"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of hours, which appears in Fig. 38, consists of a coil, C, strapped down by a piece of tin to a wooden bedplate; a moving plunger, P, mounted on a knitting-needle slide rod, SR; a wire connecting rod, SR; a wooden crank, K; and a piece of knitting-needle for crank shaft, on which are mounted a small eccentric brass wipe, W, and a copper collar, D. Against D presses a brass brush, B1 connected with the binding post, T1; while under W is ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... 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
... within which the displacer works. It is heated by a small cokefire or by a gas flame in C. It communicates through a passage (D) with the working cylinder (B) . The displacer (E) which takes its motion through a rod (I) from a rocking lever (F) connected by a short link to the crank-pin, is itself the regenerator, its construction being such that the air passes up and down through it as in one of the original Stirling forms. The cooler is a water vessel (G) through which water circulates ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 use ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... out of the train, walking up toward the engine. About it were men and women, and the children saw a man with a black box on three legs grinding away at a crank. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... Cora's answer, as she stooped over to crank the motor. It started on the first turn and soon the Chelton was chugging a course over the sun-lit ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... enough to bother myself about. Vanamee is crazy in the head. Some morning he will turn up missing again, and drop out of sight for another three years. Best let him alone, Sarria. He's a crank. How is that greaser of yours up ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... stick placed between them. A pair of cutting nippers was the next addition to his "kit" of tools. His next means for twisting the two wires together was the grindstone—attaching one end of the wire to shaft and crank, the others being fastened to the wall of the barn. And here, as in most things great and small in this world, woman furnished the motor power. The strong arm of the good helpmeet, Mrs. Glidden, turned the grindstone that twisted the first wire that made the first Glidden barb fence that kept stock ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... always in one's heart, And twilight in one's cell, We turn the crank, or tear the rope, Each in his separate Hell, And the silence is more awful far Than the sound ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... passed muster he was indeed a valuable soldier, if the value of a thing depends upon the trouble taken to manufacture it. And now poor Gubbins had more to learn! It may seem very easy to turn a crank, to pump, to shoulder a box, to help carry a bale, or to push at a capstan bar, and this certainly is not skilled labour. Yet there is a way of doing each of these things in a painful, laborious, knuckle- cutting, shoulder-bruising, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... if Pee-wee had prepared his sneaks especially for making prints on wooden ties he could scarcely have done better. In order to get at the main bearings of the engine he had, with characteristic disregard, stood plunk in the copper drain basin under the crank-case. The oil had undoubtedly softened the rubber sole of his sneakers so that it held the clinging substance, and in some cases it was possible to distinguish on the ties the half-obliterated crisscross design ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... crankshaft took full advantage of this fact. It consisted of having the counterweights flexibly mounted instead of being rigidly bolted, as was common practice. The counterweights were pivoted on the crank cheeks. Powerful compression springs absorbed the maximum impulses by permitting the counterweights to lag slightly, yet forced them to travel precisely with the crank cheeks at all ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... Gear.—68 regular; other gears furnished if so desired. Bearings.—Made of the best selected high-grade tool steel, carefully ground to a finish after tempering, and thoroughly dust-proof. All cups are screwed into hubs and crank hangers. Hubs.—Large tubular hubs, made from a solid bar of steel. Furnishing.—Tool-bag, wrench, oiler, pump and repair kit. Tool Bags.—In black or tan leather, as may be preferred. Handle bar, hubs, sprocket ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Strauss or Josef Holbrooke, and Beethoven did not loom nearly so large before the eyes of the people as these composers do: the names of Salieri, Marschner, Meyerbeer, Spontini, Spohr and Weber would be much more familiar than his; even in Vienna he was regarded mainly as a deaf, surly old crank who had the support of highly placed personages. So there is the amazing fact: Wagner, who worshipped Weber's operas, had not, when fourteen years old, heard of the existence of a musician a thousand times mightier than Weber. The ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... no unusual people among the passengers; for another, because the vessel behaved admirably. The same cannot be said of the return voyage: and with it my story really begins. Misfortune followed us out of Sydney harbour. We broke a crank-shaft between there and Port Phillip, Melbourne; a fire in the hold occurred at Adelaide; and at Albany we buried a passenger who had died of consumption one day out from King George's Sound. At Colombo, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Within a day's run to Melbourne, the screw slipped off the tail-shaft, and as it went to the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the racing engine went to pieces. This might not have prevented the steamer's reaching port under sail or tow, but the forward crank-pin broke, and the piston drove up with nothing to stop it, fetched up with a mighty jolt against the cylinder head—which held—and disconnected most of the bolts which bound the cylinder to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... and keep Jonesy and his brother from growing up to be tramps like the man we bought the bear from, it would be serving our country just as much as if we went to war and fought for it. Ginger is a crank about being a patriot. You ought to hear her talk about it. And Aunt Allison said that 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,' and that to build such a place as our 'Fairchance' would be a deed ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... used up. I never saw him so completely cowed. It knocked all the eloquence out of him for once. The man is a crank and an agitator. I have kept my eye on him for some time. He is a fairly good workman in his line, though, and just now can't do much harm, as times are easy and these new improvements of yours keep ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Where's Caledonia now? Oh, I'm so glad our boys won. There goes the Caledonia chief. I'll bet he feels like thirty cents, Spanish. Ya-a-a-ah! Ya-a-a-ah! Where's Caledonia now? They can't beat that, the other fellows can't, and it's our trophy for keeps.... Oh, some crank in the next row. "Wouldn't I please sit down and not obstruct the view." Guess he comes from Caledonia. Looks like it. You stand up, too, why don't you? Those planks are terribly hard.... I didn't notice. Yes, that wasn't so bad. Twenty-five and two-fifths. But it's our trophy. There goes ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... As I sat in the lantern, the great brazen frame of polished reflectors swung around, once in each minute, within a few inches of the side. Beneath was the projecting handle of a crank, or lever, by pressing upon which the revolution could be instantly arrested. Stooping down, I could sit at ease, with my head clear from any contact with the lamps, and in that position could have the lever-handle ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... by eight she was: built in Genoa from an English model that Williams, who had been a sailor, had brought with him. Without a deck, schooner-rigged, it took, says Trelawney, "two tons of iron ballast to bring her down to her bearings, and then she was very crank in a breeze, though not deficient in beam." Truly Shelley was no seaman. "You will do no good with Shelley," Trelawney told Williams, "until you heave his books and papers overboard, shear the wisps of hair that hang over his eyes, and plunge his arms up to the elbows in a tar bucket." ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... one o' the heving peepers, they sez—that the people wot's missin' hev been carted off in aeroplanes by some o' the other religionists wot wanted to git rid o' them, an' that the crank religiouses is all ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... he informed the composed visage which the mirror held forth to him. "But we haven't got to the point where we're letting lunatics who break up city government meetings, or crank doctors, tell us how to spend a million or two of the money we've worked hard to accumulate. There's getting to be too much of this telling business men in this country how to run their business. If we're peddling typhoid fever in spite of what our analyses tell us, then we'll go ahead, ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... is Alphonso King of Castille, Alphonso the Wise, whose saying about Ptolemy's Astronomy, "That it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice!" is still remembered by mankind;—this and no other of his many sayings and doings. He was wise enough to stay at home; and except wearing ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... 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; ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... a dreamer born, Who, with a mission to fulfil, Had left the Muses' haunts to turn The crank of an opinion-mill, Making his rustic reed of song A weapon in the war with wrong, Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough That beam-deep turned the soil for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... shady side yards stood Kent, turning the crank of a hand-organ! He was facing the highway where the other two boys were, but not a trace of recognition was in his face. Ranged in a semicircle before him was a line of little children shuffling their toes to ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the monopoly of steam-navigation from the State of New York. Fulton took out two patents for his invention; but unfortunately they were not adequate to his protection, for they covered only the application of the steam-engine to the turning of a crank in producing the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... is nothing, A bucket will do, so it know how to ride Top upward: cleverness is the thing in boats. And I wish this were cleverer: she goes crank At times just when she should go sober. But what? Boats are but girls for whimsies: men Must let them have ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... name, is working on a motor which is said to possess great possibilities in this line. Its distinctive features include a connecting rod much shorter than usual, and a crank shaft located the length of the crank from the central axis of the cylinder. This has the effect of increasing the piston stroke, and also of increasing the proportion of the crank circle during which effective pressure is applied ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... to the jail the man begged like a trooper to be released, plead that he was only joking, and that he was really only a "crank," but the detective's invariable ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... I'm not ashamed to confess what I'm doing. You may call me a baby, a fool, a crank or whatever you like,—I don't care. I've just got to see her, and this is the only way. Do you think I'd spoil things for her, now that she's made good? Think I'd butt in and queer it all? I'm no good, I'm a rotter, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... by permitting its lower surface to 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
... recovered breath, I attempted to climb in over the side; but to my chagrin, the crank little craft sunk under my weight, and turned bottom upwards, as if it had been a washing tub, plunging me under water by the sudden capsize. I rose to the surface, and once more laying my hands ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... but little more to say. The boys had left the touring car, and now the man jumped inside, saw to it that everything was in order, and then asked Spouter to crank up ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... description. The generator is the second separate bridge path, normally open, but adapted to be closed when the generator is operated, this automatic closure being performed by the movement of the crank shaft. The third bridge contains the polarized bell, and this, as a rule, is permanently closed. Sometimes, however, the arrangement is such that the bell path is normally closed through the switch which ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... and—I'm almost ready to give up. But at least you saved your good name—it was a marriage, not a scandal. We have that to be thankful for." She followed this outburst of optimism with another. "You can keep the name and go into vaudeville. The publicity will help you, and that old crank will surely stretch his offer to keep his name off the bill-boards. Of course, we won't get anything like what we expected, but we'll get something. Fifteen or twenty thousand is better than—" Noting the shadow of a smile upon her daughter's lips, she checked her rush of words. "You don't seem ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... awful crank. She just loves them Injuns, they say. But I, fer one, draw the line at holdin' 'em in my lap. I don't b'lieve in mixin' folks up that way. Preach to 'em if you like, but let 'em keep their distance, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... a lot, but this gets me." He swore again, as if to impress Dorian with the true condition of his feelings. Then he went at the machinery again with pliers and wrenches, after which he vigorously turned the crank. The engine started with a wheeze and then a roar. The driver leaped into the car and brought the racing engine to a smoother running. "The cursed thing" he remarked, "why couldn't it have done that an hour ago. O, say, excuse me, ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... does not differ in principle from the common winch, or from the key which winds a clock. The motion of the piston-rod backwards and forwards turns such a winch. At each termination of the stroke, the piston, from the peculiar position of the crank, loses all power over it. To remedy this two cylinders and pistons are generally used, which act upon two cranks placed on the axle at right angles to each other; so that at the moment when one of the pistons is at the extremity of its stroke, and loses its power upon one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... man's day. It sapped his powers of resistance. In the morning there was the doctor, a weary little man, untemperamental and mercifully impervious to insult, who chugged up the lane in a car that needed but one twist of the crank to release a great many clattering things. All of them Kenny felt should be anchored more securely. There was an occasional hour in the open. At nightfall he sent for Kenny and by nine he ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... his aged guest. On the contrary, Dallas' evident interest in the stranger had stirred the unnatural jealousy in her father's wizen brain. Already, he hated David Bond, and had set him down for a crank. But Dallas needed a lesson. It was all very well for her to do the outside duties as if she were a man; that did not privilege her to ride roughshod over his opinions, or to rule affairs in general with a heavy hand. However, he found no opportunity ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... hanker for 'em. Here, by Godfreys, they don't give us no time to hanker for nothin'. And they ask such foolhead questions! One woman, she says to me yesterday, she says—I was showin' her the foghorn, and says she: 'Do you have to turn a crank to make it go?' Think of that! A hand crank to make the fourth highest-power foghorn on the coast blow! I lost my patience. 'No ma'am,' says I, 'a crank ain't necessary. I just put my mouth to the touch-hole,' ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... must run the risk, then," said the trapper; "my streaks always come out as they come 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 ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Dred Scott decision, and did much to irritate Abolitionists like John Brown, whose soul as this book goes to press is said to be marching on. Brown was a Kansas man with a mission and massive whiskers. He would be called now a crank; but his action in seizing a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry and declaring the slaves free was regarded by the South as thoroughly representative of the ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... 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 ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... I tell ye, Moses Pennel," said Miss Roxy, who, with her press-board and big flat-iron, was making her autumn sojourn in the brown house, "I tell ye Latin ain't just what you think 'tis, steppin' round so crank; you must remember what the king of Israel said to Benhadad, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... almost see, Ears almost hear. And waiting there, I seemed to feel the beach Slip from my reach, While all the stars went blank. The smell of oil and death enveloped me, And I could feel The crouching figures straining at a crank, Knees under chins, and heads drawn sharply down, The heave and sag of shoulders, Sting of sweat; An eighth braced figure stooping to a wheel, Body to body in the stifling gloom, The sob and gasp of breath against an air Empty and damp and fetid as a tomb. With them ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... tribulations, it was sweetly interesting to watch my power slowly grow from the first feeble beginnings of the landing of materials and unloading them from the motor, a hundred-weight at a time, till I could swing four tons—see the solid metals flow—enjoy the gliding sounds of the handle, crank-shaft, and system of levers, forcing inwards the mould-end, and the upper and lower plungers, for pressing the material—build at ease in a travelling-cage—and watch from my hut-door through sleepless hours, under the electric moonlight of this land, the three piles of gold stones, the silver panels, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... 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 in the ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... these are in such common use, produce such good results, and save so much time and effort that they should be found in every kitchen. Among them is the rotary egg beater shown in Fig. 1 (a). This is so made that one revolution of the wheel to which the crank is attached does about five times as much work as can be done with a fork or with an egg whip, which is shown in (b). Another inexpensive device that is a real help is the potato ricer. This device, one ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... for some months established in this place, turning the main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his body, lean and flat, long-armed ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... war, but was not much used. Reminiscent of the ancient ribaudequin, a repeating cannon of several barrels, the Gatling gun could fire about 350 shots a minute from its 10 barrels, which were rotated and fired by turning a crank. In Europe it became more popular than the ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... rarely," said Alice, who had not heard her sister's last burst of eloquence, and whose thoughts were still running on her nephew, and his various talents. "He's found out summut about a crank or tank, I forget rightly which it is, but th' master's made him foreman, and he all the while turning off hands; but he said he could na part wi' Jem, nohow. He's good wage now; I tell him he'll be thinking of marrying soon, and he deserves ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to give seven rapid turns to that crank," said Spieghalter, pointing out a beam of polished steel, "you would make a steel bar spurt out in thousands of jets, that would get into ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Gunnar, Njal, Skarphedinn, Flosi, Bolli, Kjartan, Gisli. In many of the Sagas, and in many scenes, the characters are dull and ungainly. At the same time their perversity, the naughtiness, for example, of Vemund in Reykdla, or of Thorolf the crank old man in Eyrbyggja, belongs to the same world as the lives of the more heroic personages. The Sagas take an interest in misconduct, when there is nothing better to be had, and the heroic age is frequently represented by them rather according to the rules of modern