Bill's direction the blacksmith hammered a U-shaped bend at the center of the shaft, so as to form a crank, and then he flattened the rod near the ends (see Fig. 284). When the shaft was set in its place these flat spots lay just outside of the bearing boards, and then, to keep the shaft from sliding back and forth in its bearings, we fastened ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... this: What is the figure representing the acceleration of the motion of a piston, controlled by a crank which revolves with a uniform velocity? I stated it to be a right-angled triangle, and indicated, as I supposed, clearly enough, a simple method by which this could be shown. Your correspondent claims ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a true brother, and that I will in all things obey the commands of the great tawney prince, and keep his council, and not divulge the secrets ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... valve expansion gear. Referring to the general drawing of the engine, it will be seen that the cylinder is bolted directly to the end of the massive cast iron frame, and the piston coupled direct to the crank by the steel piston rod and crosshead and the connecting rod. The connecting rod is 28 feet long center to center, and 12 inches diameter at the middle. The crankshaft is made of forged Bolton steel, and is 21 inches diameter at the part where the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... prepared to attack. Russ called to his rowers to be ready to rescue the girls and the young actor if necessary, and then, with the desire for a good film ever uppermost in his mind, he continued to grind away at the camera crank. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... but a hermit like those of the fourth century—he was naturally and constitutionally so odd. Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau were three consecrated cranks: rather be crank than president. All the cranks ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... person of great influence. He obtained a grant of the monopoly of steam-navigation from the State of New York. Fulton took out two patents for his invention; but unfortunately they were not adequate to his protection, for they covered only the application of the steam-engine to the turning of a crank in producing the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... down, pitched upon another door. The farmer's wife, fearing that this nest would be destroyed also, drove a large nail into the woodwork beneath as a support. But Dame Swallow could not put up with this interference, and, leaving the second nest, she chose the crank of a bell-wire in the kitchen. Without more ado she built, laid eggs, and hatched them, though the farmer gave a supper to his men while she was still house-keeping, and while the sheep-shearers enjoyed their noisy feast, the little pair flew in and out, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... chauffeur's arrangements for the trip, and looking with approval over the entire automobile, the whir of the engine suddenly gasped, struggled to catch its breath, and then ceased altogether. The chauffeur, perfectly unconcerned, swung himself off from his seat and sauntered around to "crank her up," but his expression of assurance soon changed, for ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... weeks he had round his ankles a chain which, rising in two loops, was fastened to a band round his waist; and he was set to turn "the crank". ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... one of these days," said Beale cryptically. "I can tell you something else, gentlemen, and this is more of a suspicion than a certainty, that there is not a crank scientist who has ever gone under through drink or crime in the whole of this country, aye, and America and France, too, that isn't working for him. And now, gentlemen, if you will ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... and Beethoven did not loom nearly so large before the eyes of the people as these composers do: the names of Salieri, Marschner, Meyerbeer, Spontini, Spohr and Weber would be much more familiar than his; even in Vienna he was regarded mainly as a deaf, surly old crank who had the support of highly placed personages. So there is the amazing fact: Wagner, who worshipped Weber's operas, had not, when fourteen years old, heard of the existence of a musician a thousand times mightier than Weber. The great hour ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... Mulbridge, and Libby drew up in front of it without having had to alarm the village with inquiries. Grace forbade his help in dismounting, and ran to the door, where she rang one of those bells which sharply respond at the back of the panel to the turn of a crank in front; she observed, in a difference of paint, that this modern improvement had displaced an oldfashioned knocker. The door was opened by a tall and strikingly handsome old woman, whose black eyes still kept their keen ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... exclaimed, when, by the light of a held-up lantern, he had made the necessary adjustment. "We will see if it won't go. Of course you can't use the self-starter, since your storage battery is out of order, but we can crank ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... who adopts "any presentiment, any extravagance as most in nature," is not commonly called a Transcendentalist, but is known colloquially as a "crank." The person who does not thank, by word or look, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire or water, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... wish have you with me in Santa Barbara," she said. "But Roberto is what the Americanos call 'crank.' No is use asking him. Santa Barbara no is like in the old time, but is nice sleep place, where no have the neuralgia, and nothing to bother. Then always I have the few old families that are left, and we are so friends,—see each other every day, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... saw the crew like pedlers with their packs Altho' it were too dear to pay for eggs; Walk crank along with coffin on their backs While in their arms they bow ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... producing distinctly anti-Christian plays which might very well cause riots, which certainly would prove a serious counterblast, if discreetly handled, to the efforts of the Church and Stage enthusiasts. One can conceive every kind of crank with money producing a play to advocate his particular ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... like it better still yet. Alymer and I have always rather laughed at Quin, and regarded him as a crank. But he's not. It's just that he loves humanity, and he gets quite close up to the core of it down there, even if it is half-smothered in vice and dirt. I don't believe he'll ever take orders. It's partly ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... purposes." Now what are the real facts? James Watt, in 1769, patented the double-acting engine, which was the first step by which the steam-engine was made capable of being used to propel a vessel. In 1780, James Pickard patented what is no other than the present connecting rod and crank, and a fly-wheel, the second and last great improvement in the steam-engine, which enabled it to be of service in propelling vessels.[CI] In 1785, William Symington took out a patent, by which he obtained, with economy of fuel, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... be quite ten days now since I last saw him at a group-meeting of the Jewish Comrades. I fear he is developing a failing common to many of you English Anarchists; he is becoming something of a crank. He talked to me a lot about vegetarianism and such matters. It would be a thousand pities were he to lose himself on such a track, for he has both intellect and character. He is unswerving where principle is ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... information which our agents could not obtain. One timely note from them, at a critical moment in a certain deal, saved all of five millions to Mr. Hale. At another time they sent us a telegram which probably was the means of preventing an anarchist crank from taking my employer's life. We captured the man on his arrival and turned him over to the police, who found upon him enough of a new and powerful ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... do is to hire that blind piano-pounder who thumps for the fraternity dances, put a neat red-haired girl in a box on the sidewalk, get one of the football team who's working his way through college to turn the crank, and put ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... highly. That model was the result of Robert's fishing excursions with Christopher Gumpf; and when he returned from his aunt's he told Christopher that he must make a set of paddles to work at the sides of the boat, to be operated by a double crank, and then they could propel the old gentleman's fishing-boat with greater ease. Two arms or pieces of timber were then fastened together at right angles, with a paddle at each end, and the crank was attached to the boat across it near the stern, with a paddle operating ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... painted crimson and black, of the type known as a runabout, which she recognized as belonging to Mr. Ditmar. Indeed, at that moment Mr. Ditmar himself was stepping off the end of the bridge and about to start the engine when, dropping the crank, he walked to the dashboard and apparently became absorbed in some mechanisms there. Was it the glance cast in her direction that had caused him to delay his departure? Janet was seized by a sudden and rather absurd desire to retreat, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of Selwood's secretaryship to Jacob Herapath. Herapath was a well-known man in London. He was a Member of Parliament, the owner of a sort of model estate of up-to-date flats, and something of a crank about such matters as ventilation, sanitation, and lighting. He himself, a bachelor, lived in one of the best houses in Portman Square; when he engaged Selwood as his secretary he made him take a convenient set of rooms in Upper Seymour Street, close ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... went on, "no intelligent person could fail to be interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant. And people of our class owe it to society to take part in politics. Victor Dorn is a crank, but he's right about some things—and he's right in saying that we of the upper class are parasites upon the masses. They earn all the wealth, and we take a large part of it away from them. And it's plain stealing unless we give some service in return. For ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... accepted usage a machine is distinguished from a tool by its complexity, and by the combination and coordination of powers and movements for the production of a result. A chisel by itself is a tool; when it is set so as to be operated by a crank and pitman, the entire mechanism is called a machine; as, a mortising-machine. An apparatus may