"Butt end" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... class and the working class have nothing in common; but on this occasion I learned that the preamble is mistaken. On this occasion I saw one thing in common between the employing class and the working class, and that thing was a black-snake whip. The butt end of the whip was in the hands of the employing class, and the lash of the whip was on the backs of the working class, and thus to all eternity was symbolized the truth about the relationship of ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... Dr Solander had lost an opera glass in a shagreen case, and Mr Monkhouse his snuff box. This incident unfortunately put an end to the good-humour of the company. Complaint of the injury was made to the chief; and, to give it weight, Mr Banks started up, and hastily struck the butt end of his firelock upon the ground: this action, and the noise that accompanied it, struck the whole assembly with a panic, and every one of the natives ran out of the house with the utmost precipitation, except the chief, three women, and two or three others, who appeared ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... to where I was sitting and sat down. About twenty men then approached and drove their spears into the ground in a circle with the butts all leaning inwards. Many of the spears had a small piece broken off at the butt end. From these spears were then hung clubs, spears and shields, and native masks and fighting ornaments. An old chief then said they had given me their arms. Next they placed cloth, fishing nets and spears and other native ornaments inside the circle, and the same old chief said they had given me ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... when the boat stood on its head and piled us all up in the front end, but a chair struck me on the place where Fitzsimmons hit Corbett, and knocked the prayer all out of me, and when the boat stood on her butt end and we all slid back the whole length of the cabin, and I brought up under the piano, I tried to sing a hymn, such as I used to in the 'Piscopal choir, before my voice changed, but the passengers who were alive yelled for some one to choke me, and I didn't sing any more. Dad ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... a handful of boughs, string them on a stick which you have previously prepared (Fig. 4). This stick should be of strong, green hardwood, four or five feet long with a fork about six inches long left on it at the butt end to keep the boughs from sliding off, and sharpened at the upper end so that it can be easily poked through a handful of boughs. String the boughs on this stick as you would string fish, but do it one handful at a time, allowing the butts to point in different directions. ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt end ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'disciples' assure us that when Jesus said, 'Resist not evil', 'If a man smite thee upon he right cheek turn unto him also the left', He really meant 'Turn on to him a Maxim gun; disembowel him with a bayonet or batter in his skull with the butt end of a rifle!' When He said, 'If one take thy coat, give him thy cloak also,' the 'Christians' say that what He really meant was: 'If one take thy coat, give him six months' hard labour. A few of the followers of Jesus admit that He really did mean just what He said, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Brigadier General. As I observed him at his work in those early days, I seemed to see in his appearance and disposition some of the characteristics of a Grant. He wore a stubby-pointed beard and he clamped his teeth tight on the butt end of a cigar. I saw him frequently wearing the $11.50 regulation issue uniform of the enlisted men. I saw him frequently in rubber boots standing hip deep in the mud of the gun pits, talking to the men like a father—a kindly, yet stern father who knew ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... indignantly echoed the farmer, to Lyon's great astonishment. "Don't you go to say that; for if you do, devil burn me if I don't knock you down with the butt end ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... more such diabolical contrivances for the disturbance of the public peace." All of which makes us believe that if either Edison or Marconi had lived two hundred years ago, the bailiffs would have looked after them with the butt end of the law for the regulation of wizards and witches—wizards at Menlo Park being as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the way in which war would hurt the non-combatant and sacrifice his business or his comfort to its supreme purpose. Fame was merely foolishness when caught in the trap of martial law. I saw a man of European reputation flourish his card before railway officials, to be thrust back by the butt end of a rifle, No money could buy a seat in a railway carriage already crowded to suffocation. No threat to write a letter to the Times would avail an old-fashioned Englishman when his train was shunted for hours on to a side line ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Ashby, or on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was afforded a more thrilling spectacle than when these two paladins rushed to the onset and met in mid-career. Each gave a yell and dug his heels into his charger, and whacked her with the butt end of his lance, and forced her into a ponderous gallop for the meeting. It matters not now what was the precise intent of either jouster, which of them aimed at gorget or head-piece, or at shield, for—either because the flour ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... 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 ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... his head perforce to see that the boat was not proceeding towards some other dangerous obstacle. Then Markham, with the sudden swift cunning of madness, lifted the butt end of his pole and ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... outside the door, and the butt end of his carbine scratched against the lintel. The Gadfly stopped and looked round, the file still in his lifted ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... a tremendous rush of the British. The French were borne back, and hurled over the edge of the outwork; and before Rupert could avert the blow, the butt end of a musket fell with great force upon his ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... Fierce creatures these animals were, scarcely less wild than the wolves that prowled over the hills behind the Fort, of which they were the counterpart, and more than once the Eskimos had to beat them with the butt end of a whip to stop their fighting ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... did I obtain a footing on the deck, and three times was I thrown back into the boats. At last we had fairly obtained our ground, and were driving them gradually forward, when, as