unheroic ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... comes coughin' up in that old one-lung machine,—to get her expression right, so the boss kept hollerin',—why, I gets sick and tired. If there's anything doin', why, I'm game, but such monkeyin'! There was that picture-machine idiot workin' the crank as if he was shellin' a thicket-full of Injuns with a Gatling, and his fool cap turned round with the lid down the back of his neck, and me and Collie, the only sensible-actin' ones of the lot, because we was actin' natural, jest restin'. I got sick and tired. The next time up coughs ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... little rule-of-thumb mathematics. One picked up a sort of smattering of a language or two knocking about the world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft all his life. He hasn't got any regular place to stow away what he gets into his brains, and so it lies tumbling about in the hold, and he loses it, or it gets damaged and is never ready for use. You see what I ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... open to all who are taught in it. We shall no doubt have a similar field open in Oude when Government interposes in behalf of the suffering people, and we might prepare for it by converting the Martiniere into a similar school or college. The committee has just expressed to you a hope that Mr. Crank, the officiating principal, may be able to pass an examination in the native languages. This hope can never be realised; and if he does I shall have to record my opinion that he is otherwise unfitted. The power of nominating a principal rests entirely with ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... were those who merely saw visions too impractical ever to become realities. To work amid this mecca of minds must have been not only an education in science but in human nature as well. Every sort of crank who had gathered a wild notion out of the blue meandered into Williams's shop in the hope that somebody could be found there who would provide either the money or the labor to ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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
... an' says he was hungry an' he ain't a-goin' to eat any more bread made in a wash-basin! Says he'll starve first. Says Nels hed the gang over to big bunk an' feasted them on bread you taught him how to make in some new-fangled bucket-machine with a crank. Jim says thet bread beat any cake he ever eat, an' he wants you to show him how to make some. Now, Miss Majesty, as superintendent of this ranch I ought to know what's goin' on. Mebbe Jim is jest a-joshin' me. Mebbe he's gone clean dotty. Mebbe I hev. An' beggin' your pardon, I want to know ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... a question how Maximus was to be got into the canoe. The frail bark was so crank that a much lighter weight than that of the burly Esquimau would have upset it easily; and as the stern was sharp, there was no possibility of climbing over it. This was a matter of considerable anxiety, for the water was excessively cold, being laden with ice out at sea. While in this ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... get out and crank the engines, which he calmly proceeded to do. The man who had called himself Algernon Tobey perceived his intention and urged his pony to the front ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... inches, and to be the same size at lower part of Deck, with a regular taper to heel. The Windlass Bitts to be sided 7 inches, and left broad and high enough above the Deck to admit of a Patent Pinion Cog, and Multiplying Wheels to be fitted to Windlass, with Crank, Handles, &c. To have good and sufficient Knees to all the Bitts. The Bowsprit Bitt Knees sided 6 inches, Windlass ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... of that? I clean forgot my dinner again! If I don't watch out, I'll sure be degeneratin' into a two-meal-a-day crank." ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... power long before it was so applied; and because he employed a good deal of his time in trying to discover the principle, he was ridiculed by his neighbors and friends, and the more thoughtless among them didn't know whether he was a crank, a half-wit, or a "luny." From all accounts, he was a modest, shy, retiring man, though a merry one. He had but little money to devote to the experiments he wished to make, and in this was not different from the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... "The ancestral crank has slipped a cog," Opdyke returned profanely. "Being interpreted, my reverend sire thinks I'd do better work at the School of Mines and then in Europe. I'm sorry, too, confound it, even if I know his head is level. I'd been looking forward to the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... made fun of him. They thought he was a crank, if not downright crazy and said that his father was very foolish indeed to encourage him in wasting so much time and money in a way that every person with common sense could see ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... 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 time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who seems to have ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... deer are to be shot in the winter turnip fields, or worse, caught by an apple-baited hook hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his aspirations to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in his life 'hits the keeper into the river,' and reconsiders himself for a while over a crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults, and I have mine. But he is a thoroughly good fellow nevertheless. Civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; a far shrewder fellow too—owing to his dash of wild forest blood from gipsy, highwayman, and what not—than his ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... to help Jud and they left their game cheerfully, to go to the corncrib. It was attached to the other end of the barn, so they didn't have to go out in the rain. Jud wanted to watch the machinery he had mended and he asked Meg to turn the crank and Bobby to feed in the ears of corn. They were never allowed to touch the sheller unless some older person was around, for little fingers could get easily nipped in the cog wheels. So they were rather proud to be especially asked to ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... is that 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 that hundreds approve their action but do not follow it because they dislike ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... "no intelligent person could fail to be interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant. And people of our class owe it to society to take part in politics. Victor Dorn is a crank, but he's right about some things—and he's right in saying that we of the upper class are parasites upon the masses. They earn all the wealth, and we take a large part of it away from them. And it's plain stealing unless we ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... it would seriously flood the valley, or at best add more than a spice of excitement to the affair. The "Red Gulch Contingent," who WOULD be there, was quite as capable of taking care of the ladies, in case of any accident, as any lame crank who wouldn't, but could only croak a warning to them from a distance. A few even wished something might happen that they might have an opportunity of showing their superior devotion; indeed, the prospect of carrying the half-submerged sisters, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... office to return again (ten minutes 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 ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... air. I first made drawings of a steam engine, and a pair of these engines was afterwards made. These engines are constructed, for the most part, of a very high grade of cast steel, the cylinders being only 3/32 of an inch thick, the crank shafts hollow, and every part as strong and light as possible. They are compound, each having a high-pressure piston with an area of 20 square inches, a low-pressure piston of 50.26 square inches, and a common stroke of 1 foot. When ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... timidity, feeling a kind of awesomeness about every form in the room, he stepped softly to the bureau, applied its key, and following carefully the directions the earl had given him, for the lock was Italian, with more than one quip and crank and wanton wile about it, succeeded in opening it. He had no difficulty in finding its secret place, nor the packet concealed in it; but just as he laid his hands on it, he was aware of a swift passage along the floor without, past the door of ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... small Levantine vessel. Also, a graceful skiff seen in perfection at Constantinople, where it almost monopolizes the boat traffic. It is fast, but crank, being so narrow that the oars or sculls have their looms enlarged into ball-shaped masses to counter-balance their out-board length. It has borne for ages the wave-line now brought out in England as the highest result of marine architecture. It ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... major-general commandant and a group of officers from headquarters took up posts on the turf of the parkway beside the curb. A sergeant of marines, in khaki, came running across the parade-ground, set up a motion-picture camera, and began to crank. Another sergeant was snapping "stills" as the column came to a halt and faced about toward ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... Miss Prissy is what you call a kinder crank," answered Mother Mayberry as she paused at the foot of the steps. "A married woman have got to be the hub of a family-wheel, but a old maid can be the outside crank that turns the whole contraption backwards if she has a mind to. I wish Miss Prissy had a little more ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... supposed to be part of General Wilson's force, charging rapidly after us. The highway lay close alongside the railroad, and our pursuers were enveloped in a cloud of dust. The car was stopped, or rather the men who were working the crank incontinently took to their heels, and we followed their example. There was a fence a few rods from the road, which I succeeded in reaching, and over which I jumped, just before our pursuers overtook us. As they forced ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... was the verdict of Aunt Jane, overheard by Roy, who was not supposed to understand. "They will grow up without an inch of moral backbone. And you can't say I didn't warn you. Lady Despard's a crank, of course; but Nevil is a fool to allow it. Goodness knows he was bad enough, though he was reared on the good old lines. And you are not giving his son a chance. The sooner the boy's packed off to school the better. I shall ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... 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 myself while ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... whose father was a lascivious, egotistical crank, married a man absolutely devoid of will power and energy. She was gifted; the marriage a failure. Of the two children, one was an indolent, thoroughly useless, good-for-nothing boy, whose only thought was ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... coming down the street, stern and determined of aspect, trouble in every line of his weather-beaten countenance, and supposed himself to be his objective point. Dreading further catechism, and not being willing to encounter it, he dropped the crank of the peanut-roaster, and was off again before the captain was near enough to speak. Johnny could tell nothing, he thought, save that Matty's hair was gone, which the old man could not fail to see for himself; and his sister, he well knew, would not speak. For a moment ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Bessie, ran four sides, seventy-six speeders on a side, her work being regulated by a crank that marked the vibrations. To the lay mind the terms of the speeding-room can mean nothing. This girl made from $1.30 to $1.50 a day. She controlled in all 704 speeders; these she had to replenish and keep running, and to clean all the machinery gear with her own hands; to oil the steel, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... 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 ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... increased the popularity of the automobile, but the motor car still had a great drawback-cranking. Owing to the peculiar features of a gasoline engine, it must first be put in motion by some external power before it will begin to operate under its own power. This made it necessary for the driver to "crank" the engine, or start it moving, by means of a handle attached to the engine shaft. Cranking a large engine is difficult, especially if it is cold, and often results in tired muscles, and soiled ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... His hands gripped the wheel. His cheeks had been too ruddily tinted by the Dakota sun to show a blush, but his teeth caught his lower lip. He had no starter on his bug; he had in his embarrassment to get out and crank. He did it quietly, not looking at her. She could see that his hand trembled on the crank. When he did glance at her, as he drove off, it was apologetically, miserably. His foot was shaking on the ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... "What a crank the old chap must have been!" continued Guy. "Why didn't he leave it in his will to be ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... missing," said Dorothy, handing him a written slip, "except things I know mother took with her. So robbery wasn't the motive. I think you must be right. It's some crank. But, oh, if you only knew how afraid I am to stay here! I'm afraid of my own shadow; I'm afraid of the clock chimes; when the telephone rings I'm in a panic. Don't you think I could go away somewhere, with Tante Lydia—just ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... means of a spring pole; but oftener a steam engine of from four to eight horse power. Midway between the well and the engine a post is planted, on which is balanced a working beam about sixteen feet in length: one end of this beam is attached to the crank of the engine, and the other to the implements in the well. The power is applied to raising the bit—the blow is produced by the fall of the same when relieved by the downward ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... exclaimed Russ. "Do you think I'd let an act like this get past me? Not much!" and he continued to grind away at the crank of his machine, which he had hastily set up on the edge of the stream, where he commanded a good view ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth—certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... all to Manuel's taste, despite her affectionate caresses; but La Goya was compromised with El Soldadito, a man with a position, as she said, for when he went to work he turned the crank ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... 