be a machine, but the word is commonly used for a collection of distinct articles to be used in connection or combination for a certain purpose—a mechanical equipment; as, the apparatus ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... rudder is communicated to the steam cut-off by means of the shaft, C, crank, J, rod, K, crank, I, and the hollow valve spindle. When the tiller is amidships the valve handle, H, is at right angles to the cylinder, and parallel to the tiller. By moving the lever, H, to right or left, steam is admitted to one end or the other of ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... "It would have made him turn upon the captain. Nobody likes to be called a coward even by a crank. It would have regularly upset him for the work. Now then, I'll just give those two fellows the word, and then pick out the ponies. Next I'll lie down till the roast's ready. We'll all three have a good square meal, and sleep again till it's time to call Mr Dickenson and give him his corn. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... added in a calmer tone, "I got one crank call that's got me thinking. The guy got all the way through to me before he'd talk, and that takes some getting, what with the salaries I pay people to keep ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... performers," said one boy to another "Wonder what that feller with the big hat does?" observed a second. "Turns the crank, guess," ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... . All right. . . I am the man who killed old Norcross . . . Wait! Hold the wire; I'm not the usual crank . . . Oh, there isn't the slightest danger. I've just been discussing it with a detective friend of mine. I killed the old man at 2:30 A. M. two weeks ago to-morrow. . . . Have a drink with you? Now, hadn't you better leave that kind of talk to your funny man? Can't ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... fun of him. They thought he was a crank, if not downright crazy and said that his father was very foolish indeed to encourage him in wasting so much time and money in a way that every person with common sense could see was worse ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... painted a slate-gray, and her ballast was so adjusted that with the seven men who manned her on board, one to steer, one to look after the torpedo, and five to turn the propeller crank, her low hatch scarcely rose above the water. In that condition, and especially at night, she looked like a plank floating on the surface. By hard and conscientious labor her five man-power engine could shove her along at about a speed of four knots. Although the order of General ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... loves, of course! My neighbor's a sort of crank and insisted on expressing himself in this way. Come, I want you to see ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... had one thousand five hundred acres of land. He had several farms. Little Hill and Creek farms. They had a rock walk from the kitchen to the house. I slept in a little trunnel bed under my mother's mistress' bed. The bed was corded and had a crank. They used no slats in them days. We called Master Bob Young's wife Miss Nippy; her name was Par/nel/i/py. They was good old people. His boys was rough. They drunk and wasted ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... cylinder with a slide door. The axis, or shaft, of the cylinder had bearings on a frame which passed outside the furnace, while the cylinder went down into the fire pit, the top of which could be covered over. In this position it could be turned by means of a crank on the end of a shaft The only means of testing was by the escape of the steam or aroma, whichever predominated, passing out through the perforations at the top; but so expert was the operator and so quick to detect the aroma, that he seldom had to return the cylinder to the fire to produce a satisfactory ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the crank, but there is no responding quiver. Something has gone wrong; we can't move, and it is not much comfort to remember that, if we could, we should not know where to go. At least we should be cooler in motion than sitting still ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... simply a Gunther rule thirty feet in length wrapped on a cylinder and turned by a crank. Gunther's rule is a measure on which logarithms are represented by spaces, so that by adding and subtracting spaces on this cylinder Mr. Wright could perform the longest sums in multiplication and division in two or three ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... noticing that the great man was listening while he spoke. "I 'lows you'll git free o' this rope. I mean ye to—after awhiles. Ye'll keep y'r monkey tricks till after we're clear o' here. Then ye'll do best to go dead easy. Fer that crank's comin' right along, an', I 'lows, if I was you I'd as lief lie here and rot, an' feed the gophers wi' my carcass as run up agin him. I tell ye, pard, ther's a cuss hangin' around wher' Nick Westley ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... bride-elect can show that they will have over a certain income to live upon. In a republican army like ours no man ought to be commissioned unless he will agree to live on less than a fixed amount for each successive grade." They called him "Crank Cranston" in the Eleventh for quite a while, but without affecting in the faintest degree his sturdy stand. Margaret's gowns continued simple and inexpensive, and their mode of living modest as any subaltern's, and many women spoke of them as "close" and "mean," but many men wished ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... at this point that the fatal defect of Mr. Collins's mechanism appears. But for the artisan's hand, the complicated work would not start at all, and we perceive that, if he lifted it for a moment from the crank, the painfully contrived dream would drop to pieces, and the beautiful bad woman would come to a jerky stand-still in the midst of her most atrocious development. A perpetual literary motion is therefore out of the question, so far as Mr. Collins is concerned; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... place in freezer. Add lemon juice after freezer has been packed. Add juice rapidly and with violent stirring, then immediately place in dasher and turn the crank until frozen. ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... was entirely of Lorna's own making. Had she been more expansive she would have readily enough found friends. No one knew of the misery of her home life, and she was simply judged as what her schoolfellows thought her—a queer-tempered crank who refused to join in the general fun of the place, and in consequence was left ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... canvas-covered case that looked like a knapsack. It had a crank on one side and a pair of electrical connections. "It's not a battery," he explained. "It's ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... in a small candy store across the street from Gluck's shop. He used to come in and drink ice-cream sodas and lemon-squashes, and stare at her. It seems the girl did not care for him, and merely played with him. He was "queer," she said; and at another time she called him a crank when describing how he sat at the counter and peered at her through his spectacles, blushing and stammering when she took notice of him, and often leaving ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... was the verdict of Aunt Jane, overheard by Roy, who was not supposed to understand. "They will grow up without an inch of moral backbone. And you can't say I didn't warn you. Lady Despard's a crank, of course; but Nevil is a fool to allow it. Goodness knows he was bad enough, though he was reared on the good old lines. And you are not giving his son a chance. The sooner the boy's packed off to school the better. I shall tell ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... and mounted by his comrades, and that he has but to push a lever to set it in motion or stop it. The machine, in spite of its miraculous power and productiveness, has no mystery for him. The labourer in the electrical works, who has but to turn a crank on a dial to send miles of motive power to tramways, or light the lamps of a city, has but to say, like the God of Genesis, "let there be light," and there is light. Never sorcery more fantastic was imagined, yet for him this sorcery is a simple and natural thing. He would be greatly surprised ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... continues to play the crank. It was evidently written in his stars. When will he turn his last somersault and stand on his feet ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... for a spin in the park. Stoop, crank your automobile. Step into the machine. Ride around the track; blow your horn. Pump up your flat tire. Bend and stretch arms upward to rest them. Ride home. Breathe in the good fresh air. Put your ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... here and there evidences of the difficulty men found in giving up the scriptural idea of direct personal interference by agents of Heaven in the ordinary phenomena of Nature: thus, in a noted map of the sixteenth century representing the earth as a sphere, there is at each pole a crank, with an angel laboriously turning the earth by means of it; and, in another map, the hand of the Almighty, thrust forth from the clouds, holds the earth suspended by a rope and spins it with his thumb and fingers. Even as late as the middle of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the work of a crank or a practical joker,' I replied; and I thought it possible, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... cried, and bolted out and turned the crank. "I'm awfully sorry," he added, when, the engine running, he resumed his place. "I had forgotten all about these pretty things. Out there a car is a sacred chariot set apart for gods in brass hats, and the ordinary Tommy looks on them with ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... especially since the talk of the flight across the Atlantic, a means has been found to allow the aviator, or some helper with him, to start the engine once it has stalled in midair. This is accomplished by means of a sprocket chain gear and a crank connected to the engine shaft. The turning handle is within ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... the bent end of a lever, of about twelve or fifteen feet long, with a swingle-tree at the other end. About three feet from the bent end, it receives, on a pin, three horizontal bars of iron, which at their other end lay hold of one corner of a quadrantal crank (like a bell crank) moving in a vertical plane, to the other corner of which is hooked the vertical handle of the pump. The crank turns on its point as a centre, by a pin or pivot passing through it. The horse moving the lever horizontally ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... charmed Euphemia. It was so cute, so complete. There were no interviews with disagreeable trades-people, none of the ordinary annoyances of housekeeping. Everything seemed to be done with a bell, a speaking-tube or a crank. ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... pounding, she furiously worked the little crank that opened the window. It came unstuck from the frame with a tiny explosion of dust and a zing like that of the watch, only louder. A moment later it swung open wide and a puff of incredibly fresh air caressed her face and the inside of her nostrils, stinging her eyes ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... hand more swift and sure The greater labor might be brought To answer to his inward thought. And as he labored, his mind ran o'er The various ships that were built of yore, And above them all, and strangest of all Towered the Great Harry, crank and tall, Whose picture was hanging on the wall, With bows and stern raised high in air, And balconies hanging here and there, And signal lanterns and flags afloat, And eight round towers, like those that frown From some old castle, looking down Upon the drawbridge and the moat. And he ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... shoulders disdainfully. "That's all right enough, I reckon. There's a hundred thousand dollars in the syndicate. Maw put in twenty thousand, and Custer's bound to make it go—particularly as there's some talk of a compromise. But Malcolm's a crank, and I reckon if it wasn't for the compromise the syndicate wouldn't have much show. Why, he didn't even know that ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I said, after about five minutes' restful silence, trying to crank the conversation ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... stakes and go out West, where there's patriotism and decency still, and where they'd hang one of these foreign anarchists to the nearest lamp-post, yes, sir, and this fellow Frazer, too, if he encouraged them in their crank notions. Got no right in the country, anyway. Better deport 'em if they ain't satisfied with the way we run things. I won't stand for preaching anarchism, and never knew any decent place that would, never since I was a baby in Canada. Yes, sir, I mean it; I'm an old man, but I'd pull up ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... interest in both. I never grew weary of the conventions, though I attended all the sessions, lasting, sometimes, until eleven o'clock at night. The fiery eloquence of the abolitionists, the amusing episodes that occurred when some crank was suppressed and borne out on the shoulders of his brethren, gave sufficient variety to the proceedings to keep the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Bellerding's house is a museum of obsolete musical instruments. De Gay collects venomous insects from all over the world; no harmless ones need apply. Terriberry has a mania for old railroad tickets. Some are really very curious. I've often wished I had the time to be a crank. It's a happy life." ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... some one outside, and then turning about let himself down to arm's-length and dropped to the ground. "Thank God!" he said again. "The two men who were to have come with me didn't show up. I waited as long as I dared, and then came on with only the chauffeur. He's waiting outside by the car ready to crank up when I give the word. The car's just a few yards away, headed out for the road. How are we to get back ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... as a crank, and I guess I deserve the reputation. But just because I feel rotten doesn't mean I have to take it ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... trials at Dublin, 1883, those destined to the assassin's knife were spoken of by approvers as persons to be removed, and their death constantly described as their 'removal.' In Sussex it is never said of a man that he is drunk. He may be 'tight,' or 'primed,' or 'crank,' or 'concerned in liquor,' nay, it may even be admitted that he had taken as much liquor as was good for him; but that he was drunk, oh never. [Footnote: 'Pransus' and 'potus,' in like manner, as every Latin ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... Pertell, and Ruth and Alice started the "business," or acting, called for. Russ was grinding away at the crank of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... packages, Kennedy took three black boxes. They seemed to have an opening in front, while at one side was a little crank, which, as nearly as I could make out, was operated by clockwork released by an electric contact. His first problem seemed to be to dispose the boxes to the best advantage at various angles about the counter where the Kimberley Queen was on exhibition. With so much bric-a-brac and other ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... his "History of Frederick the Great," book ii. chap. vii. that this saying of Alphonso about Ptolemy's astronomy, "that it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice," is still remembered by mankind,—this and no other of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... and shouts of warning. He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the chute and rush, end first, earthward. Expectant silence fell, broken only by the vicious snarl of a flying windlass crank. But in an instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that reverberated again and again from the barren hills about. A vast all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like smoke from an explosion. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... seemed to catch anything beyond eels, turtles, sun-fish, and a few two inch bass, the name of which they did not even know, and I got into their bad graces by telling them they ought to return the bass into the lake. They thought I was a crank, in fact one of them told me so. These men were salt-water sports, and one man who came there from Newark, N. J., was actually baiting with shrimps for fresh-water bass and had no less than eight hooks upon his line, all baited with shrimps. This man ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... singularly close observer. On the whole I think you had better reach her through her father. Do you play croquet?" He replied that he was considered something of an expert in that line. That, then, was surely the best way. John Darrow was known in the neighbourhood as a "crank" on the subject of croquet. He had spent many hundreds of dollars on his grounds. His wickets were fastened to hard pine planks, and these were then carefully buried two feet deep. The surface of the ground, he was wont to descant, must be of a particular sort of gravel, sifted just so, and ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... not a crank," said Mrs. Cristie; "you can't turn him. When he has made up his mind about anything, that matter is settled and fixed just as if it were screwed down ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... engine constructed by Mr. Barnum for this purpose, is well adapted to its place, and has several peculiarities whereby the valves, and consequent reciprocal motion of the engine are regulated without the use of a crank or fly-wheel: but of these we cannot at present give a minute description. The whole of this apparatus evinces much scientific ability of the inventor, Daniel Barnum, Esq., resident at present in this city, and who has received many certificates from ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... was not at all to Manuel's taste, despite her affectionate caresses; but La Goya was compromised with El Soldadito, a man with a position, as she said, for when he went to work he turned the crank of an handorgan. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... twenty-volume edition, and that critics in his own country and in Europe would rank him with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yet that is precisely what has happened. Our literature has no more curious story than the evolution of this local crank into his rightful place of mastership. In his lifetime he printed only two books, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers"—which was even more completely neglected by the public than Emerson's "Nature"—and "Walden," now one of the classics, but only beginning to be talked about when its ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... "'You cold-blooded crank,' I said to him, as I waved the torch. 'I admire your devotion to science, but are you waiting for that thing to ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Charlottetown. His farm had been bought by a certain Mr. J. A. Harrison, whose name, and the fact that he was a New Brunswick man, were all that was known about him. But before he had been a month in Avonlea he had won the reputation of being an odd person . . . "a crank," Mrs. Rachel Lynde said. Mrs. Rachel was an outspoken lady, as those of you who may have already made her acquaintance will remember. Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people . . . and that is the essential characteristic of a ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... shaft in as direct a manner as possible without allowing them to act on the cooler casting. Each cylinder is double acting, the pistons being coupled to the shaft by three connecting rods, the two outer ones working upon crank pins fixed to overhung disks, and the center one on a crank formed in the shaft. The slide valves for all the cylinders are driven from two weigh shafts, the main valve shaft being actuated by a follow crank, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... Ongley, Dillingham notified the Stratford management that Miss Marlowe had received a threatening letter from a crank who might possibly appear and make an attempt on her life. When Ongley entered the hotel lobby innocently carrying the gun he was beset by four huge porters and borne to the ground. The police were summoned and he was hauled off to jail, where he spent ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... did. If I could only get Helen out once more, I should be the happiest fellow on earth," said Mr. Jerrold, with a sad and puzzled expression on his fine face. "I suspected all along that perhaps some religious crank had got into Helle's head, from the circumstances of her allowing no picture but that Mater Dolorosa to come into her room. It was a queer fancy in one so devoted to paintings as she is. I have been wishing ever since she got ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Peter perceived that he was both proud and ashamed of the fact. "At least I am going to. A monthly publication for the entertainment and edification of the Englishman in Venice. Lord Evelyn Urquhart is financing it. You know he has taken up his residence in Venice? A pleasant crank. Venice is his latest craze. He buys glass. And, indeed, most other things. He shops all day. It's a mania. When he was young I believe he had a very fine taste. It's dulled now—a fearful life, as they say. Well, his ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... thought of their braving the elements foolishly. Not that the section-boss esteemed his aged guest. On the contrary, Dallas' evident interest in the