I ran on the gunwale to obtain a position more in advance of my men, I received a blow with the butt end of a musket—I believe on the shoulder—which knocked me overboard, and I fell between the sweeps, and sunk under the vessel's bottom. I rose under her stern; but I was so shook with the violence of the blow, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... abuse interrupted him. "You go on and mind your d—n business," said the teamster. "I'm taking care of this." In uncontrollable fury he beat the horse over the head with the butt end of his whip till it ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... appearance of a man who had slept by a smoky chimney, or encountered the butt end of a threshing flail. He seemed ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... brave and foolish little lad, thought that now was the time to show his heroism. Here it was no longer play, but dead earnest. Down he leaped from his rock, and just as the she-bear was within a foot of the Skull-Splitter, he dealt her a blow in the head with the butt end of his gun which made the sparks dance before her eyes. She turned suddenly toward her new assailant, growling savagely, and scratched her ear with her paw. And Skull-Splitter, who had slipped on the pine needles and fallen, scrambled to his feet ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... I was playin' pool in Rafferty's place with the butt end of the cue. After that, things got ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... licensed sinner touched his head with his fore-finger, himself looking the very picture of well-satisfied sagacity. We said nothing, but leaving the eloquence to him, followed him up to Edgerton's chamber. I struck the door thrice with the butt end of my whip, then called his name, but without receiving any answer. Endeavoring to look through the key-hole, I discovered the key on the inside, and within the lock. I then immediately conjectured the truth. ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... shot him just as my son approached. The creature fell; my son ran up to him: he died with a complaining sort of cry at his master's feet. Jack could bear it no longer; but, flying at the game-keeper, wrenched his gun out of his hand, and with the butt end of it, felled him to ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... Commander grew angry. What was to be done? What was there that would move this people, and bring about a definite victory in opinion? His hand happened to rest on his hip and to come in contact there with the butt end of his revolver, under his red sash. No inspiration, no further word would come. But he drew his pistol, advanced two steps, and, taking aim, fired at the late monarch. The ball entered the forehead, leaving a little, ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... circle now of which somehow I found myself the centre, and they were attacking us on all sides. Stephen got a knock on the head from the butt end of a gun, and tumbled against me, nearly upsetting me. As I recovered myself I looked round ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... own invention. I have several, and each is prepared to fire twenty shots by a mere movement of the trigger, the requisite force of air being placed in a hollow of the butt end; but all these mysteries will become plain to you before you have been long with me," answered ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... time the fire was lighted, and when Shad brought up a kettle of water from the river Bob had already cut a stiff pole about five feet in length. The butt end of this he sharpened, and, jamming it into the ground, inclined it in such manner that the kettle, which he took from Shad and hung by its bail upon the other end of the pole, was ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... spear-head is a modified leaf shape, attached to a ferrule which slips over the shaft. In the mountains, heads with two or more barbs are set into the handles, and are held in place by means of wooden wedges and by metal rings which surround the ends of the shafts. A metal end or shoe covers the butt end of the weapon, thus converting it into an excellent staff ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... preliminary step to his being shot, he fell on his knees and implored mercy. His captors were, however, inexorable, and he began to cry bitterly, and besought them to spare his life; these manifestations had, however, no effect on his deadly foes, who now threatened to fell him with the butt end of a fusee if he did not comply: this had the effect, and the poor captive reluctantly pulled off the jacket and threw it on the ground; this was immediately picked up by one of the party, to avoid its being stained with the ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... approached, his head down, making a lunge with his sword, sure of killing his adversary. But the old fellow, squarely hitting the blade, the point of which would have pierced his stomach, turned it aside, and with the butt end of the whip struck the soldier a sharp blow on the temple and he fell to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... enough to have found that out, too, but they was missin'. I should guess that Miriam had begun exhibitin' her collar-bones to society about the time poor old John L. fought the battle of New Orleans. Yet when she snuggled the butt end of that violin down under her chin and squinted at you across the bridge, she had all the ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... then shot a man with his rifle; he shot the man in the head. He also brained a boy that was about fourteen years old. The boy came running up to our wagons, and Brother Knight struck him on the head with the butt end of his gun and crushed ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... tell him that she was going to be married: she gave him news of his mother, and sent him a basket of apples and a piece of cake to eat in her honor. They came in the nick of time. That evening with Christophe was a fast, Ember Days, Lent: only the butt end of the sausage hanging by the window was left. Christophe compared himself to the anchorite saints fed by a crow among the rocks. But no doubt the crow was hard put to it to feed all the anchorites, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... point of always getting the best of an argument. If he could not do so by reason, he simply roared his opponent down and silenced him by sheer rudeness. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said one of his friends, Oliver Goldsmith, "for when his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the butt end of it." And perhaps Goldy, as Johnson called him, had to suffer more rudeness from him than any of his friends to save Bozzy. Yet the three were often to be found together, and it was Goldsmith who said of Johnson, "No ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall |