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 gamblers—well, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... girl! I know you're a crank from Crankville on some subjects. Let us have it for all you're worth. I'm on the ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... however, maintain good health without being what might be termed a dietetic crank. To be sure, where one is suffering from a disease or is definitely in need of some special diet in order to secure certain results, a very rigid diet is of great importance and should be adhered to strictly. After such results have been ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... discovered the fact; the cat had noticed it a hundred times. From the teapot he evolved the cylinder—from the displaced lid he evolved the piston-rod. To attach something to the piston-rod to be moved by it, was a simple matter—crank and wheel. And so there was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was then commanded by my very regretted friend Captain Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lily in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton! he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lily to remain in the service: so small, crank, and unmanageable, that a well-manned merchantman was at any time a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the bare idea of a Space Platform, for instance, from the moment it was first proposed. Every dictator protested bitterly. Even politicians out of office found it a subject for rabble-rousing harangues. The nationalistic political parties, the peddlers of hate, the entrepreneurs of discord—every crank in the world had something to say against the Platform from the first. When they did not roundly denounce it as impious, they raved that it was a scheme by which the United States would put itself in position to rule all the ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... trifle crank just now," admitted Royson, "but when the wind freshens I'll take in ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... hundred years in the world without giving birth to that. But till Watt invented it anew in 1782, by admitting the steam alternately at both ends of the cylinder, it was too awkward and clumsy to become a practical navigator. Moreover, though it could pump admirably, it had not been taught to turn a crank. The French assert, that experiments in steam-propulsion were made on the Seine, by Count Auxiron and Perrier, in 1774, and on the Saone, by De Jouffroy, in 1782; but we know they led to no practical results, and the knowledge of them probably did not, for some years, travel beyond the limits of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... Friday, August 4, 1807, a crowd of curious people might have been seen along the wharves of the Hudson River. They had gathered to witness what they considered a ridiculous failure of a "crank" who proposed to take a party of people up the Hudson River to Albany in what he called a steam vessel named the Clermont. Did anybody ever hear of such a ridiculous idea as navigating against the current up the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... be 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
... with curtains drawn closely round to exclude as much air as possible. Had Mr. Pickwick's doctor told him that he would be much healthier if he slept on a camp bed by an open window, Mr. Pickwick would have regarded him as a crank and called in another doctor. Had he gone on to forbid Mr. Pickwick to drink brandy and water whenever he felt chilly, and assured him that if he were deprived of meat or salt for a whole year, he would not only not die, but would be none the worse, Mr. Pickwick would have fled from ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... Bartley turned the crank that snapped the gong-bell in its centre; and the young man, who was looking at the street while waiting for some one to come, confronted her with a start. "Oh!" he said, "I thought it was Marcia. Good morning, Mrs. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... 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 spell on that auddyence fell the ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... one 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 ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one's way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an advantageous background ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... end of 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 ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... to have two or three lines coiled in them, which not only gives 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. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... strain on the automobile. A car that has worked perfectly all summer simply refuses to start, and the storage battery that operates the self-starter is exhausted and powerless. The sensible course is to have the car put in condition for winter before the first cold snap congeals the crank-case oil. Replace the latter with one of lighter grade; have the radiator filled with a good anti-freeze in sufficient quantity so that you will be safe on the coldest days against the hazard of a frozen radiator; have the ignition system thoroughly overhauled and new spark points put ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... Cavour had been one of those tragic men whose personalities negate the value of their work. A solitary, cantankerous, opinionated individual—a crank, in short—he withdrew from humanity to develop the hyperspace drive, announcing at periodic intervals that ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... which the ripe coffee-berry is laid and raked out to be blackened and baked by the sun. Near the secaderos is a circle of ground, hedged in like a bull-ring and containing a horizontal fluted roller, turned by a crank. This roller, or pulping-mill, is made to gyrate by a mule, crushing in its perpetual journey the already baked coffee-berry, until