stranger had stirred the unnatural jealousy in her father's wizen brain. Already, he hated David Bond, and had set him down for a crank. But Dallas needed a lesson. It was all very well for her to do the outside duties as if she were a man; that did not privilege her to ride roughshod over his opinions, or to rule affairs in general with a heavy hand. However, he found no opportunity ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... a crank, you know. It's his hobby. He knows more about these things than any man in England. But I wish he wouldn't! Ah, he's ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ethics of his profession either to commercialize it and lose his professional standing, or to abide the convenience of his colleagues and their learned organizations in testing it. Rather than be branded a quack, charlatan, or crank, the physician keeps silent as to convictions which do not conform to the text-books. Many a life-saving, health-promoting discovery which ought to be taken up and incorporated into general practice from one end of the country to the other, and which should be made a part of the minimum standard ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... But till Watt invented it anew in 1782, by admitting the steam alternately at both ends of the cylinder, it was too awkward and clumsy to become a practical navigator. Moreover, though it could pump admirably, it had not been taught to turn a crank. The French assert, that experiments in steam-propulsion were made on the Seine, by Count Auxiron and Perrier, in 1774, and on the Saone, by De Jouffroy, in 1782; but we know they led to no practical results, and the knowledge of them probably did not, for some years, travel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... filed slightly concave, so that it will fit on the outside of the cylinder. Two 1/8-inch holes are drilled in this piece as shown in the drawing. The hole at the top is the steam entrance and exhaust for the engine; that is, when the cylinder is at one side steam enters this hole, and when the crank throws the cylinder over to the other side steam leaves through the same hole after having expanded in the cylinder. This cylinder block is soldered to the piston as shown in Fig. 56. The pivot upon which the cylinder ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... twelve-oared cutter under the boom; so that we had nothing upon the skids but the jolly-boat; and the alteration which this made in the vessel is inconceivable: For the weight of the boats upon, the skids made her crank, and in a great sea they were also in danger ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... in one o' the heving peepers, they sez—that the people wot's missin' hev been carted off in aeroplanes by some o' the other religionists wot wanted to git rid o' them, an' that the crank religiouses ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... growing in numbers, who hate England and all things English. There are many, not stigmatised as dullards or as fools, who publicly oppose the teaching of English history in the State schools. The feeling against England is not a fantastical crank, it is a movement growing yearly in strength. I have seen men keeping their seats in serious protesting silence when the health of the Queen has been drunk at public banquets, and have found in private converse that hundreds approve ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... endurance of the human animal, and the other by engineers who wished to determine what fraction of a horse-power a man-power was. These experiments had been made largely upon men who were lifting loads by means of turning the crank of a winch from which weights were suspended, and others who were engaged in walking, running, and lifting weights in various ways. However, the records of these investigations were so meager that no law of any value could be deduced from them. We ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... twenty-seven at the time, and his fortune made a fool of him, as sudden wealth has a way of doing. It was at this time, being young and impressionable, he met Samuel Adams, a silent and reserved man, fifteen years his senior and regarded by his neighbors as a harmless crank. But there was something about him which touched Hancock's imagination—and touched his pocketbook, too, for about the first thing Adams did was to ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... same thing. Only answer I can get is the old saw about knowledge being power. And some day you'll see how absorbing it is to have power, even here; to control the town——Oh, I'm a crank. But I do like ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... for the use of the weary breadwinner? Not at all. He walks from his home to the "elevated." The carriage is to take his wife to teas or the park. In a year or two she will go abroad, leaving him alone to turn the crank that produces the income. As it is, she always leaves him for six months each year in a half-closed house, to the tender mercies of a caretaker. Two additional words could be advantageously added to the wedding service. After "for richer ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... easier way than by poles. He whittled out the model of a tiny paddle wheel. Then he went to work with Chris Gumpf, and they made a larger paddle wheel. This they set up in the fishing boat. The wheel was turned by the boys with a crank. They did not use ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... patents could be very easily blocked, as Watt experienced with his improved