"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seene the day, That with this little Arme, and this good Sword, I haue made my way through more impediments Then twenty times your stop. But (oh vaine boast) Who can controll his Fate? 'Tis not so now. Be not affraid, though you do see me weapon'd: Heere is my iournies end, heere is my butt And verie Sea-marke of my vtmost Saile. Do you go backe dismaid? 'Tis a lost feare: Man but a Rush against Othello's brest, And he retires. Where should Othello go? Now: how dost thou looke now? Oh ill-Starr'd wench, Pale as thy Smocke: when we shall ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... trees,—then soon the falling of the trees,—then the rustling and tugging of the creatures, in getting the fallen trees out of the water,—and, finally, the surging and splashing with which they came swimming towards the ground-work of the dam, with the butt end of those trees in their mouths. The line of the dam they had begun, passed with a curve up stream in the middle, so as to give it more strength to resist the current; across the low-water bed of the river some five rods; and extended up over the first low bank, about as much farther, to ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the Ghoul, only wait a little until I can make me a pair of horns like you. So the goat waited, and away went the Ghoul to make her horns. She made two horns of dough and dried them in the sun until they were hard, and then came to "butt" with the goat. At the first shock, when the goat butted her with her horns, the horns of dough broke all to pieces; then the goat butted her again in her bowels and broke her in twain, and out jumped Sunaisil and Rabab, frisking and leaping and calling out ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... Several times lately Olga had, so to speak, run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find another name for them: they ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... voyage to Nassau was made without any unusual incident. The Major took passage with us by permission of the Secretary of War, and his practical jokes amused every one except the butt of them; even the aggrieved party, himself, being frequently obliged to laugh at his own expense. There were two very young lieutenants of the Confederate Navy then in Nassau, on their way to Europe; the senior of whom ranking the ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... remember he carouseth fully for such deserts: fifty pounds a year of unclipped moneys, and a butt of canary wine; not to mention three thousand acres in Ireland, worth fairly another fifty and another butt, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... ill-fated craft. In an instant a crowd of concealed men rush aboard and call out, "Surrender!" But smugglers were not given to surrender when merely requested, so a hand-to-hand fight took place. The butt-end of muskets were freely used, and to some purpose. There was no heroic effort to get at the powder magazine, so that they might blow themselves and everybody ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... the Duke to a slang young nobleman whom he abhorred, but of whom he sometimes made a butt, 'am I in your way? Here! take this, and this, and this, and give me your purse. I'll pay Lady Aphrodite.' And so the Duke again showered some sovereigns, and returned the shrunken silk to its defrauded owner, who stared, and would have remonstrated, but the Duke ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... of blue light were moving. And a man had died. He lay on the rock, his flesh blackened jelly, with a rope of glowing light running from the metal of his gun butt to the metal buttons on ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... those stupid crushes," he began, "where all the people outside are trying to butt their way in, and all those inside are wishing to heaven that they were well out again—like so many June bugs and millers on a summer night bumping against both sides of a window with a candle in it?" Hilbrough finished with a humorous little ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... indifference to life and death, whether real or assumed, was the thing wanted. Here, at least, were two superiors who did not seem to consider the situation very serious. The young soldier shifted his rifle to the other shoulder, and grasped the butt ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... sore chest he may have tomorrow, but dead he is not, for I turned the lance-point back as I spun it, and it was the butt-end I ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... I gave him my canteen, which he emptied at a gulp and called for more. There was a strange silence in the house—a silence in decided contrast to the screams I had heard, and I wondered if the wretches had shot the woman. I started to knock on the door with the butt of my pistol, but Jane Ryder was ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... the transformation which had meanwhile taken place in the youth. This vigorous captain with the insolent air who might shoot him at any minute was the same urchin whom he had seen running around the ranch, the beardless Moltkecito who had been the butt of his daughter's ridicule. . ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... auld, yet I 'm teugh as the wire, Sae we 'll at the rogues have a dash, And, fegs, if my gun winna fire, I 'll turn her butt-end, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... are cut down and trimmed, stripped of bark, and roughly dressed. They are then carried or dragged to the site of the hogan and there laid on the ground with their forked ends together somewhat in the form of a T, extreme care being taken to have the butt of one log point to the south, one to the west, and one to the north. The two straight timbers are then laid down with the small ends close to the forks of the north and south timbers and with their butt ends pointing to the east. They must be spread apart about the width of the doorway which ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... to this petition the more readily that his Emir, he could see, regarded the most exquisite of dragomans simply as a standing joke. They laughed together at his superstition and his boastfulness. But their butt was really serviceable in small ways, knowing where to hire good horses at the lowest price, and pointing out in the course of their rides objects of interest of the very existence of which Iskender ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... ramming down the charge with a bit of mandioca-cake in lieu of a wad; then drawing his cutlass he handed it to Martin, exclaiming, "Come, lad, we're in for it now. Take you the cutlass and Til try their skulls with the butt o' my pistol: it has done good work before now in that way. If there's no more o' the blackguards in the background ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... no more this opinion after Robertson said it, than before. I know nothing more offensive than repeating what one knows to be foolish things, by way of continuing a dispute, to see what a man will answer,—to make him your butt!' (angrier still.) BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, I had no such intentions as you seem to suspect; I had not indeed. Might not this nobleman have felt every thing "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable[1039]," as Hamlet says?' JOHNSON. 'Nay, if you are to bring in gabble, I'll talk no more. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... are very important. The American tuna rod is an excellent piece of workmanship. It is made in two pieces, the tip and the butt. The tip, according to the rules of the Tuna Club, must not be less than 6ft. long, and fits into the butt just above the reel. It is made of split cane, but with no steel centre, and is very strong and stiff, bending a little only to the very strongest pull. The butt is built very ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... every cry or threat which was uttered as he passed. The throng closed in behind him, and he came to a halt in front of a low door set in the whitewashed wall which enclosed the temple and its precincts. Upon this door he beat with the butt of his crop and a little wicket in the door was opened. At the bars of the wicket an old man's face showed for a moment and then drew ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... chap like you—he was an eighth of an inch fatter, though—on a steamer—to be sure, she was only twelve hundred tons, now I come to think of it—in exactly the same place as you are. He pulled out in a bit of a bobble of a sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends on the same butt-strap, and the plates opened like a furnace door, and I had to climb into the nearest fog-bank, while the boat ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... four of them—strangers. The boy observed that they were dressed like cowboys, broad brimmed hats, blue shirts and all. From the belt of each was suspended a holster from which protruded the butt of a heavy revolver. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... discovered the openings in the reefs through which he passed and got to sea; little thinking that, by so doing, he was incurring a greater risk than by remaining within the reefs and steering along the coast. Some of our people walked round the island where they found a whaler's ton butt cast upon the beach: it had probably belonged to the Echo. Near the cask were lying several coconuts, one of which was quite sound and perfect. The beach was strewed with pumice-stone heaped up above ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... should contain, if possible, a humorist, a sentimentalist, and a good-tempered butt; the only kind of men who should be rigidly excluded are the busy mocker, the despiser, the superior person. It does not matter how much people disagree, if they will only admit in their minds that every one has a right to ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... him on the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him in the malmsey-butt ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... room, placed me in the middle of the floor, and then hurrying to the door, he endeavoured to repulse the crowd who strove to enter with us. This he effected, though not without considerable difficulty, being once or twice compelled to have recourse to the butt of his musket, to drive back unauthorized intruders. I now looked round the room. It was rather scantily furnished: I could see nothing but some tubs and barrels, the mast of a boat, and a sail or two. Seated upon the tubs were three or four men coarsely dressed, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... A butt weld (Figure 52) is made between the ends of two pieces of shaft or other bar shapes by upsetting the ends so that they have a considerable flare and shaping the face of the end so that it is slightly ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... the whole of the school to butt in?" warned Jess. "Then keep quiet, can't you? Much taffy you'll get if Rachel catches us. Your only chance is to lie low, you ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... was more abrupt than dignified. I was hustled to the door. Then a German soldier, by an adroit movement of his rifle which he held reversed, pricked my leg with the bayonet and at the same time brought the butt against my head with a resounding thwack! Simultaneously he let drive with his heavily-booted foot in the small of my back. I discovered afterwards, from actual experience, that this is a very favourite movement of the rifle by the Germans, and is ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... there wasn't room even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face and smiled, and then bowed. I can see that smile now. I felt as if I had been knocked down. The smile utterly nonplussed me—killed all my anger instantly. Mind you, it was a polite smile. But what did it mean? Why the devil ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... of those on the coast. It had two floors with two rooms each, and his good wife kept everything clean and bright. Soon after our arrival the skipper got out for our edification two shotguns—one single, and the other double-barrelled—each of which was fully six feet long from butt to muzzle and had a bore of ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... butt of the bayonet, with the point towards his breast, he thrust the blade with desperate energy nearly through his body. The whole action was done so quickly that no one realized what had happened until Lemoine threw his hands up and they saw the bayonet sticking in his breast. A look of agony came ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... up like lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round—for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder—struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... company betrayed their uneasiness at the approach of an overkept haunch of venison; and neither by the nose nor the palate could he distinguish corked wine from sound. He could never tell Madeira from sherry,—nay, an Oriental friend having sent him a butt of sheeraz, when he {p.253} remembered the circumstance some time afterwards, and called for a bottle to have Sir John Malcolm's opinion of its quality, it turned out that his butler, mistaking the label, had already served ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... English history. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt, and the whole line of witnesses before the Special Commission, tell a different tale. The very name of the Land League is significant. Home Rule was a mere theme for academic discussion in the mouth of Mr. Butt. Repeal itself never touched the strongest passions of Irish nature, though advocated by the most eloquent and popular of Irish orators. Not an independent Parliament, but independent ownership of ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... favoured with all sorts of missiles pitched over the partitions on either side with extraordinary accuracy. A book from Langrish hit me on the ear, and a wet sponge from Trimble moistened my cheek. And when I sought shelter under the sheets, the butt-end of a fishing-rod in the ribs drew me from my hiding-place, and a clever cast with a hooked pin by Langrish relieved me of my outer covering altogether. The footsteps of the monitor on duty deprived me of the privilege of making an audible protest. All ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... the gun, held the butt on the thwart, and drew trigger, when the flash and report cut the air ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... exclaimed their butt the barber at this; "is it possible that such an honourable company can say that this is not a basin but a helmet? Why, this is a thing that would astonish a whole university, however wise it might be! That will do; if this ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... place—his jeweled sabre—his swaggering, almost ruffianly air—were no more meant to escape attention than his charger that clattered and kicked among the crowd, or his following, who cleared a way for him with the butt ends of their lances. He rode ahead, but every other minute a mounted sepoy would reach out past him and drive his lance-end into the ribs of some one ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... passed, while two pairs of eyes from two leafy trees watched closely every instant of his passing, and one man's hand dropped unconsciously to the butt of ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... to the right and found Mr. Grant's trial-shaft. It had been sunk amongst a number of round holes dug by the native miner, and it appeared to us that they had been working the southern butt-end of the eastern reef. He had preferred it to another pit sunk a little distance from the centre by a man named Jones, whose venture yielded the poorest results. Cameron drew my attention to the necessity of 'hydraulicking' this hill-side; and from three pounds of its yellow ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... this moment he had remained in his saddle. His rifle—its butt resting in the stirrup, its barrel extending up to his shoulder—had been seen by no one. The "armas de aqua" covering his legs, and the serape his shoulders, had completely concealed it. In addition to this, his sharp hunting-knife, strapped along his left thigh, escaped observation ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... tentatively of his rifle, but changed his mind. He remembered the Panther's exploit with the firebrand, and he decided to imitate it, but on a much larger scale. He laid down his rifle, but kept his left hand on the butt of the pistol in his belt. Then selecting the largest torch from the fire he made a rush straight for the blazing eyes, thrusting the flaming stick before him. There was a frightened roar, and then the sound of a heavy body crashing away ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... gave the word, and my spearmen came quickly forward through the viking line, and there stood two deep, setting the butt ends of their spears firmly in the ground at their feet, and lowering the points to meet the horses breast high. Olaf bade the front rank kneel on one knee and take both hands to the spear shaft, and then the thick hedge of glittering points was double. I had never seen this plan before, but ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... under water. He likewise sprung his main-mast, and the ship made so much water that she could not be freed by four pumps assisted by bailing. On the 9th the wind became calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship, in rolling, opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt ends of her planks, and the greatest part of her top-timbers, the bolts being drawn by the violence of the roll. In this condition, with additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating westward to the 12th, when they were in lat. 60 deg. S. and in great want of provisions, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... purpose, but, on the contrary, is pernicious in its effects, inasmuch as it occasions, not unnaturally, a feeling of soreness on the part of those, whether individuals or a nation, who are made the subject of it. Japan has too often been the butt of the humourist. I have no desire to deprecate humour, which no doubt gives a savour to life, but that humour which is only exercised at the expense of others, in my opinion, needs reprobation. As I have ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... be in my duty." Then he directed their steps so as to pass near the man. When opposite, he turned his eyes suddenly upon Perkins' face, and detected such a scowl of hostility and hate that his hand dropped instinctively on the butt of his revolver. "Well, sir," he said, sternly, "you have shown ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... a trifle, to be thumped and mauled with the butt of an oar, as I have been all the while Browne was singing, and rhapsodising, and going into ecstasies about the beauty of the morning; which is just such another as we have had ever since we have been here; all the difference being in his feelings, which happen to be ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... paper in the thoughtful manner of a buck about to butt. For the first time she had perceived clearly that much of which she had not the smallest inkling must have happened during her long absences from home, and that these two women,—her mother and sister,—were united by ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... never was publicly executed, but he met his death somehow, in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some agency of the King or his brother Gloucester, or both. It was supposed at the time that he was told to choose the manner of his death, and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. I hope the story may be true, for it would have been a becoming death for ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... doctrine by; and you very likely consider my preference for such a word a perverse sort of a partiality on my part. It certainly is a bad word to make converts with; and you wish I had not thrust it so butt-foremost at you,—you wish to use a ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... knew that neither could be fired after the thorough wetting in the river, but the farmer would not know that. He saw the house presently, a comfortable two-story frame building, standing among fine shade trees. Without hesitation he knocked heavily on the door with the butt of a pistol. ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... been looking for. He's got that land from McLagan. He's going to run a ranch. He's going to play big dog. Gee! That's the game! Say, master Jim," he went on, apostrophizing the absent man he had so easily learned to hate, "I'll make you a sick man before the snow falls. Gee! You'd butt in in my affairs. You're standing Eve's friend." He laughed. "Go ahead, boy. I'll play up to you. Eve shall tell you I'm a reformed man, and you'll ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... the stockade, followed by three other men, he ran towards the prostrate chief, who in vain, flourishing his spear, called on his companions to rescue him. Finding that none of them returned, he made a desperate lunge with his spear at Tim, who, however, leaping on one side, warded it off with the butt of his rifle, and dealt the Indian a blow on the head which rendered him incapable of further resistance. The Irishman and his companions then seized the nearly-stunned warrior by the shoulders, and dragged him to the gate of the fort. It being opened for their ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... stream for about fifty yards at one rush, making for a narrow channel between two rocks, through which the stream ran like a mill-race. Should he pass this channel, I knew he would cut the line across the rock; therefore, giving him the butt, I held him by main force, and by the great swirl in the water I saw that I was bringing him to the surface; but just as I expected to see him, my float having already appeared, away he darted in another direction, taking sixty or seventy yards of line without a check. ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... fear is shown from the fact that no men have been more honoured in Ireland than such Protestant leaders as William Smith O'Brien, Thomas Davis, John Mitchel, John Martin, Isaac Butt, and Charles Stewart Parnell. The same feeling is constantly shown at this moment towards distinguished Protestants among the present ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... ourselves upon that astonished crew. Black as the place was, tremulous the light, nevertheless the cabined space, the open plateau, was our salvation. I saw figures before me; faces seemed to look into my own; and as a battle-axe of old time, so my rifle's butt would fall upon them. Heaven knows I had the strength of three and I used it with three's agility, now shooting them down, now hitting wildly, thrust here, thrust there, bullets singing about my ears, haunting cries everywhere. Aye, how ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... out. When his breathing showed him fast asleep indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand close to the butt of my automatic, ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... remembered that they were perhaps scanning for the last time the rugged outline {43} of that heather-clad landscape, and their hearts grew sick within them. Foreland after foreland came into view and disappeared. At length the ships were skirting the Butt of Lewis with its wave-worn clefts and caverns. Then all sight of land vanished, and they were steering their course ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... went into Aboukir with six colours flying; so that even if five were shot away, it should not be imagined he had struck. He too must needs wear his four stars outside his Admiral's frock, to be a butt for sharpshooters. "In honour I gained them," he said to objectors, adding with sublime illogicality, "in honour I will die with them." Captain Douglas of the Royal Oak, when the Dutch fired his vessel in the Thames, sent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so far as to speak of painting, of music, of dancing—even of sculpture! She proved herself equally familiar with the pencil, with tunes, and with books, until Thaddeus was petrified by so much learning, and feared that he might become the butt of ridicule, and stammered like a little lad before his teacher. Luckily the teacher was beautiful and lenient; his neighbour guessed the cause of his perturbation, and shifted the talk to less deep and difficult subjects, to the cares and troubles of existence in the country, and how one must ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... fed three meals a day, like anyone else. If he gets hurt he has a right to medical and surgical attendance. He is allowed to attend chapel on Sunday, just like an upper classman, and he may receive and write letters. But he mustn't butt into upper-class privileges." ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... own position in the good-will of his colleagues had been materially shaken during Anton's absence. He had long been the butt of all their witticisms, but now Anton was very sorry to see that he was universally disliked. Even the quartette had given him up—at least there was decided enmity between him and both basses. Whenever Specht ventured upon an assertion that was not quite incontrovertible, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... gave him and his partner liberty of action. They knew where the arms lay, and each in the twinkling of an eye secured a large navy revolver without disturbing the Indians. They then simultaneously struck the two sleeping guards a powerful blow on the head with the butt of their revolvers. The Indian struck by the herder was nearly killed by the heavy blow, while Glazier's man was only stunned. They then made for the ponies, leaped into the saddles, and before any of the other ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... one of the muskets," cried Tom, as he caught sight of the butt lifted above the surface amid the creamy water, and, rushing in, he seized it, though the next sea nearly carried him ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... jacket to weep the wrist somewhere ajar the butt-end of a pistol as he spoke he approached the door they ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... the soldier assigned to their home bang on the door with the butt of his rifle, fled to the kitchen, where she stood listening and watching. She nearly cried out when the soldier thrust the bayonet of his rifle at her father, and all the resentment of her race at such injustice ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... report, wherein the Dudes received only honorable mention. It was Captain Stricker of the volunteers who had led the dash on the rebel works across the Tripa to the left of Blockhouse 12. It was their Sergeant Finney who whacked a Filipino major with the butt of his Springfield, and tumbled out of him the batch of reports and records that gave the numbers and positions of every unit of Pilar's division on the southward zone. It was their Corporal Norton who got the Mauser through the shoulder just as, foremost in the rush, he ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... he said. "It is three inches over the four feet. I fear that the bumping of the mizzen, before we got rid of it, must have started a butt. She could hardly have made ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... frenzy Edith struck that hand again and again with the heavy butt of her riding-whip, but it did not loosen its grasp. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... something sinister was being hatched in the Arvanian Embassy. For, in this big sunny kitchen five men lounged about in addition to the white-coated chef and his beardless stripling of an assistant. And each of the five had a holster strapped openly over his coat with the butt of an automatic protruding ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... quicker. He dug his spur cruelly into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with difficulty reined him in a few paces away. The snake with a broken ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... fellow-servant; first an altercation, then a scuffle ensued, in which latter the mastiff took an effective part, in maintaining the equality of the house against what otherwise would have been overwhelming odds; but he was at last disabled by a blow with the butt of a fowling-piece, whilst the lap-dog, as it stood barking on the borders of the fray, was shot dead by the cowardly and vindictive Narcisse. This was too much to be borne, and, indignant, the ladies descended to the lawn. At the same moment, three female domestics appeared upon the scene, and changed ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... certainly have fallen on the floor, but try as he might, no hand could he lay on them. Slipping out of bed to grope for flint and steel wherewith to strike a light, with soul-rending shock he ran his forehead full butt against the open ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half-a-dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of which have never ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... Resurrection, thy brethren will always number thee among those who have renounced the Mother. Hark! thy enemies are in pursuit of thee, already near. Should they capture thee, thou must be the slave of their wills, the partner of their crimes, the sport and butt of all their bitter jests throughout the remnant of thy wretched life. One only refuge remains for thee!' And as he spoke, he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Butt Navigators," or, as the "Yankee" boys called them, the Rumor Committee, were very busy that bright day in May. According to them we were to sail seaward and discover Cervera's fleet, the whereabouts of which was then unknown. We were to sail south and bombard Havana. The older, wiser heads laughed ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... can't very well understand. When one is a wife and a mother—I thought it all over during my illness. I had been neglecting my husband and Hughie, and it was too bad—downright selfishness. Art and housekeeping won't go together; I thought they might, butt found my mistake. Of course, it cost me a struggle, but that's over. I have learnt ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... fed about Ladon and the Erymanthian water and the ridges of Pholoe haunted by wild beasts, Lycormas son of Thearidas of Lasion got, striking her with the diamond-shaped butt of his spear, and, drawing off the skin and the double-pointed antlers on her forehead, laid them before ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... often cast scorn and derision on that which was innocent, or even meritorious. For the reason that the comic writers were so indiscriminate in their attacks, frequently making transcendent genius and noble personality, as well as demagogism and personal vice, the butt of comic scorn; their writings have but little historical value except in the few instances in which they are corroborated ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... his ears knowingly. Tom Jonah came up to him and they companionably "snuffed noses," as Sammy said. But Billy Bumps had to be kept at a distance, for he showed a marked desire to butt the new member of the Corner House family ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... ear, as she came across him in one of the drawing-rooms, "Lord Hubert takes me in to supper. Poor me!" She made an extravagant face of self-pity and swept on. Lord Hubert was one of the sons of the house, a stupid and inarticulate guardsman, Kitty's butt and detestation. Ashe smiled to himself over her fate, and went back to the ballroom in ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the court-fool was generally not a wit, but a naive blockhead, who believed all that was said, and was therefore a butt for jests. He only placed a letter in Cercas' hand, and disappeared. When Cercas had read the letter, she changed colour and seemed to become a different being. Overcome with rage, she could ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... floor parallel to each other at small intervals, in the direction of the longer diameter of the basket, thus forming what may be called the "woof," for basket-work is literally a web. These parallel rods are then crossed at right angles by two pairs of the largest osiers, on the butt ends of which the workman places his feet; and they are confined in their places by being each woven alternately over and under the parallel pieces first laid down and their own butts which form ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... to be piled, it was also the last sheaf to be lifted. It travelled to the stack on the summit of the last load, and, by a happy chance, formed one of the outside layer. By scratching and gnawing continuously for an hour, he worked his way to the butt of it, paused for a moment on the precipitous steep, and then scrambled lightly down to earth. A perpendicular descent was nothing ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... make all the attacks. Brunhild first poised and flung her spear with such force that both heroes staggered and almost fell; but before she could cry out victory, Siegfried had caught the spear, turned it butt end foremost, and flung it back with such violence that the princess fell and was ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... blows of the butt-ends of the masts allowed of no alternative. The bright axes gleamed while the seamen rapidly cut the ropes. As the last shroud was severed the gallant topman waved his hand a farewell to his shipmates, and a faint cheer reached their ears as the tangled ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... not recognised by the lieutenant, and, before he could get clear of his envelope, the handspike had again descended; when up rose the corporal, like a buffalo out of his muddy lair, half blinded by the last blow, which had fallen on his head, ran full butt at the lieutenant, and precipitated his senior officer and ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... a serious business dilemma. Cupid had butt in at the wrong moment. It was necessary for Greenfield & Jacobs to be in that parade, and he had about six minutes to get the float in line. As he put it in his report to Mr. Greenfield, "There ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... The dark man looked from one to the other around the room, and although he had delivered his ultimatum in a hectoring tone, it was plain that he found himself dissatisfied with the situation. Perhaps he was uncertain whether or not the whole thing was a hoax and himself the butt of a joke, to be laughed at later for treating the affair in a melodramatic way. The faces before him told him nothing. At last he cleared his throat again with finality, and bowing to Lady ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... said he. Now you must know that I was the only one that treated Cousin Jehoiakim kindly. Sister Anna and Brother Dick made a complete butt of him; the rest did not treat him at all, except to an occasional shrug of the shoulder from Anna's lieutenant, or a gay laugh from little Fanny. And, forsooth, because I was civil to him, and talked to him, and excused his awkwardness, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... before either could speak. Then a latch creaked and snapped behind them and, slowly and cautiously, the wooden shutter began to open outward. In an instant Harvey had raised his rifle and struck the resounding board a fierce blow with the butt. The door flew back, crashing in violent contact against the grizzled pate of Moreno himself, who, with a howl of mingled rage and anguish, fell ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... rifle first, but in consequence of his being in such close quarters to me, and my holding my rifle with one hand, while I endeavoured to free myself with the other, I could not point the muzzle at my assailant, and my only way of clearing myself from his hold was by battering his head with the butt end of the weapon with my right hand, while he still clung round my left side. At last I disengaged myself, and he let go suddenly, and slipped instantly behind one of the thick acacia bushes, and got away, just as the army in front was wavering. All this did not occupy many ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... pretended, could not make guns of another sort.—But where lay the difficulty?—One of the witnesses had unravelled it. He had seen the Negros maimed by the bursting of these guns. They killed more from the butt than from the muzzle. Another had stated, that on the sea-coast the natives were afraid to fire ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... moment, Harry ran up to the proclamation and tore it down, and then darted off again. Abdool, springing to his feet, brought the butt end of the soldier's musket down on his head; and then, satisfied that a minute or two must elapse before the man would be recovered sufficiently to give the alarm, he too ran off, and joined Harry at the point where they ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... to fall away and with the butt of his left hand Crawford struck the acceleration lever. He could make more time now when less of his attention was drawn to the ups and downs of ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... him. The discharge of such duties by an independent gentleman was thought to be so desirable and so creditable to him that his want of efficiency must be regarded with consideration. Nor, though the justices have been a favourite butt for satirists, does it appear that the system worked badly. When it became necessary to appoint paid magistrates in London, and the pay, according to the prevalent system, was provided by fees, the new officials became known as 'trading justices,' and their salaries, as Fielding tells ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... festivals And our assemblies for their bravery." Such things the public voice will say of us, In life or death our fame will never end. Consent, dear sister; for thy father strike, Strike for thy brother, rescue me from woe, Redeem thyself. Those who are nobly born Honour forbids to live the butt ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... barrel more often than miss, unless the gunner got rattled. The shell consisted of three parts, a conical head with smaller cylinderical base, a cap to fit, that base loosely and a ring of lead that connected the head and base. When fired the cap at butt was thrown forward on the cylinderical base of the cone, expanding the lead ring into the grooves of the rifle, the cone exploding by percussion cap on striking. It was the most accurate field piece of ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... suddenly became angry. He jammed his own cigarette butt into the ash tray, turned toward Spanding, and snapped: "Harry, just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that Bossard wasn't actually guilty. Let's suppose that the Constitution of the United States is really true—that a man isn't guilty ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... single-storied, windowless barn of rough stone and reddish clay. Says Burton: "I walked into a vast hall between two long rows of Galla spearmen, between whose lines I had to pass. They were large, half-naked savages, standing like statues with fierce, movable eyes, each one holding, with its butt end on the ground, a huge spear, with a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered down them coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their dangerous-looking faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt, and determined, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... of killin', ye young cut-throat? I say get howld of his body and when ye've got howld of his body, I'd further advise gettin' howld of the butt ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... knowledge, with any of a later age. They may, in fact, be considered as characteristic appendages, or accompanying features, to the ecclesiastical structures of those times. There is one at Rathmichael, near Dublin, where there is the butt of a round tower. I have seen many of them in various states of preservation, and I think all were about 4 feet both in breadth and height. They were, however, never arched, but roofed with large flags, laid horizontally, and their upper surface level ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... did'nt think so when I charged plunk into the middle of 'em. Yer should 'ave been there to see it. They were all round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop 'oles. ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Laramie rose, his fingers resting on the butt of his revolver, and stepping lightly into the dining-room, turned down the lamp. He stood in the shadow and beckoned Kate to him. His face indicated ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... ducked the submarine boy; then came up straight at close quarters. Benson's sudden grapple deprived the driver of a chance to use the butt of his whip in the manner the ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... rose to mete out justice to this highwayman. Had the butt of his whip hit Shelby he would have seen more stars than twinkled overhead. But it didn't. It was caught in one hand, given a dexterous twist and sent flying into the road as Shelby said ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that had been thrown had a noose, through which O'Shea dashed his arms; then, seizing the pole, he struck the butt-end between the blocks of ice ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... primitive. They had neither hooks nor lines, but depended entirely on a contrivance made from long, slender branches of willow, which grew on the banks of most of the streams. One of these branches would be cut, and after sharpening the butt-end to a point, split a certain distance, and by a wedge the prongs divided sufficiently to admit a fish between. The Indian fisherman would then slyly put the forked end in the water over his intended victim, and with ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... the men of Diomede slept, "their spears were driven into the ground erect on the spikes of the butts" (X. 153). Aristotle mentions that this was still the usage of the Illyrians in his day. [Footnote: Poctica, 25.] Though the word for the spike in the butt (sauroter) does not elsewhere occur in the Iliad, the practice of sticking the spears erect in the ground during a truce is mentioned in III. 135: "They lean upon their shields" (clearly large high shields), "and the tall ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... the air. Charley swung the whip, and shouted at them to lie down, but they were beyond his control, and would not lie down, but jumped and strained at their traces, giving out short whines and howls. He struck at Sampson with the butt end of the whip, and Sampson snapped at him with ugly fangs, and would have sprung upon him had the dog's trace not held him ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... ascertain whether either pistol had been recently fired. One was clean, but from the muzzle of the other he withdrew a finger grimed with gunpowder. While he was doing this his other hand came in contact with something slightly uneven in the smooth metal surface of the butt. He turned the pistol over, and noticed a small inner circle in the flat steel. It was a small hinged lid, which hid a pocket in the handle. He raised the little lid with his finger-nail, and a shower ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... stalking through the terrible dances, a heroic figure at last. He shuddered every time he found himself on one leg; he got sternly into everybody's way; he was the butt of the little noodle of an instructor. All the social tortures he endured grimly, in the hope that at last the cork would come out. Then, though there were all kinds of girls in the class, merry, sentimental, practical, coquettish, prudes, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... queer-looking, lateen-rigged boats, xebecs from Africa, lying close to us. One of them was flying a red flag, and I noticed that our own boat was alongside of her. I thought nothing of it, but drew a little water from the scuttle-butt, and washed my face and hands in one of the buckets. One or two of the men were ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... a hot-headed, blustering Irishman, not without ability, and certainly courageous; a good politician, and, on the whole, a very well-liked man. However, the swagger and noise with which he accompanied the execution of his duties, and his habit of being continually on the defensive, made him the butt of Whig ridicule. Nothing could have given greater satisfaction to Lincoln and his friends than having an opponent who, whenever they joked him, flew into a rage and challenged ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... whiffletrees, struck his team a sharp blow with the lines—their first blow that day—swung them round to the top of the tree, ran the chain through its swivel, hooked an end round each of the top lengths, swung them in toward the butt, unhooked his chain, gathered all three lengths into a single load, faced his horses toward the pile, and shouted at them. The blacks, unused to this sort of treatment, were prancing with excitement, and when the word came they threw themselves into their collars ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... rebel knaves—what make you there beneath?' 'The bays, the bays! we want the bays! we seek the laureate wreath! We seek the butt of generous wine that cheers the sons of song; Choose thou among us all, Sir Knight—we ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... heaped before him. By the time the kettles of salted fowl and venison and bear had passed round the circle, each Indian was glancing furtively sideways to see if his neighbor could still eat. He who was compelled to forsake the feast first was to become the butt of the company. All the while the French kept up a din of drums and trumpets and flageolets, dancing and singing and shouting to drive off sleep. The eyes of the gorging Indians began to roll. Never had they attempted to demolish such a banquet. Some shook ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... scantling will need to be carved a little in order to get a good bearing for the butt of the antlers. This artificial forehead, as we might call it, is to be fastened to a heart-shaped block by nailing or screwing from the back and covered as ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... angry bravado. "Do you think I'm going to let you butt into this? I guess you've got enough to do to look out for your ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... old vagabond, and was always in quarrels. If there was a disagreeable story about the father or grandfather of any of the princes, he knew it and told it, so that he got a blow from the baton of Agamemnon, and Aias gave him a kick, and Idomeneus drubbed him with the butt of his spear for a tale about his grandmother, and everybody hated him and called him a nuisance. He was for ever jeering at Ulysses, who was far away, and telling tales about Autolycus, and at last he stole a gold cup, ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... frozen with the cold and prostrated with the heat, she had been blown about by Chicago wind until it was strange there was any of her left in one piece, she had had front doors—yes, and back doors too, slammed in her face, she had been the butt of the alleged wit of menials and hirelings, she had been patronised by vapid women as the poor girl who must make her living some way, she had been roasted by—but never mind—she had had a beat or ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... other; but I can make no sort of conjecture whence; and certainly no one had ever spoken to me on the subject of the Catholic religion, which I only knew by name. The French master was an emigre priest, but he was simply made a butt, as French masters too commonly were in that day, and spoke English very imperfectly. There was a Catholic family in the village, old maiden ladies we used to think; but I knew nothing but their name. I have of late years heard that there ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... the saddle. My hands were upon the well-rope when, without warning, I was gripped from behind, and flung down into the dirt of the road. I made desperate effort to break away, but two men held me, one with knee pressed into my chest, the other uplifting the butt of a pistol over my head. There was not a word spoken, but I could see they were in uniform, although the fellow kneeling on me had the features and long black hair of an Indian. My horse started to bolt, but his rein was gripped, and then a third figure, mounted, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... a start as his eyes lifted above the saddle, and his hand dropped to the butt of the revolver which he carried so clumsily in his belt. Hun Shanklin was standing there facing him, not above a dozen feet away, grinning dubiously, but with what he doubtless meant for an ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... to fight back was, up to the present moment, undiscovered. He believed that he knew about where the ambushed man was concealed. In the edge of a low-hanging mass of balsam was a fallen cedar. From behind the butt of that cedar he was ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... unexpected vivacity. We swung in the ruts, we shook like jellies on the merciless patches of broken stones, and Croppy stimulated the pace with weird whistlings through his teeth, and heavy prods with the butt of his whip in the region of ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... two men had thrown themselves on the grass to eat their lunch the surveyor, between bites of his sandwich, carefully scanned the mountain side and the mouth of the canyon below. Suddenly reaching out his hand he picked up a burnt cigarette butt and regarded it intently, while the engineer watched ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... the he-goat, black Adultery, With the roused ram, Retaliation, twine Their horns in one to butt at Filippo." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... lives, apparently, that a poor man on foot might not be able to talk German, which seemed to me an astonishing thing; and as I sat there ordering beer for myself and for a number of peasants (who but for this would have me their butt, and even as it was found something monstrous in me), I pondered during my continual attempts to converse with them (for I had picked up some ten words of their language) upon the folly of those who imagine the world to be grown smaller ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... telling you, wasn't I?" demanded Tony. "Only that fool Chris had to butt in. We got these here bags of doubloons, as I says, without havin' to dig for 'em—oncet we had found the cave, which it's no thanks to old Washtubs we ain't looking for it yet. We got these here bags right out of the fists of a skeleton. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the salons made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies. According to the Memoires authentiques pour servir a l'histoire du Comte de ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... "but them's Mrs. Haxton's very words as I helped her up the ship's ladder. Hello! Where's the fire? Unless I'm much mistaken, young feller, there's a first-class row goin' on outside our bloomin' cafe. No, no, don't you butt in among Arabs as though you was strollin' down Edgware Road on a Saturday night, an' get mixed up in a coster rough-an'-tumble. These long-legged swine would knife you just for the fun of it. Keep full an' by, an' let any son of a gun who comes too near have it ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the wounded man had dragged himself up the trail, finally staggering to his feet, and with a caution which he had not exercised a few hours before Howland continued slowly between the thick forest walls, one hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly been used in place of tent-stakes. With the toe of his boot he ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... a gentleman. Besides, I plainly saw that if there ever had been any intention of advancing to Antwerp, the time was now gone by; and as the French were laughing at us, and I never liked to be made a butt of, particularly by such chaps as these, I left the scene of our sorrows and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... much of you lately, Sparks," he observed, applying a steady match flame to the oval butt. He spoke in his usual tones, with a gruffness that balanced on a razor edge between rough jocularity and official harshness. "What's new? Have ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... of the smiles of the insolent scholars who are superior to me only in their fortune; for there is not one among them who feels one-hundredth part of the noble sentiments by which I am animated. Must your son, sir, continually be the butt of these boobies, who, vain of the luxuries which they enjoy, insult me with their laughter at the privations I am forced to endure? No, father; No! If fortune refuses to smile upon me, take me from Brienne, and make ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... college life, Tom and Quincy were unsuspecting, and became the butt of many good-natured and some unkind jokes. On one occasion they were invited to join a theatre party. It was a variety or vaudeville show and ended with a pantomime, the closing scene in ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... great deal of joshing and laughter, in which Roy took no part; for he was a fellow who found little amusement in the usual babble and jests of his schoolmates, and nothing aroused his resentment quicker than to be made the butt of a harmless joke. He had once choked Cooper purple in the face in retaliation for a jest put upon him by the audacious, rattle-brained little chap; but later Chipper had accepted Roy's apologies and protestations of regret, practically ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... while several of them sprang into the cabin, where they discovered Mrs. Ellice almost dead with terror. Dragging her violently on deck, they were about to cast her into the sea, when Buzzby, who stood with his hands bound, suddenly burst his bonds and sprang towards her. A blow from the butt of a pistol, however, stretched him ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... you may turn him off whenever you please." "I believe," said my husband, "he has been ingenuous in his relation to me; and as a man who has seen great variety of life, and may have been the shuttlecock of fortune, the butt of envy, and the mark of malice, I will hire him when he comes to me here anon, as ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... brought a gleaming weapon with a long barrel and an unusually large butt—an air pistol of great power and reliability. In the old South African times Bullard had been a notable shot with rifle and revolver, and practice during the last few days had shown him that his hand and eye still retained a good deal of their cunning. Moreover, it was an easy ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... of the day was somewhat less, and she told me that it was past five o'clock by the sun-dial; so I knew that I must go. She made me take a packet of victuals and a bottle of milk, and as she put it into, my pocket the bottle struck on the butt of Maskew's pistol, which I had in my bosom. 'What have you there?' she said; but I did not tell her, fearing to call up ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... brought upward so the target was always in full view, and as the bead was drawn the body was tilted backward until an easy balance for the long barrel was found. The elbow of the arm against which the butt of the rifle rested was lifted high, awkwardly high, but this position prevented any nervous backward jerk or muscular movement of the arm that might sway the barrel. Only the weight of the forefinger was needed to spring the hair-trigger. When the gun-sights were nearing the ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... thought it a grave disadvantage that our street was unlighted. Our street was not drained nor graded; no municipal cart ever came to carry away our ashes; there was not a water-butt within half a mile to save us from fire, nor more than the one-thousandth part of a policeman to protect us from theft. Yet, as I paid a heavy tax, I somehow felt that we enjoyed the benefits of city government, and never looked upon Charlesbridge ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... dead nobleman's coffin. The black mourning drapery which yet clung to the wood gave them quite a sense of magnificence. Their first child, Hans Christian, grew up amid these mean surroundings, constantly worried by the street boys, who made a butt of him, and tortured him in the thousand ingenious ways known to their species. He had no schooling to speak of; but, for all that, was haunted, like Joseph, by dreams foreshadowing his future greatness. Guided by this ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a big fellow, but my cousin has wrists of steel.... He took the whip from its owner as one takes a toy from a baby. Then with the butt he hit him across the mouth. The Spaniard reeled, caught his foot on a stone and fell heavily. Jonah threw down the whip and took off ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... foolish things he did or said. At last there was a great outbreak of anger, and the king ordered the Duke of Clarence to be imprisoned in the Tower; and there, before long, he too was killed. The saying was that he was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine, but this is not at all likely to be true. He left two little children, a ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slouch hat, her gray flannel shirt, her weather-beaten khaki Norfolk and riding-breeches, looking for all the world like an extraordinarily slim, extraordinarily shabby little boy just starting out to play. Up from the top of one riding-boot the butt of ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Pussy was burnt, As I too have learnt; But, as you will read, She jumped into the water-butt before you could count, ONE, TWO, ...
— The Nine Lives of A Cat - A Tale of Wonder • Charles Bennett
... more powder. Others hurriedly reloaded their arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with, the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me with. And there were over forty ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of Butt, to whose house on holidays he was ever welcome. The children in the family, perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing said:—'You call him the great boy, but take ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... giving an aggressive tone both to the paper and the society. But if he was largely responsible for the fighting temper of the early movement, he, at any rate, never shirked his share of the fighting. His name was the butt at which all shafts were aimed. As Lot "seemed like one that mocked to his sons-in-law," so seemed the Parson to the most opposite sections of the British nation. As a friend wrote of him at the time, he "had at any ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... descriptive of a malt liquor, will be found than the one noticed by our correspondent; for it was only about 1722 that Harwood, a London brewer, commenced brewing this liquor, which he called "entire," or "entire butt," implying that it was drawn from one cask or butt. It subsequently obtained the name of porter, from its ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... carousals marked the winter with the triumphant Nor'westers of Athabasca Lake. Often, when wild drinking songs were ringing in the Nor'westers' dining hall, the Hudson's Bay men would be brought in to furnish a butt for their merciless victors. One night, when the hall was full of Indians, one of the Northwest bullies began to brawl out a song in celebration of the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... pressing his lord hard; while the gladiators, apparently encouraged by his apathy, were beginning to handle their weapons, he shifted his spear in his hands, and stepping back a pace, so as to give full scope to a sweeping blow, he flourished the butt, which was garnished with a heavy ball of metal, round his head in a figure of eight, and brought it down so heavily on the felt skull-cap of the conspirator, that his teeth jarred audibly together, a quick flash ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Archie never doubted for a moment that success would attend the enterprise, so implicit was his confidence in his leader. When at some little distance from the town they halted, and Wallace ordered a tree to be felled and lopped of its branches. It was some eight inches in diameter at the butt and thirty feet long. A rope had been brought, and this was now cut into lengths of some four feet. Wallace placed ten of his men on each side of the tree, and the cords being placed under it, it was lifted and carried ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... himself to explore the surroundings of the place, and one of the boys could not be found. The other boy, on being told that his father had sent for him to come for a walk, had managed—by accident, of course—to fall into the water butt, and had to be dried and rigged out afresh. His clothes not having been as yet unpacked this was of course impossible ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... advantage of being uniformly tunicked—with no Company badge to betray their ship or status. So that could well be the "Polestar" standing needle slim behind them—and not the notorious "Solar Queen." But each, as he passed through the inner lock, gave a hitch to his belt which brought the butt of his sleep rod closer to hand. Innocuous as that weapon was, in close quarters its effects, if only temporary, was to some purpose. And since they were prepared for trouble, they might have a slight edge over the Eysies ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... guilders! The Mayor looked blue, So did the Corporation too. For council dinners made rare havock With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gipsy coat of red and yellow! 'Besides,' quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, 'Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead can't come to life, I think. So, friend, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... He had those to deal with who possessed every facility and advantage successfully to battle him in his hopes and plans. But then he was no longer the poor painter, who did not know where his next meal was to be obtained; he was no longer the hungry artist-the butt and jest of his old companions. No! he was under the patronage of the Grand Duke, whose personal friendship he could boast. His brush brought him daily-or as often as he was pleased to exert himself-large sums of money; and his ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... two hundred pounds weight of soap to cure the stone, but died of that disease. Bishop Berkeley drank a butt of tar-water. Meyer, in a course of chemical neutralization, swallowed 1,200 pounds of crabs' eyes. In the German Ephemerides, the case of a person is described who had taken so much elixir of vitriol, that his keys were rusted in his pocket by the transudation of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various |