the crisp husk peels off and exposes a couple of whity-brown, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... in boats, or on floating spars, but only to meet worse hardships than on sea; for the savages on the coast, aided by your gallant Englishmen, fell on us, defenceless as we were, stripped us of all we had, and drove us from the shore in an old crank of a galleon, which, if it carried us thus far, did so only by the grace of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... on the morning of January 3—the city of San Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently been written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain of industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was the recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... he sat there, bathing the head that tossed restlessly to and fro. He heard the delirious lad mutter, "Curse the pious crank! He'll get Jane yet!" then half rise, and say with a strange look in his eyes, "Stand fast, boys! Stand, ye cowards! It's justice we want!" and fall back exhausted. Yes, it was Job who stood by, praying with all his heart, as at daylight the doctor ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... half-cycles, one complete rotation of the magnet producing one such cycle. Obviously the result would be the same if the magnet were stationary and the coils should rotate, which is the construction of more modern devices. The turning of the crank of a magneto-bell rotates the armature in the magnetic field by some form of gearing at a rate usually of the order of twenty turns per second, producing an alternating current of that frequency. This current is caused by an effective electromotive force which may be as great as 100 volts, ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... again, in its ever-confident patronizingness, says unto him: "But for thy great artistic genius, O Leo, son of Nicolas, with thy latest religious antics and somersaultings, we would call thee—a crank. But as to a great genius we shall be merciful unto thee, and bear with many a confession, many a cobbled shoe, if thou givest us only more of Olenins, more ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... and many spiders at his command, this officer improved upon my suggestion, by substituting for my quill turned in the fingers a wooden cylinder worked by a crank, and by securing, at a proper distance, (between pins, I think,) one or more spiders, whose threads were guided between pins upon the cylinder. He thus produced more of the silk, winding it upon rings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... I was known as the "devil," a term that annoyed me not a little. I worked with Wood, the pressman, as a roller boy, and in the same room was a power press, the power being a stalwart negro who turned a crank. Wood and I used to race with the power press, and then I would fly the sheets,—that is, take them off, when printed, with one hand and roll the type with the other. This so pleased Noel that he advanced my wages to a dollar and ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... as long as they were willing to revolve the little cylinder with its dotted spiral indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus of the reproducing diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack of turning the crank steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk into the machine; and there was some deftness required also in fastening down the tinfoil on the cylinder where it was held by a pin running in a longitudinal slot. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... a crank can manage a street organ. The arrangement of the instrument being entirely automatic, no knowledge of music on the part of the grinder is necessary. Another class of street minstrels are required to possess a ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... not beat about the bush. His old air of confident, almost smug self-satisfaction, had vanished. He received Nigel with a new deference in his manner, without any further sign of that good-natured tolerance accorded by a busy man to a kindly crank. ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pin or crank or cog, on which he had set such store, refused the next hour or day or week to do its work, no trace of his disappointment would have been found in his face or speech. His faith was always supreme; his belief in his ideals unshaken. If the pin or crank would not answer, the lever or ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... maintenance case coming on—to the usual well-ventilated disgust of the local religious crank, who was on the jury; but the case differed in no essential point from other cases which were always coming on and going off in my time. It was not at all romantic. The local youth was not ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... serious. He cranked the engine—no result. He tried it again with equal futility—then, going to the tool-box, he took out his electric flashlight, and, lifting the engine hood, began to peer into the machinery. Everything seemed all right. He tried the crank again—the engine, like some cold, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... all. She's extremely shy—at least, reserved. Lives with her father, an old crank of an analytical chemist over in Jersey City. She hasn't ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... boat to assist them on deck when they came alongside, for otherwise they would not have been able to get out of their crank barks without capsizing. The way they manage is as follows:—Two canoes bring up alongside each other, the man in the outer one passing his paddle through a thong which stretches across the deck of ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... when she was in a crank, as he called her moods, and he brought her salts, and undid her cloak and bonnet, and kissed her once or twice, while his father, who was hot because she was hot, said it was like an August day all over the house, and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... no plowman, nothing but the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its way," Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever spiraling toward the field's center. "Plow, harrow, roll, seed, fertilize, cultivate, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... bell," she exclaimed, as they returned to the study. "That is our last warning, and gives no one an excuse to be late. You will find Exeter rigid in many ways, Miss Hobart. Miss Morgan is what I call a crank on development of character. She keeps track of the thousand little things that a girl is supposed not to do. In her lectures to us, which she gives twice a semester, she declares that these seeming trifles are neither sins nor crimes in themselves, ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... the gate and went forward to crank up his runabout, but Ralph detained him a few moments longer, to tell him about the encounter with Bill Terrill. When he had finished, the doctor advised him to pay no attention to the vague overtures made