crank motion. He proceeded therefore in great secrecy to erect the first large engine under his patent, after he had successfully made a very small one for trial. An outhouse near one of Dr. Roebuck's pits was selected as away from prying eyes. The parts ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... off the eastern slope of Quereau is a very rocky piece of ground full of "trees" (corals) in 250 fathoms. This is a good halibut ground although it is almost impossible to haul the gear by hand and the use of the "gurdy" (a roller turned by a crank and fastened to the dory's bow for winding up the trawl) becomes necessary. Occasional fares of halibut are taken on and about the Rocky Bottom in 20 to 25 fathoms from ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... much chance," said Ned. "You notified the cops, didn't you, Nick? Good. The battery is low and there isn't any crank on my bus and my only hope is that she'll lay down on them. Soak it ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... there's a crank in the old fellow,' exclaimed Joseph. 'Is he really such a fool as to think Jane won't use the money for herself? And what about Kirkwood? I tell you what it is; he's a deep fellow, is Kirkwood. I ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... to the historic guild which does that sort of work? Is there one great man in history who gave to the future without getting anything from the past? The bare scientific fact is that no man escapes the tuition of society. The crank does not escape. The freak does not escape. They miss the highest traditions of society only to become victims of lower traditions. Whether such a man have genius or the illusion of genius, it is his tragic fate to have the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... the ability to express himself—" She broke off, and turned her head ungraciously toward the sounder, which seemed to be repeating something over and over with a good deal of insistence. "That's Shoshone calling," she said, frowning attentively. "They've got an old crank up there in the office—I'd know his touch among a million—and when he calls he means business. I'll have to speak up, I suppose." She sighed, tucked a chocolate into her cheek, and went scowling to the table. "Can't the idiot see I'm out?" she ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... winter turnip fields, or worse, caught by an apple-baited hook hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his aspirations to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in his life 'hits the keeper into the river,' and reconsiders himself for a while over a crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults, and I have mine. But he is a thoroughly good fellow nevertheless. Civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; a far shrewder fellow too—owing to his dash of wild forest blood from gipsy, highwayman, and ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... experience in taking motion-pictures," I protested. "The only time I ever touched a motion-picture camera was when I turned the crank of Donald Thompson's for a few minutes during the entry of the Germans into ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... gleamed wickedly as he saw that they were close to the edge of the "crank-pit" (the space in which the crank of the shaft revolves), and he exerted all his strength to fling Austin into it. But the latter, who had not played foot-ball for nothing, suddenly wrenched himself free, and dodging round behind his enemy, sprang upon his back, and grasped his throat like a ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.' And when he began in the usual way, the dear old goodies in glasses thought he had been wound up like the musical box and had just turned on the crank, so they cuddled in comfortably for forty winks before the anthem. There were two natures in man, and man's body might be good or bad according as spiritual or carnal affections swayed it, and all the rest of the good old change-for-sixpence-and-a-ha'penny-out, you know. But the lesson had been ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... remembered each revolution of the lever and the individual injuries that each inflicted. Three years after his injury he was in every respect well. Fraser mentions an instance of a boy of fifteen who was caught in the crank of a balance-wheel in a shingle-mill, and was taken up insensible. His skull was fractured at the parietal eminence and the pericranium stripped off, leaving a bloody tumor near the base of the fracture about two inches in diameter. The right humerus was fractured at the external condyle; ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... 1842, the inventor made another effort to obtain the help of Congress, and the Committee on Commerce again recommended an appropriation of 30,000 dollars in aid of the telegraph. Morse had come to be regarded as a tiresome 'crank' by some of the Congressmen, and they objected that if the magnetic telegraph were endowed, mesmerism or any other 'ism' might have a claim on the Treasury. The Bill passed the House by a slender majority of six votes, given orally, some of ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... foolish Armand's eye—do not look so astounded, it is true! Also, you will have a great name some of these days. So far, so good. But—you are making the grievous error of shunning society, particularly the society of women. This is wrong; it makes for queerness, it evolves the 'crank,' it spoils many ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler |
