"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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?" ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs to last. When they drove out into broken water, he found it difficult to work the crank. The plunges threw him against the coaming, and the sea poured in over it continually. There are not many men who feel equal to determined toil before their morning meal, and the physical slackness is generally more pronounced if they have been up most of the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... sickness, and moves, and education, and the like, to keep steadily in front of my income. However, I console myself with this, that if I were anything else under God's Heaven, and had the same crank health, I should make an even zero. If I had, with my present knowledge, twelve months of my old health, I would, could, and should do something neat. As it is, I have to tinker at my things in little sittings; and the rent, or the butcher, or something, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on this iron frame and Varus standing where I am. There,—Caesar having in a few moments brought the wires—the body you perceive is confined in this manner.—You observe there can be no escape and no motion. Now at the word of the judge, this crank is turned. Do you see the effect upon the wire? Imagine it your body and you will have a lively idea of the instrument. Then at another wink or word from Varus, these are turned, and you see that another part of the body, the legs or arms as it may be, are subjected to the same force as this ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... "Certainly. A crank in the last stages of alcoholism and mental depression brought it in yesterday. It's an idiotic jumble about Beautiful Women of History, part in prose and part ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... get a word out of him. He's a Socialist and a crank, you know, and you'd be surprised how ugly some of them fellows can be. As soon as I get the story complete I'll report to you, but meantime there's no ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... oscillations is shown to the left of Fig. 3, and consists of a cylinder, A, mounted on a tubular spindle, and which is set into circular oscillations around its axis by the little vibrating membrane, C, which is attached to the axis of the cylinder by a little crank and connecting rod shown in detail in Fig. 4. This membrane is set into vibration by a rapidly pulsating column of air contained in a flexible tube M, by which apparatus is connected to the pulsation pump which was employed by Professor ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... they are many and 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 ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... commercial traveler who "wanted to make the show of a library at home, so he wrote to a book merchant in London, saying: 'Send me six feet of theology, and about as much metaphysics, and near a yard of civil law in old folio.'" Not a sentimentalist, a reformer, nor a crank, but Dr. James Copeland says: "Tobacco weakens the nervous powers, favors a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state of mind, produces indolence and incapacity for manly or continuous exertion, and sinks its votary into a state of ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... Lord DEVONPORT, had no very happy experience of the post you now hold, and I can well understand that his life during his tenure of it cannot have been a pleasant one. Every crank with an infallible recipe for catching sunbeams in cucumber-frames and turning them into potatoes, or whatever might be the fashionable food at the moment; every grumbler who imagined that every rise in prices ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... that the mother receives credit for his virtues, but she is invariably blamed for his faults. Too many women expect a man to be cut out by their pattern. The supreme mental achievement is the ability to judge other people by their own standards, and a crank is not necessarily a person whose rules of life and conduct do not coincide ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... whistle shrieked derisively, the crank turned, and the next moment the train slid out serpent-like into the mist. Major Colquhoun had watched it off like any ordinary spectator, and when it had gone he looked at the porter, and the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... 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 last ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... meanwhile, let's hop over to that nice landingplace at the foot of old Thunder top, and overhaul the machine again. There are a few things I'd like to tinker with, because I'm not quite pleased with the way they work; and you know, Andy, I'm a regular crank about having a motor run ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... hundred tons, 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
... now. Take off each stay That binds him to his couch of clay, And let him struggle into day! Let chain and pulley run, With yielding crank and steady rope, Until he rise from rim to cope, In rounded beauty, ribb'd in strength, Without a flaw in all his length— Hurra! the work ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Christians seriously believe that illness is sent by God to achieve certain salutary modifications of character, they ought strenuously to oppose the modern determination to reduce disease to a minimum. They do not, and would, on the contrary, soon reduce to silence any religious crank who proposed it. They know perfectly well that the cases of "spiritual advantage" from illness bear no proportion whatever to the amount of suffering in the world. Slight but painful illnesses rarely have any beneficent effect on character; very frequently the reverse. Any large city, at any ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... was inaugurated President of the United States, a violent controversy arose over appointments to important offices in New York, which led to the resignation of Senators Conkling and Platt. This was followed by President Garfield being shot (July 2, 1881) by a crazy crank (Guiteau) who, in some way, conceived that he, through the controversy, was deprived of an office. In company with General Sherman I saw and had an interview with Mr. Garfield in his room at the White House the afternoon of the day he was shot. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... men all ran for their ponies. They had been doing a wrestler's heavy work all the morning, but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture periodical that a cowboy's life was physically ill-balanced, like an oarsman's, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the body. The writer should be turned ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... run the gauntlet of pseudo-designers, crank inventors, press "experts," and politicians; of manufacturers keen on cheap work and large profits; of poor pilots who had funked it, and good pilots who had expected too much of it. Thousands of pounds had been wasted on it, many had gone bankrupt over it, and others it had provided ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... pass over dry sand in a box standing on the floor. A workman rolled off the paper, and with his hand he strews sand on the upper surface. The rolling taking place on the edge of a table, by means of a crank, the excess of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... city. Together they read and discussed the letters which poured in upon them from theatrical managers, Wild West shows, music halls, and other similar enterprises, and from romantic girls and shrewd photographers, and every other conceivable kind of crank. The offers of the music halls Jack was inclined to consider worth while. "He'd be a great success there, or as a dead-shot in a Wild West show. They ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Am", and see if there was anything in mental suggestion. So we stopped still at the cross-roads and sang hoarsely in the rain and darkness like disconsolate frogs. The starter refused to work when we wanted to go on again and Nyoda had to get out in the mud and crank the engine. ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... know anything about denying it in toto," rejoined the Idiot, "but I'd deny it in print if I were you. I know plenty of people who think it was a burlesque, and I overheard one man say—he is a Rossetti crank—that you ought to be ashamed of yourself for ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... his hands, "it feels good to get opposite you once more. Pony, you're a crank. We might have had a hundred games like this during the past year, if there wasn't ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... toward the two clerks, but they were even more terrified than he. There was one to whom he did not look for help, and that was the telegraph boy, who stood but three feet from the crank, watching him sharply. For a plan of relief had come into the mind of Mark Mason, who, though he appreciated the danger, was cooler and more self-possessed than any ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... at the front of the car controls a crank, by means of which he is enabled to bring the car to a sudden stop, or to cause it to plunge violently forward. His aim in so doing is to cause all the standing players to fall over backward. Every time he does this he scores. For this purpose he is generally in ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... the perfected air-pump of Robert Boyle, Newton's contemporary, one of the founders of the Royal Society and one of the most acute scientific minds of any time. And here between these two mementos is a higher apparatus, with crank and wheel and a large glass bulb that make it conspicuous. This is the electrical machine of Joseph Priestley. There are other mementos of Newton—a stone graven with a sun-dial, which he carved as a boy, on the paternal manor-house; a chair, said ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... years before, but he had kept on, in the same old attitude, by habit and taste, until he found himself altogether alone. He had hugged his antiquated dislike of bankers and capitalistic society until he had become little better than a crank. He had known for years that he must accept the regime, but he had known a great many other disagreeable certainties — like age, senility, and death — against which one made what little resistance one could. The matter was settled at ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... 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 ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... might even go so far as to say it was amongst the first of any jails, where convicts were employed in connection with steam power. We had, it is true, an engine to be worked by manual power, for six or eight men abreast, to drive the circular saw, but it did not answer. It was intended as "crank" labour for ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... body and ends, and is fitted with Corliss valves and Inglis & Spencer's automatic Corliss 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... walked back and forth along the bank trying to think of some way to cross the river. He found a high flagpole with a rope going over to the other side. The rope went through a loop at the top of the pole and then down the pole and around a large crank. A sign ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett
... implied fascinations, brainless pursuits, frivolous conversation, and low down levels of existence, and, with the exception of those whose enmity it is a distinction to have, people will come to realize that your position is neither that of the religious crank nor of self-righteous conceit—that it is the expression and outcome of your reverence for whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... tightened the warp. When a sufficient length of woof had been woven (it was usually a few inches), the weaver proceeded to do what was called drawing a bore or a sink. He shifted the temple forward; rolled up the cloth on the cloth bar, which had a crank-handle and ratchets; unwound the warp a few inches, shifted back the rods and heddles, and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... is to be frozen into the tin can, put the beater in this, and put on the cover. Place in the tub, being careful to have the point on the bottom fit into the socket in the tub. Put on the cross-piece, and turn the crank to see if everything is in the right place. Next comes the packing. Ice should be broken in large pieces, and put in a canvas bag, and pounded fine with a mallet. Put a thick layer of it in the tub (about five ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... if any of us poor mortals want a glimpse of her between seasons, we must come where she is. She's a dear, and you must know her, even if you do hold yourself superior to us women. She's almost as much a crank on athletics as you are; you ought to see her on the links, once! That's why I can't understand her running away off here every summer. And, by the way, Ellie, what are you doing ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... the very verge of distraction by the sense of Tommy's danger and the necessity she was under of suppressing her feelings while this woman, crank or impostor, held possession of the child and of her house. Not to disturb Tommy, she affected a peaceful attitude toward the professor of Christian sorcery, whom, in the anguish of her spirit, she would have liked to project out of a window into the dizzy space occupied by pulleys and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... it no longer. He was fuming at the great window overlooking the street, and now burst impetuously into speech. "No power on earth, you absurd lunatic? do you mean that because this State has a crank like you temporarily at the top there's nothing beyond or behind it to save us from pillage and murder and anarchy? Listen to that, you foreign-born fraud!" and far up the street the morning air was ringing ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... be any good in the matter he knows of?" and he handed her an envelope. "And this keep," he added, giving her one addressed to his father. "Don't let him have it till it's all over. You know." Then he took up a pen and a sheet of paper, and got as far, with a shaking hand, as 'Dear Crank—' but there he broke down, and laid his head on ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had time enough to transact all the affairs of the Nation I made another attempt but I listened once more, rather than butt in again, listened and heard, 'Just the sweetest shade of green, you know—' Trials of Job, I was getting out of patience, to put it mildly. I gave the crank a vicious turn but the same party was still talking, she said sweetly, 'I guess someone wants the line.' I assured her I did, it was a case of life and death. 'Someone dead, oh dear, is it ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... thought it was one; but I found it moved only when touched in a certain manner. Then it would roll over, open its mouth, and run out its tongue. There was another that I cannot describe, for I never saw anything that looked like it. It was some kind of a machine, and the turning of a crank made it draw together in such a way, that if a person were once within its embrace, the pressure would soon arrest the vital current, and stop the breath of life. Around the walls of the room were chains, rings and hooks, almost innumerable; but I did not know their use, and feared to touch them. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... 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 ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... a wheel; it was turned by a crank; it did the work perfectly; so, in the year 1793, he had invented the machine ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... village store as soon as the train stopped and had bought the first toy she happened to see. It was a black dancing bear, worked by a tiny crank hidden under the bar on which it stood. Robin's pleasure was unbounded, and his shrieks of delight brought all ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... of no other American locomotive so equipped. Eastwick and Harrison, it is true, favored an eccentric drive for feed pumps, but they mounted the eccentric on the crankpin of the rear driving wheel and thus produced in effect a half-stroke pump. This was not an unusual arrangement, though a small crank was usually employed in place of the eccentric. The full-stroke crosshead pump with which the Jenny Lind (fig. 22) is equipped, was of course the most common style of feed pump used in this ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... Friends, you may extract a jest by saying "that many of the characters trembled with anxiety before its production—in fact, were quakers!" The name of the Manager of the Haymarket has frequently been the subject of a quip, if not a crank; still it may yet serve as a peg for slyly observing that, "At the fall of the Curtain, TREE, naturally enough, appeared with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... along decently they would better part! Lieders had answered not a word; he had given Lossing a queer glance and turned on his heel. He went home and bought some poison on the way. "The old man is gone and the young feller don't want the old crank round, no more," he said to himself. "Thekla, I guess I make her troubles, too; ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... who was promised a subscription of one thousand guineas to this fund, has a history so remarkable as to be worth relating across the Atlantic. Seven years ago he was a journeyman mechanic. Having invented and patented some kind of a crank or spindle used in the cotton manufacture, and needing capital to start himself in the business of making them, he made it a matter of earnest prayer that he might be directed to some one able and ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... that in the circumstances it would come better so. I guess we'll squeeze him somehow on to the pay-roll of the Company. Heard all about the whole thing from some one. Who?—oh, General Jackson, how should I remember? Kind of religio-political crank, isn't he? Well, I've seen some inventive geniuses among the species, and while we're driving straight ahead we can find use for a man if he's honest and handy finicking round the chores. Still, that has nothing to do with what I'm coming to. We have room for straight live men ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... door, and he noticed that a private automobile was speeding down the street from the same direction as the taxi had taken. It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was starting with the crank. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... friend to receive your letter of the 31st ult. Mrs. Nation is all right. She is engaged in the very laudable business of abating what our statute declares to be a common nuisance. She is not crazy, nor is she a crank, but she is, a sensible Christian woman and has the respect of our best people. Her crusade is much like that of John Brown's, and I hope and pray that it may terminate as disastrously to the liquor traffic as John Brown's did to human slavery. How much more in accord ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... splendid inhospitality. The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. At the same ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... attempt of metaphysical accuracy (precision), for whatever the thing in essence, the reaction thereof upon the multitude is made more forcible and more lucid to the mind by the term applied to it at large. For instance a crank is not a ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... think out a plan to move the boat in an 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
... sale of several storiettes, some humorous verse, and a few jokes gave Martin a temporary splurge of prosperity. Not only did he partially pay up his bills, but he had sufficient balance left to redeem his black suit and wheel. The latter, by virtue of a twisted crank-hanger, required repairing, and, as a matter of friendliness with his future brother-in-law, he sent it to ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... that," smiled Mr. Prenter. "You may even, sometime, if it will please Mr. Bascomb, hand him your resignation. I will see to it that it doesn't get past the board of directors. Mr. Bascomb is irritable, and sometimes he is a downright crank, but he is valuable to us just the same. We feel, too, Reade, that you and Hazelton are just the men we need to put this breakwater through ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... the crank, the bread-and-water diet, unauthorized but none the less effectual clubbing at the hands of warders, the cold in the punishment cells penetrating to the very marrow of the bones, weakness, sickness and unpitied death are the certain portion ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... measures for the advancement of manufactures. The following resolution was passed: "Resolved that the introduction of spinning-jennies, as is practiced in England, into private families is strongly recommended, since one person can manage by hand the operation of a crank that turns twenty-four spindles." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... Society for Psychical Research people about my being asked to be President, because I should certainly feel compelled to decline it. I never go, willingly, to London now, and should never attend meetings, so pray say no more about it. Besides, I am so widely known as a "crank" and a "faddist" that my being President would injure the Society, as much as Lord Rayleigh would benefit it, so pray do not put any obstacle in his way, though of course there is no necessity ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... rapidly in a vertical plane, the power to manage the vehicle or boat would become very much lessened, as the flywheel continues to revolve in its plane. I therefore so design the apparatus that its crank shaft x has a vertical position and its fly-wheel y revolves in a horizontal plane.... By this means the vehicle is not only easily controlled, but also the greatest safety is ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... addressed. "And I certain sure thought he was after me. But if Jud says he took our nice string of bass, why that changes the thing, and makes me mad as hops. Think of us workin' all that time, only to fill up a crazy crank. Next time I go fishin' I'm meanin' to sit home, and do it off ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... out 'unting chickens with a club, and bring 'em 'ome and eat 'em on the mat without any further fuss. For drink it would be boiling water that burnt my fingers merely 'andling the glass. Then some other crank came out with the information that every other crank was wrong—which, taken by itself, sounds natural enough—that meat was fatal to the 'uman system. Upon that 'e becomes all at once a raging, tearing vegetarian, and trouble enough I 'ad learning twenty different ways of cooking beans, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... packages on the edge of the quay. A heavy weight seemed to press on his head, and a red mist hung over everything as he walked blindly on. At a point which he had just reached, a heap of rough boxes obstructed his path, and at that moment a huge crank swung its iron arm over the edge of the dock, a heavy weight was hanging from it, and exactly as Cardo passed, it came with a horizontal movement against the back of his head with terrible force, throwing him forward insensible ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... me back to my situation, in the natural course of events. The whistle blows. The little steam-boat is about to stop at the landing-place of the Djurgaard. The engineer, smutty and oily with hard service, gives a turn to the crank, pulls an iron bar with a polished handle, and then pushes it; the tea-kettle boiler fizzes and whizzes, and lets off steam; the paddles stop paddling; the gentlemen passengers stand up and adjust their shirt collars; the ladies gather their shawls around them, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... to a close when young Johnny Eyre came sailing in from Loch Fyne, himself and a boy of ten or twelve managing that crank little boat with its top-heavy sails. "Are you at work yet, Lavender?" he said. "I never saw such a beggar. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • 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 ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... of the question! I'm not strong-minded enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I like men, can't help it, and seem to need ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... executioner, and in that capacity he was now on the scaffold, experimenting with the instrument he had made. A banana tree, of the size and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the guillotine. Ah Cho watched with fascinated eyes. The German, turning a small crank, hoisted the blade to the top of the little derrick he had rigged. A jerk on a stout piece of cord loosed the blade and it dropped with a flash, neatly severing ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... later) and rescind. Others came with a vast show of hurry and despatch, but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of flypaper for these busybodies. I have seen them blankly turn the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating (to nobody's deception) business interest: "Good thing this, Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it, I suppose, as a medium of advertisement for my article?"—which was perhaps toilet soap. Others (a still worse variety) carried us ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... big, cake of dirt with 'em. I don't know what give him the idea that there was money in it, but he did think so from the start. I guess, if they'd had the word in those days, they'd considered him pretty much of a crank about it. He was trying as long as he lived to get that paint introduced; but he couldn't make it go. The country was so poor they couldn't paint their houses with anything; and father hadn't any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke with us; and I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they tried a larger check with the same result. She doesn't seem to be an impostor; only a crank." ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... actor, a priest of some strange religion, an enquiry agent, or just—a crank?" was the thought that first occurred to him. And the question suggested itself without amusement. The impression of subterfuge and caution he conveyed left ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... waving arms indicated was the right one; as if to follow him were utter madness. The water spouted up through the clutch, and once again the engine stopped, and long moments went by before it would respond to the crank again. But Rachael pushed slowly on. She was not thinking now, she was conscious of no feeling but that there was an opposite shore, and she must ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... by proceeding to steep some tea in an odd little contrivance over the gas-jet, much as Sara did over the log- fire at home; but neither Morton nor Molly would have been surprised to see food come sliding in, all cooked, or clothes all made, by the simple turn of a crank, so ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... startled eyes like a dozen masked men. Solemnly they went through his pockets while he stood with his hands high above him. They took his half-plug of chewing tobacco and a ten-cent stick-pin from his tie, and afterwards made him crank his car and climb back into the seat and go on. He went—with the throttle wide open and the little car loping down the boulevard ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... natives to act as oarsmen. When they thought the weather suitable they put to sea in the direction of Espanola. They were only about fifteen miles from the shore, however, when the wind began to head them and to send up something of a sea; not rough, but enough to make the crank and overloaded canoes roll heavily, for they had not been prepared, as those of Mendez were, with false keels and weather-boards. The Spaniards got frightened and turned back to Jamaica; but the sea became rougher, the canoes rolled more and more, they often shipped a quantity ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... that Mr. Jevons would give him the sack if he didn't, or if he made us miss that train by arguing. I told him sternly to look sharp. He looked it and we got off. I had begun to crank up the car ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... time we were looking the Great Panjandrum Himself, with his little round button-at-the-top on his head, was turning a crank in the side of the wonderful Pantoscopticon, which had a hopper on the top of it like that of an old-fashioned coffee-mill. As he turned he kept ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... teacher—that he has a right to think only to enforce its teachings. From that moment he is a moral machine. The chief engineer resides at Rome, and he gives his orders through certain assistant engineers until the one is reached who turns the crank, and the machine has nothing to do one way or the other. This machine is paid for giving up his liberty by having machines under him who have also given up theirs. While somebody else turns his crank, he has the pleasure ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the drum Hiram passed two lengths of Number 9 wire through large screweyes, making a double loop into which the hook of a light timber chain would easily catch. Into one end of the drum he drove a headless spike, upon which the hand-crank of the grindstone fitted, and was ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... just like the rest of the world. As the first flush of joy died away, men pointed out each other's motes, and sarcasm pushed charity from her throne; and, worse than all, there now appeared that demon of discord, theological dispute. The chief leader was a religious crank, named Krger. He was, of course, no descendant of the Brethren's Church. He had quarrelled with a Lutheran minister at Ebersdorf, had been promptly excluded from the Holy Communion, and now came whimpering to Herrnhut, and lifted up his voice against the Lutheran Church. he did not possess ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... up, I never pick any of them out as samples for strangers. But to the question,—well, let's run him over once, if he won't be mad: high cheek bones, showing him enough of the Indian make to be a good hunter; a crank, steady eye, indicating honest motives, and a good resolution, that won't allow a man to rest easy till his object is carried out; and lastly, a well-put-together, wiry frame, to bear fatigues, and do the work which so large a head must often ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... many engineers has been to take advantage of these matters by using the valve with 90 deg. angular advance of eccentric ahead of crank, for the admission, release, and compression of the steam, and provide another means of cutting off, besides the one already referred to, viz., cutting off the supply of steam to the chest, and overcome the objection in this one of large clearance spaces. This is done by means of riding cut ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... tackle it," Pete Lowry predicted philosophically while he turned the camera crank steadily round and round and held himself ready to "panoram" the scene if ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... 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 to ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... and got two of the boats under the half-deck; I also placed my 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
... to Lambert that the detective had become certain during the course of the evening that the scientist was mad. The ceaseless fiddling and the lack of results or even spectacular sights had convinced Phillips that he had to do with a crank. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... only one side of it," Cressler went on, heedless of Jadwin's good-humoured protests. "Yes, I know I am a crank on speculating. I'm going to preach a little if you'll let me. I've been a speculator myself, and a ruined one at that, and I know what I am talking about. Here is what I was going to say. These fellows themselves, the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... few more lessons in that art, because I've always been weak there. And when I found how late it was after getting here I concluded not to hustle around to the grounds. I guessed you'd be cropping up to find out what had become of a certain baseball crank who had played hookey. So I've been sitting here about ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... himself, "what manner of crank is he who would bury himself like this? Of all the ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... me of the "Antiquers"—that's what Peter T. Brown called 'em. They put up at the Old Home House—summer before last; and at a crank show they'd have tied for the blue ribbon. There was the Dowager and the Duchess and "My Daughter" and "Irene dear." Likewise there was Thompson and Small, but they, being nothing but husbands and fathers, didn't count for much first ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... busy making coffee when the third nomad appeared with his music machine, and, halting near her, alighted and fell stiffly to turning the eventful crank. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... 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
... reply to the letter of some poor crank who wanted to secure his backing for a preparation which he had concocted for taking the curl out of Negroes' hair. Then comes a letter to a man who wants to know whether it is true that the Negro ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... vat, of suitable size and construction, to drain off the water and let the clay dry out sufficiently by subsequent evaporation. A machine of this construction may be made of such a size that it may be put in motion by hand, by means of a crank, and yet be capable of mixing, if properly supplied, clay enough to mold 800 or 1000 pieces of drain ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... a flare of light upon the screen, as the operator fussed with the lamp for better lumination. He slowly began to turn the crank, and the criminologist watched the screen with no little excitement. The picture thrown up resembled nothing so much as three endless snakes twisting in the same general rhythm from top to bottom of the frame. The twenty-five duplicates were all joined to the original, so that ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to loading a highway bridge, which is to be considered. It often happens that a very heavy load is carried over such bridges upon a single truck, thus throwing a heavy and concentrated load upon each point as it passes. Mr. Stoney states that a wagon with a crank-shaft of the British ship "Hercules," weighing about forty-five tons, was refused a passage over Westminster iron bridge, for fear of damage to the structure, and had to be carried over Waterloo bridge, which is of stone; and he says that in many cases large boilers, ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... in learning pilotage, And grow good steersmen when the vessel's crank! Gap-toothed he spake, and with a tottering shank Sidled to gain the sunny bench of Age. It is the sentence which completes that stage; A testament of wisdom reading blank. The seniors of the race, on their last plank, Pass mumbling it as nature's final page. These, bent by such experience, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... time, it was, I got a food crank, an' let me tell you right now, my dear, them's the worst kind. A man what's queer about his food is goin' to be queerer about a'most everything else. Give me any man that can eat three square meals a day an' enjoy 'em, an' I'll undertake to live with him peaceful, but I don't go to the ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... would remain, more or less, until five. He would do that again on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday and on Friday, and on Saturday. One afternoon, strolling in the adjacent country, he had seen a horse walking round and round and round in a small paddock, turning a crank which worked some machine or other in an adjoining shed: that horse had somehow ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... strange-looking machine, quite unlike any of the giants that we know. A large boiler lay full length between four ornamental iron wheels. Out of the front end of the boiler rose a tall and ugly stove-pipe, while over the boiler was a confused collection of rods and levers communicating with the crank of the big wheels. It was called the 'Locomotion.' George Stephenson stood ready to drive it as soon as the trucks, which a stationary engine was lowering down the slope by means of a wire rope, had been attached to it. In the first of these trucks came the Directors ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the apples," suggested Florence; "it is such fun to put them on that little thing and turn the crank, while the skin ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... you the truth," continued Redpath. "Incredibly fast. I had barely time to crank up the car and get out of there. I never would have done it if the strange growth hadn't left the way clear from the garage to the road. Silby, I had the devil of a time getting the wife and kids out of the house. When I looked ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... for himself and his sisters and mother. Toy sewing machines are now sold which are really useful playthings, and on which the child can manufacture a number of small articles. Those run by a treadle are preferable to those run by a hand crank, because they leave the child's hands free to guide ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged into the lung—here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He said the British soldier had failed in ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... has taken the basket into her sitting room. She's placed it on a table. There she goes to the telephone. Whee! See how she's working her arm, jerking that telephone bell crank!" ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... for men shal neuer shot well, excepte they be broughte up in it." The advantage of this weapon over the steel crossbow (used by the Genoese) lay in the fact that it could be discharged much more rapidly, the latter being a cumbrous affair, which had to be wound up with a crank for each shot. Hence the English long bow was to that age what the revolver is to ours. It sent an arrow with such force that only the best armor could withstand it. The French peasantry at that period had no skill with this weapon, and about the only part they took in a battle ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... 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 an otherwise very ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... across the end of the wagon, and with handles at each end workable from the 6 ft. way, is attached to the catch hooks by means of a light chain. On throwing the handle over, and against the end of the wagon, the crank moves over and below the center, lifting up the catch into a position out of range of action, and from this position it cannot fall except it is released by the shunter. A shackle and links hang from the end of the drawbar for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... would have thought that you could 'throw a crank' like that, Phyllis—a girl who could brace another girl as hefty as Roxy upon her shoulder to save the whole town and Dr. Snakes from being ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he stated bitterly. "He's too old and peevish—that's what ails him! For one, I'm certainly not never goin' to vote fur him again. Why, it's gettin' to be ez much ez a man's life is worth to stop that there spiteful old crank in the street and put a civil question to him—that's whut's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... over at Epinal the day after tomorrow,' he said as they left the mill, 'and I'll see if I can get the new crank there.' ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... here had been like the trials you saw. But, Kennedy," he added, and his face was drawn and tragic, "I'd drop the whole thing if I didn't know I was right. Two men dead—think of it. Why, even the newspapers are beginning to call me a cold, heartless, scientific crank, to keep on. But I'll show them—this afternoon I'm going to fly myself. I'm not afraid to go anywhere I send my men. I'll die ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... Election but the occasional by-elections which took place proved that there was no register in existence on which it would be morally possible to appeal to the country. The old, the feeble, the slacker, the crank, the conscientious objector would all be left in full strength and the fighting men would be disfranchised. A Parliament elected on such a register would, Mr. Asquith declared, be wholly lacking in moral authority. Therefore, by sheer necessity the Government was forced to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... you have won my noble heart: You shall see how manfully I can play my part. And here's Wily Will, as good a fellow as your heart can wish, To go a-fishing with a crank through a window, or to set limetwigs to catch a pan, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... that day he was called a "proud and pestilent seducer," or, as the modern newspaper would say, a "crank." It is well to make due allowances for the prejudice so conspicuous in the accounts given by his enemies, who felt obliged to justify their harsh treatment of him. But we have also his own writings from which to form an opinion as to his character ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... when he told me that, for I had been imagining that he was the kind of man who is known as a freak, and had come to win me over to some stupid crank which he would ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... to go and head 'em into the barnyard," yawned Rufe, from his chair. "I wonder nobody ever invented a milking-machine. Wish I had one. Just turn a crank, ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... alone day after day in vaults which are invariably dark and gloomy, and often cold and dank, and being obliged to twist sixty to seventy of these bottles every minute throughout the day of twelve hours. Why the treadmill and the crank with their periodical respites must be pastime compared to this maddeningly monotonous occupation, which combines hard labour, with the wrist at any rate, with next to solitary confinement. One can understand these men becoming gloomy and taciturn, and affirming ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... us 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 explosive ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... the crank, an' there on the bank they squatted like bumps on a log. For acres around there wasn't a sound, not even the howl of a dog. When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone; An' then like a ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... import their own roses; and I have engaged every boy in the public schools who has nothing better to do next Saturday to go to Lome Park and bring back as many maiden-hairs as he can find. Ferns are my craze, as you know, and I am quite a crank on maiden-hair, which I mean to adopt for my crest with "If she will, she will," as ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... stated that he 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 ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... he thought—the up and down stroke of the piston in and out of the cylinder, which oscillated from side to side guided by the eccentric; with the steady systematic revolution of the shaft, borne round by the crank attached to the piston-head, all working so smoothly, and ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... starting crank and Charlie sprang into the cockpit. I cranked until the mechanism was droning dismally, and pulled the lever that engaged it with the engine. I had been in too much haste to get up the proper speed, and the powerful new engine failed to fire. Charlie ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... literary works would be published in a sumptuous 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 ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... they work perpendicularly, and are represented by the strokes of a paddle of a canoe. As six of the paddles are raised from the water, six more are entered, and the two sets of paddles make their strokes of about eleven feet in each revolution. The crank of the axis acts upon the paddles about one-third of their length from their lower ends, on which part of the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. The engine is placed in the bottom of the boat, about one-third from the stern, and both the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... "we are ready for a nice long talk, that is, if you feel equal to the task of talking. What I have to say will not take long. It is about a little interview between Mr. Allison and—Judge Thorn's daughter, and if I had been less of a 'crank,' I suppose you would have ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... bunch was coming down to drink—the entire remnant of a prehistoric and almost extinct race of human creatures was coming to quench its thirst at this water-hole. How I wished for James Barnes at the camera's crank! He alone could do justice to this ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... of a hand-organ. An armless beggar was turning the crank of an organ with his bare feet. The plateau was fairly alive with beggars, hopping about in the dust like fleas. Some were armless; others legless. They swung along at our heels on long, muscular arms, with leather on the palms of their hands, or dragged distorted, paralyzed bodies ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... to give him the job because he has earned it. He gave me some very valuable information about the wretched condition of her electric-light plant and a crack, cunningly concealed, in the after web of her crank shaft—" ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... effects of smoking on mature men that are reliable, make use of them, but be sure you are right about it. Ignorance multiplied by forty or one hundred does not mean wisdom. It is still ignorance. Keep yourself out of the crank army. Do not be so intemperate yourself in thought, speech, and action as to lessen your influence. Temporizing will not do the work, but let us be wise in our approach to the subject before boys, whose viewpoint cannot be expected to be ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... said Britton, gloom in his voice, "it's a most unhappy state of affairs. He's getting to be a perfect crank. Complines about everything I do. He won't 'ave 'is trousers pressed and he 'asn't been ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 that ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... them great stability, but, with good management, makes it difficult for a bear, when swimming, to put his paw upon the gunwale, which they generally endeavour to do; whereas, with our boats, which are more light and crank, and therefore very easily heeled over, I have more than once seen a bear on the point of taking possession of them. Great caution should therefore be used under such circumstances in attacking these ferocious creatures. We have always found a boarding-pike the most useful weapon ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... acutely. Nor could she help 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 goes, an' ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... you mean," said the girl lightly. "You think he's a crank. But it's all over now; the ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... only 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 |