by Silas Perkins' hireling, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... be a wheel. The sun and the stars came up and went down over the monotonous sea of grass with frightful regularity, and she could not tell whether there was a God or not. When she thought of God at all, it was as a relentless giant turning the crank that kept the sky going round. The universe was an awful machine. The prayers her mother taught her in infancy died upon her lips, and instead of praying to God she cried out to her mother. Un-protestant as the sentiment is, I can not forbear saying that this talking to the dead is one of the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... profession. When further told that they have to help themselves by living so that they will not put any obstacles in the way of normal functioning of their bodies, they think that the physician who thinks and talks that way must be a crank, and many seek help where they are told that they can obtain health from pills, powders and potions or from various inoculations ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... lesson in school, the soldier replied in a weak, singsong voice: "Insert tag end of belt in feed block, with left hand pull belt left front. Pull crank handle back on roller, let go, and repeat motion. Gun is now loaded. To fire, raise automatic safety latch, and press thumb piece. Gun is now firing. If gun stops, ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... town to take 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
... are worthless vagabonds, and nearly all the Italians accused of crime in the city are included in their number. One of these men is to be seen on the Bowery at almost any time. He seats himself on the pavement, with his legs tucked under him, and turns the crank of an instrument which seems to be a doleful compromise between a music box and an accordion. In front of this machine is a tin box for pennies, and by the side of it is a card on which is printed an appeal to the charitable. At night a flickering tallow dip sheds a dismal glare around. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... of their wide applicability. They are equally true for men, animals, or machines; and are wholly independent of the way in which the power is applied: whether, for instance, a man carries his burden, or draws it, or rows or punts it in a boat, or winds it up with a crank or tread-mill. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... went to work with such earnestness and success, that in a few months Mrs. Greene had the satisfaction of being able to invite a gathering of gentlemen from different parts of the State to behold with their own eyes the working of the newly invented cotton-gin, with which a negro man turning a crank could clean fifty pounds of cotton ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... say that I cannot recall the time when I was not passionately opposed to slavery, a crank on the subject of personal liberty, if I am ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... chap!" said Meg, with heartiness and feeling. "I'm not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... orderly's elbow. After a day or two it will percolate through to the varlet's intelligence that you are a desperate dog in urgent need of something, and he will bestir himself, and mayhap in a further two or three days' time he will wind a crank, pull some strings, and announce that you are "on," and you will find yourself in animated conversation with an inspector of cemeteries, a jam expert at the Base, or the Dalai Lama. If you want to give back-chat to the Staff you had best take it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... not, it is true, at the period of which I am speaking, gathered much of his fame; but the gale was rising—and though the vessel was evidently yielding to the breeze, she was neither crank nor unsteady. On the contrary, the more he became an object of public interest, the less did he indulge his capricious humour. About the time when The Bride of Abydos was published, he appeared disposed to settle into a consistent ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... the groan of the giant as they take his eyes out, and then I see him staggering on in his blindness, feeling his way as he goes on toward Gaza. The prison door is open, and the giant is thrust in. He sits down and puts his hands on the mill-crank, which, with exhausting horizontal motion, goes day after day, week after week, month after month—work, work, work! The consternation of the world in captivity, his locks shorn, his eyes punctured, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... again. Then he went to work at his engine methodically, wiping dry the ignition terminals, all the various connections where moisture could effect a short circuit. At the end of a few minutes, he turned the starting crank. The multiple cylinders fired ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Occasionally, when a sparrow hopped in his direction, he would make a sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the lawn. I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow. I believe they looked on him as a bit of a crank, and humored him by coming within springing distance, just to keep him amused. Dashing young cock sparrows would show off before their particular hen sparrows, and earn a cheap reputation for dare-deviltry by going within so many yards of ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... square meal. What became of them at Noumea I did not hear, but do know that in their wanderings they received much charitable assistance from British shipmasters and missionaries—in some cases their passages were paid to the United States—the natural and proper country for the ignorant religious 'crank'." ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... rivet the crank-case arms to the crank-case, using pneumatic hammers which were supposed to be the latest development. It took six men to hold the hammers and six men to hold the casings, and the din was terrific. Now an automatic press operated by one man, who does nothing else, gets through five times as ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... the 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
... under his breath said he, "This ship is so crank and walty, I fear our grave she ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... was still enigmatic, and I anxiously wondered whether I impressed him as an energetic business man or merely as an adventurer, a crank, or even a crook ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... there was a sick man, Keegan was him. He told M. the foreman about it one day, who told him to have the doctor look him over, and sent him up one afternoon; the doctor looked him over and told him he was only a crank—nothing at all the matter with him. Soon after he was taken very sick, and one night I called the prison nurse to his cell, and he had him taken to the hospital, where he stayed some time, but it did him no good, for he came back ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne |
