"Fracas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... better than you think, Mr. Thode. Your chief, Perry Larkin, told me he was sending you down, and what manner of hombre you were. If Larkin can trust you, I'm going to take a chance. I thought I had Wiley's number, but I learned something to-day, aside from that little fracas, that makes me doubt I've given him credit for his limit of crookedness. Mr. Thode, do you figure that Starr Wiley is enough of a man to be ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... on Teeny-bits' room, and by the time the Western Whirlwind had thrown off his coat and laid hold on his opponent again, they were crowding in at the door and craning their necks to get a view of the fracas. ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... that William the Conqueror in early days had to beat a precipitate retreat from France through assaulting the King's son over the chess board, and a somewhat similar misadventure in early days to Henry I, and John's unseemly fracas. It is related that an English knight seized the bridle of Philip Le Gros in battle, crying out, the king is taken, but was struck down by that monarch who observed, "Ne fais tu pas que aux echecs on ne prend ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... superficially, but the principle seemed elusive. The laborers, too, had lost, more heavily in proportion to their ability to bear—millions in wages, not to reckon the loss of manhood to those who were blacklisted for participation in the fracas. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... end of the avenue, where the fracas had taken place between himself and Keegan, he ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... tout ce fracas d'armemens, de preparatifs et de menaces dont le royaume retentit pendant quelques annees, s'evanouit en un vain bruit. Je ne doute point que, dans les commencemens, le roi ne fut de bonne foi. Sa vanite s'etoit laissee ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... exclamations, bursts of laughter, jokes, a whistle, swelled the tumult. Here the leg of a bench gave way and precipitated those on it, to the delight of the spectators; there was a dispute for place; and a little beyond a fracas of glasses and bottles. It was Andeng, carrying a great tray of drinks, and unfortunately she had encountered her fiance, who was disposed to profit ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... slightly ajar, was suddenly pushed open with some fracas, and in came the stout landlord, supporting with some difficulty an immense dish, in which was a mighty round mass of smoking meat garnished all round with vegetables; so high was the mass that it probably obstructed ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... affair in itself, this village fracas was to have a lasting effect upon the career of Thomas Borrow. He was given to understand by his kinsmen that he need not look to them for sympathy or assistance in his wrongdoing. The Borrows of Trethinnick ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the fracas, loud shouts close at hand told that Steve and Bandy-legs, having heard the row, were rushing hurriedly to the spot, astonished ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... time after this fracas, a personage of venerable appearance presented himself at Epinal, and applied for the post of sacristan and bell-ringer, at that time vacant. Though he squinted, his appearance was far from disagreeable, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... here," Lucy said, hauling him back into the living room where a number of people who had been enjoying the domestic fracas suddenly broke into loud and animated chatter. "Dr. Hildebrand was telling us all ...
— The Doorway • Evelyn E. Smith
... Globe, which had long been at daggers drawn. Granier de Cassagnac, the editor of Le Globe, was the brother-in-law of de Beauvallon, and Emile de Girardin, the proprietor of La Presse, had systematically held him up to ridicule in his columns. Hence, when the news of the restaurant fracas leaked out among the cafe gossipers, the result was that everybody said: "il n'y eut qu'une voix pour dire 'c'est le Globe qui veut ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... of a sly and shifty eye. He had only one. The other had been gouged out years ago in a drunken fracas. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... the couple eloped to Caracas, Where the Germans kicked up such a fracas; And he said to his wife, "You can bet your sweet life That papa dear never will ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... his adventure with Moessard,—a new complication in his sadly muddled affairs,—Jansoulet, on leaving the Chamber one Thursday, ordered his coachman to drive him to the hotel de Mora. He had not been there since the fracas on Rue Royale, and the idea of appearing before the duke caused something of the same panicky sensation beneath his tough epidermis that a schoolboy feels on being summoned before the master after a scuffle in the class-room. However, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... in "Dick Sydney," of the fracas in the bar where the Germans were toasting to "The Day," was not written after war was declared, but one night in Luderitzbucht full three years ago, after hearing that toast drunk publicly in the manner described, and after witnessing a very similar ending to it! And ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... opposite pole from credulity is an unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged in writing his History of the World, he heard the sounds of a fracas in the prison-yard. On inquiry of those who were concerned in it, and were on the spot, he found so many contradictions in their statements that he could not get at the truth. Whereupon, it occurred to him as a vain thing to undertake to describe what had occurred on the vast theater of the world, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... Soon after the fracas in the streets of Montreal between the Doric Club and the Fils de la Liberte, a priest named Quibilier waited on Papineau, and advised him, since his presence in Montreal had become a source of disturbance, to leave the city. Whether he came as an ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... fire-arms,' fifty dollars and costs. On the charge of 'resisting the police in the execution of their duty' you are sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour in the Mounted Police Guard-room at Calgary. You are also required to make restitution for all damage caused as the result of your fracas." ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... finished when the influence which had inspired it was withdrawn. Among the little mysteries and scandals of literary history is the rupture between Cowper and Lady Austen. Soon after the commencement of their friendship there had been a "fracas," of which Cowper gives an account in a letter to William Unwin. "My letters have already apprised you of that close and intimate connexion, that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne Street and us. Nothing could be more promising, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... mix-up in the last named gentleman's stateroom, and you also must remember that Mr. Landover told you about it and that Mr. Percival never told you anything about it. Well, I was a witness to that fracas. I just happened to be walking along the deck when something caught my eye and I went up close to see what it was. You'd never guess what it was. After looking at it very carefully I discovered it ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... and hates remorselessly pursued, cunningly plotted revenge, are seldom more than dim haunting recollections in the morning, and during the day they are erased by the normal activities of the mind. Sometimes immediately on waking, I am so vexed at the memory of a dream-fracas, I wish I may dream no more. With this wish distinctly before me I drop off again into a new turmoil ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... on in our direction, were shortly right over the hill above us. The bullets rained like hail and shells shrieked and split the universe from end to end. We lay in our beds, trembling, while utter terror seized us as the fracas would subside a little and then roll nearer and nearer in a perfect deluge of horrible sounds. Suddenly in the middle of it all a terrific blast rent the air; the forts had entered into this hideous contest! Oh the joy of it! I hardly breathed between their shots which ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... were still tolerably sprinkled with bits of cartridge-paper, and remnants of hats, caps, straps, and shoes were discernible all over the plains. Hougoumont was a heap of ruins, for it had taken fire during the action, and presented a very perfect idea of the fracas which had taken place that day year. How different now! A large flock of sheep, with their shepherd, were browsing at the gate, and the larks were singing over its ruins on one of the sweetest days we could have chosen for the visit. As I was taking a sketch in a quiet corner I heard a vociferation ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... second lieutenant and Quartermaster Vincent. Mr. Flint had been on the quarter-deck, and had heard the report of Christy's revolver when he fired. Calling Mr. Camden and the quartermaster, he has come to ascertain the cause of the fracas; and the sight was certainly ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... could return in safety to brow-beat his accusers, as was his wont. But this had not been so easy as he had imagined; his prosecutors were bitter, and his enforced seclusion had been prolonged week by week until the fracas which ended in the shooting of the sheriff had apparently closed the door upon his return to civilization forever. Only here was his life and person secure. For Wynyard's Bar had quickly succumbed to the domination of his reckless courage, and the eminence of his double crime had ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Brace of Tame Deer ran familiarly about the House, and one of them came to stare at me as a Stranger. But unluckily Spying his own Figure in the Glass, he made a spring over the Tea Table that stood under it, and shatter'd the Glass to pieces, and falling-back upon the Tea Table, made a terrible Fracas among the China. This Exploit was so sudden, and accompany'd with such a Noise, that it surpriz'd me, and perfectly frighten'd Mrs. Spotswood. But twas worth all the Damage to shew the Moderation and good humour with which ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... "After this cheery little fracas," said Lund, mopping at his face, "we'll mebbe have a nice, quiet, genteel sort of ship. My gun went overboard, didn't it? Better let me have that one ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... of voices; laughter. "If you should hear a pistol shot, Jake, ride quickly back and tell My Lord there was a fracas and you did ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... boxing was Greek to him. His battles had been those of bullets and sharp steel, or sudden, brutal fracas, where the rule was to strike with the first weapon that came to hand. This single encounter, hand to hand, was more or less of a novelty to him, but instead of abashing or cowing him, it merely brought to the surface all his coldness of ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... [Lat.], rudis indigestaque moles [Lat.] [Ovid]. complexity &c 59.1. turmoil; ferment &c (agitation) 315; to-do, trouble, pudder^, pother, row, rumble, disturbance, hubbub, convulsion, tumult, uproar, revolution, riot, rumpus, stour^, scramble, brawl, fracas, rhubarb, fight, free-for-all, row, ruction, rumpus, embroilment, melee, spill and pelt, rough and tumble; whirlwind &c 349; bear garden, Babel, Saturnalia, donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair, confusion worse confounded, most admired disorder, concordia ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... payday for the soldiers in Blancheville. This particular payday was of ill omen for the battery. A number of the boys indulged too freely at the cafes in Chantraines, with a to-be-regretted fracas resulting. A guard of military police was put on at Chantraines following ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... would hardly have known him as he sallied forth the next day. He wore the bandages on his head, which was cut by his fracas with the fake professor, and, in addition, he had tied one about his jaw, as though ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... scaffolding the same day and kills himself. A week or two ago he arranged to meet the King of Naples at Porto d'Anzo, and up comes a violent storm and gale that lasts a week; then another arrangement was made, and then the fracas about the ex-queen of Spain. Then, again, here was Lord O——- came in the other day from Albano, being rather unwell; so the Pope sends him his special blessing, when pop! he dies right off in a twinkling. There is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... somebody's tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way,—you may likewise imagine, 'twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such Fracas:—For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity;—not to gravity as such;—for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal men for days and weeks together;—but he was an enemy ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... of coal. I was-," He would not have got further, because at that point, I feel confident, number Eighty—eight would have punched his head. There would have been an unseemly fracas on the staircase, to the annoyance of all the other tenants and later, there would have issued a summons and a cross-summons. Angry passions would have been roused, bitter feeling engendered which might ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair of that midnight fracas would even have observed—'A.R. to C.C.'—Alphonso Rex to Carrington Cox being, of course, the significance thereof. They were put away with my other belongings, and two years later, when my activities were transferred to London, I took ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Josef, Lieutenant, it'll save us the trouble. For my money, I'd be tickled pink if the Combine sent reinforcements and it really developed into a fracas." ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson
... the nephew of my brother who was on the other side in that ancient church fracas? Bless you, I understand. What a good hater your sister is! Such a tenacity in holding bitterness from one generation to another commands admiration of a certain sort. As for Jim, he's a nice little chap, and he is coming to live with me until the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... one I'se gwine tell, lest I git mah brains better sot on dis heah fracas!" He gave a low chuckle, adding: "Lor', chile, Miss Liz ain' gwine know nuthin'. Ole Zack kin keep mum an' fool de smartes' of 'em! Didn' I fetch Marse John's djeulin' pistols one Sunday mawnin' right under de Bible layin' on de cushion we cyarried to chu'ch fer ole ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... past may be avoided in the future. Fortunately I am able to state that thus far no one ever has been killed by an animal in the Zoological Park; but several of our men have been severely hurt. The writer hereof carries two useless fingers on his best hand as a reminder of a fracas with a savage bear. How Dangerous Animals Attack Men. The following may be listed as the wild animals most ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... clapping his hand to his ear (as his custom was), to catch the sound. "Hear that? Some sort of a fracas." ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the actors in it, it so happened that the supper-room was empty during this sudden fracas. Lake stared at the frightened girl, in his fierce abstraction. Then, with his wild gaze, he followed the line of his adversary's retreat, and shook his ears slightly, like a man at whose hair a wasp ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the boarders had been heard, at a distance; and rockets shot into the air, from the other boats, whose crews answered the shouts with manful lungs. The whole ocean appeared in a momentary glow, and the roar of a gun from the Coquette added to the fracas. The ship set several lanterns, in order to indicate her position; while blue-lights, and other marine signals were constantly burning in the approaching boats, as if those who guided them were anxious to intimidate the assailed by ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... politics, was third in line in the expedition's hierarchy. As such he participated in the endless controversy dealing with overall strategy but only as a junior member of the firm. Amschel Mayer and Leonid Plekhanov were the center of the fracas and right now were at ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... was some fracas, as we say at the studio. It certainly was a scream to see them guys, all dressed up to play the life out of Richard the Third, fallin' all over each other to get out of the way of the Kid's arms ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... and carried on by Sapt's hand or mine; if he got the better of Rupert, the letter would be his; a moment would destroy it and give safety to the queen. I do not suppose that he spent time in thinking how he should escape arrest at the hands of the police whom the fracas would probably rouse; if he did, he may well have reckoned on declaring plainly who he was, of laughing at their surprise over a chance likeness to the king, and of trusting to us to smuggle him beyond the arm of the law. What mattered ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital reputation what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and fanciful mothers, while perhaps he had also heard of her fracas long ago at the hospital. For he was not more courteous to her than could be helped, treating her much as if she were only the nursery maid, and hardly looking at the opinion which she had made Professor ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... chest, saturating his shirt, and running slowly to the earth floor. There were two flesh wounds upon his head—one above the right eye and the other extending entirely across the left cheek from below the eye to the lobe of the ear—but these he had received earlier in the fracas. From crown to heel the man was a mass of blood. Through his crimson mask he looked at the pile of bodies in the far end of the room, and a broad grin cracked the dried blood about ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gentleman in dismay, and put his fingers in his ears—too late. "I see," said he, "there will be no peace and quiet now till they are out of the house." He lighted a soothing cigar to counteract the fracas. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... difficulty they could persuade him to leave their oranges to the mob, that they might get off without any further disturbance: having thus regained their hack, after a thousand frights, and after having received an abundant share of the most low and infamous abuse applied to them during the fracas, they at length reached St. James's, vowing never more to go after fortune-tellers, through so many dangers, terrors, and alarms, as they had ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... other poets raise a fracas 'Bout vines, an' wines, an' dru'ken Bacchus, An' crabbit names and stories wrack us, An' grate our lug, I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us, In ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... fracas appears to be inevitable, but something happens. The whir is again heard, and the notice is displayed 'Dogs delight to bark and bite.' Its effect is instantaneous and cheering. The ladies look at each other guiltily and ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... that it's a sight less tirin' than runnin' away," replied Shif'less Sol, "though we hate to drag you, Paul, into such a fracas." ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... accustomed to his wild son's ways to require any explanation of the cause of the fracas. Just giving one glance at his slaves, to make sure that neither was killed, he left the room as hastily as he had ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... to bed, thinking the two girls might be reconciled in church and come home together. Her husband, not so sanguine, had remained in the library till after midnight, ready to play the part of peace-maker should any fracas occur. He appeared in the hall when poor dead Daisy was carried through the door, and stared in ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... never am used to it," he said, with a grin. "I can't drink nothin'. Stave me, Rollins, but the first thing I'll be running foul of some of these Dagos, and I don't want a fracas until I see the lay of the old man. He's a queer one for sure, hey? Did you ever see a skipper with such a look? Sech bleeding eyes—an' nose, hey? Like the beak of an old albatross. He hasn't come out to lay the course yet, but let her go. She'll head within half a point of what she's doin' now. ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... nearly having a fracas with this worthy. One day, after he had been drinking sherry with a sprig, he swaggered into the yard where I happened to be standing; just then a waiter came by carrying upon a tray part of a splendid Cheshire cheese, with a knife, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of scene was necessary in order to celebrate my first entrance into America, so I said "Little lamb, who made thee?" to a customs official. A fracas ensued far exceeding my wildest dreams, during which he delved down—with malice aforethought—to the bottom of my trunk and discovered the oddest things in my sponge bag. I think I'm going to ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... noisy gang, and undoubtedly gave poor Mrs. Leete a great deal of trouble. There was Boggs (who had lost part of one ear in some fracas with Jack Frost) who paced up and down his room declining Latin verbs with painful pertinacity, and Burton who loved a jest but never made one, and Joe Pritchard, who was interested mainly in politics and oratory, and finally that criminally well-dressed young book agent (with whom ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... being a prudent one, for the musician did not seat himself until he had carefully examined the sheet-iron shield inside the railing, which was attached in such a way that it could be sprung up by working a spring in the floor and render him fairly safe from a chance shot during a fracas. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Lee not unkindly, "I'll loosen the rope about your wrists. That's all the chances we're going to take with you. Come, be a sport, my boy. You're the right sort inside; just as soon as this fracas is over, when you know that we were right and that all this is a put-up job on you, your friend Trevors playing you for a sucker and getting Miss Sanford out of the way, you'll say we were right ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... Encouraged by his success thus far, and bent upon ending the fracas as soon as possible, he met his adversary with a heavy swing which just cleared the man's ear. Deveaux struck, but missed also. Pressed backward, he clinched to save himself, and in this position, where nobody could see his movements, ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... my friends," I said, "I am ignorant of the cause of this fracas, except that this young gentleman had pretensions himself to the hand of the lady whose name ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... of you!" cried the latter. "I'd rather go over than give up the halliards. If I had two hands I would very soon end the fracas, but I haven't a friend to hold the ropes while ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... really was intended for fair compromise, answered, "I'll whip you, too, Sir!" Strung for endurance, the sense of injustice changed his mood to defiance, and such fight as he was able to make quickly converted the discipline into a fracas, and Elisha left the school with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... his home in safety. As luck would have it he almost directly came upon a house of ill-fame to which a band of drunken soldiers were in process of laying siege, and considering that a stray shot, should one reach him in the fracas, would be equally as unpleasant as one intended for him, he made haste to retrace his steps. Resolving to have done with it he pushed on to the end of the Grande Rue, now gaining a few feet by balancing himself, rope-walker fashion, along the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... fracas are too well known to need repetition here. Suffice to say that, when the fray was at its height, Mr. Pickwick felt it his duty to intervene, and called upon Sam Weller to part the combatants. This he dexterously did by pulling a meal sack over the head and shoulders of Mr. Pott and thus ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... debt. He had scarcely time to get off with the booty he swindled from my aunt, when his creditors from Virginia were at his heels. He fled to the British at New York, where he rioted for a few months, was finally stabbed by a soldier in a fracas, and died the next day. He was about thirty-five ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... what that last veiled allusion meant. The weeks had slipped away since the fracas in front of the Silver Dollar. The enemy had made no move. But cowpunchers returning to the ranch from town reported that both Meldrum and Charlton had sworn revenge. It was an even bet that either one of them would ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... (founded upon some fracas among the students at Yale), in which the faculty were burlesqued, was seized during Morse's student days, handed to President Dwight, and the author, who was no other than our young friend, called up. The delinquent received a severe lecture upon his waste of time, violation ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... disarrangement, disorganization, jumble, chaos, litter, irregularity, disturbance, tumult, riot, turmoil, Bedlam, fracas, pandemonium. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Crowned Radish, and wondered at and admired her courage when she stood against the door and let Agostino fling his terrible navaja at her without moving a muscle, now grouped themselves closely together so as to effectually prevent the soldiers from pursuing her. The fracas that ensued gave Chiquita time to reach the carriage of the Duke of Vallombreuse—which, taking advantage of the stir and shifting in the throng, was slowly making its way out of the Place de Greve. She climbed up on the step, and catching sight of de Sigognac ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... holding the staff uplifted, was about to strike the poor dog with all his force, a black shape, with flaming eyes and paws outstretched to scratch, leaped through the open window and landed upon Zidoc's back. It was the brave cat, who had heard the fracas from his hiding-place below and had clawed his way up the castle wall to help his friend. Valiant Puss, forgetting in one instant, I must admit, all its knowledge of languages, catastrophes, history, social deportment, and agriculture, plunged instantly into the fray, ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... a verdict of manslaughter against him could scarcely be avoided. He had struck Capperne down after a violent dispute in which the Australian, accused of sharping, had given him the lie, and Capperne's friends, the only witnesses of the fracas, were prepared, if Capperne died, to swear away Druro's life and liberty. As it was, they moved heaven and earth to have him put under arrest—"in case of accidents"—but their efforts were crowned with neither appreciation nor success, and Druro went about much as usual, careless, amusing, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Wilton to him one night soon after the fracas above narrated, "we're going to have some fun to-night. Stone, like a brick as he is, has stood a couple of bottles of wine, and Hanley some cards. We ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the air. Sheets of lead poured into them; the rattle of empty scabbards on stirrups, the metallic ringing of bullets on helmet and cuirass, the rifle-shots, the roar of the shells exploding swelled into a very hell of sound. And, above the infernal fracas rose the heavy cheering of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... so sudden a fury, the tumult being augmented by the crashing fall of a table, as caused me at the last moment to stand and turn. A dozen voices crying simultaneously, "Have a care!" and "Not here! not here!" and all looking the same way, I was able to detect the three principals in the FRACAS. They were no other than M. de St. Mesmin, Barradas—a low fellow, still remembered, who was already what Saintonge had prophesied that the former would become—and young St. Germain, the eldest ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... that play is about from reading the first act, and what is the author's name? I might have to produce a little concrete information in the fracas," the eminent producer paused to inquire just as he was ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... This fracas happens very luckily, as we had nothing left to talk of; for of the Pope we think no more, according to the old saying, than of the Pope of Rome. Of Wilkes there is no longer any question, and of the war under the Pole we hear nothing. Corsica, probably, will occasion murmurs, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... for a bit; decided he wouldn't have a fuss with a girl anyway, balked at a parlor car fracas with a drunk, dropped the coin back into his pocket, and went on into the combination baggage and express car. Here, just inside the door, was Toddles', or, rather, the News Company's chest. Toddles lifted the lid; and then his eyes shifted slowly ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... 8.-Siege of Prague raised. Great preparations for the King's journey to Flanders. Odes on Pulteney. Story of the Pigwiggins. Fracas at ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... me that a report has prevailed in Philadelphia of a Fracas between Mr Cushing and myself at our late Provincial Congress, he showed me your letter; you may depend upon it there is not the least Foundation for the Report. Any Difference between Mr Cushing and me is of very ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... be seized upon returning from a tournament or entertainment; but this was improbable, as the queen would always have an escort of knights with her, and no attempt could be successful except at the cost of a public fracas and much loss of blood. Cuthbert regarded as out of the question that an outrage of this ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... owned a wood-post nearby and were disgruntled because we had not patronized them. They blamed their neighbours for it. Almost before we realized it a pitched battle was in progress in which spears were thrown and men and women were laid out in a generally bloody fracas. One man got an assegai through his throat and it probably inflicted a ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... Peets Tutt, carries on what shootin' comes his way in a manner a lot dignified an' lofty; while Texas Thompson—who's mebby morbid about his wife down in Laredo demandin' she be divorced that time—although he picks up his hand in a fracas, ready an' irritable an' with no delays, after all is that well-balanced he's bound to ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... unfortunately, according to one's point of view, this deponent was not a spectator of the fight in the House of Commons this afternoon, having been himself previously knocked out by a catarrhal microbe possessing, as the sporting journals say, "a remarkable punch." He therefore gives the fracas an honourable miss. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... Rebellion of 1837. Canada is sensitive over the facts of the case to this day. Only a few years ago a book dealing with the unvarnished facts of the period was suppressed by a suit in court. As a rebellion, 1837 was an insignificant fracas. The rebels both in Ontario and Quebec were hopelessly outnumbered and defeated. William Lyon MacKenzie, the leader in Ontario, and Louis Papineau, the leader in Quebec, both had to flee for their lives. It is a question ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... This annual fracas assumed a particularly lurid character in 1860 and the printed program was especially objectionable, a fault quite characteristic of those days. The night had been a wild one and when it became known that Dr. Tappan was to discuss the matter the next morning in Chapel, there ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... him to peruse the same. Which Knight, feeling no interest whatever in Caesar's doings in Gaul, and having, in consequence, a good deal of time on his hands, proceeded to do. The cutting was headed "Disgraceful Fracas", and was written in the elegant style that was always so marked a feature ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... drunken, quarrelling brutes! Has it come to this, that a respectable priest of Holy Church may not hold private converse with the condemned without a brawl at the very door? Mother of God! what meaneth the fracas? Where is the guard? Why don't some of them jab their steel in the blasphemous ragamuffins who thus make mock of the holy offices of religion? Take that, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... that could be utilized better in darkness than in light, and knowing also that a battle against odds could be more successfully waged under the same conditions, he used his lantern as a weapon of offence, and thereby dashed out its flame at the very beginning of the fracas. ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... else he was one of those who had escaped through the rear door. Most of the Mexicans were natives of Perilla, and one and all swore that they were as innocent of evil intent as unborn children. They had merely happened to be there getting a meal when the fracas started. The miscreants who had drawn knives on the two whites were quite unknown to them, and must be the ones ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... git right back in thar, an' keep still. It was just as that whole caboodle come tearin' up this las' time, sir. It wan't no safe place fer a girl whar you was. Ragan he promised to tell you, only he got hit 'fore the fracas was done. That's why Foster chirked up, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... proverbial Bourbon verdancy. The Judge asked her in a kindly voice what took place. She insisted it did not amount to much, but the Judge by his persistency finally got her to tell the story of the bloody fracas. ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... was forced by the revolution in Vienna and the five days' insurrection in Milan to declare war on Austria. At Milan the liberal committees prohibited the use of tobacco which was a monopoly of the Austrian Government. This led to a fracas which was the immediate cause of the insurrection, and the Austrians were driven out of Milan. Simultaneously with the movement in Lombardy there was a rising in Venice, the Austrians were driven out and a Republic was proclaimed. This proclamation was a great mistake, as it created distrust between ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... is," cheerfully. "Duval has his arm about you, and the Camden boys are herding those devils down below. You had some fracas from the way things look. How many ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... him. But he could not delay the day of sailing, and so, much against his will, he was forced to forego his vengeance until his return. But this was destined to be his last voyage. While at Rio Janeiro he became engaged in a fracas with the keeper of a low grogshop, when the latter, who was a desperate ruffian, snatched a knife from his girdle, and drove it into the heart of the unhappy captain, who fell back on the floor and expired without ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... quiet possession of the bridge, which happened to be a great thoroughfare, and had during that time, by an undisputed display of his calamity, contrived to pick up a comfortable recompense for it; that within a few days preceding this novel fracas, another mendicant, who had equal claims to compassion, allured by the repute of his success, had deserted a less frequented part of the city, and had presented himself at the other corner of the same bridge, where by a more masterly selection ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the epithets usually applied to the reign of the "merry monarch." Its filth was even more disgusting than its vice, its obscenity than its licentiousness, and its unmanliness than its profligacy. ]—and he knew well that this unseemly matrimonial fracas proclaimed it to the world. He tried rebuke and remonstrance. When these failed, he only did his duty in attempting—vainly, as it proved—a compromise; and it was with disgust as well as weariness that he turned away from the degrading and hopeless task of patching up the strife that was undermining ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... tortoises that inhabited the island used to come backwards and forwards past the beach on their passage up to the hills, utterly regardless of the ship and the men working, especially towards the evening, as now; and just as the fracas happened, one of these huge creatures waddled by the trench, making for ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... would have shuddered, but maintained that as a soldier and gentleman Waring could not have refused his opponent's challenge, inexcusable though such challenge might have been. But that he could have stooped to vulgar, unregulated fracas, without seconds or the formality of the cartel, first with fists and those women's weapons, nails, then knives or stilettoes, as though he was some low dago or Sicilian,—why, that was simply and utterly ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... Peter, who saw a fracas imminent, hastily intervened. "If you will permit me for a moment," he said, "there is a little explanation I should perhaps make ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lynch, indefatigable in battle, managed to graze his chin with a blow meant for one of the disappearing boys. Other cops were battling each other, going after the kids and clutching empty air, cursing and screaming unheard orders in the fracas. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... also. The count, having continued persistently absent up to the last, was utterly unconscious of the little fracas that had taken place between the marchesa and the cavaliere, and the consequent sudden conclusion of the game. He had seen her rise, and it was a great relief to him. He had been debating in his own mind whether he should adopt the Dante rhyme for his ode to the young Madonna, or ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... their holsters on his back. They rose and fought until Harry, being quicker and stronger, got the best of it. The slaver was severely punished. The negro's horse, frightened by the first move in the fracas, had turned and run back ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... white 'oman what mends and sews, come to the back piazer, and beckoned me to run there. She said ther must be a 'high ole fracas', them was her words, agoin' on in Marster's room, for he was cussin' and swearin', and his granddaughter was jawing back very vicious. Sez I, 'Who'? Sez she, 'His granddaughter; that is Ellice's chile'. Sez I, 'How do you know so much'? Sez she, 'I was darning ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... on the slope of the ascent had come into sight. They had followed but slowly; the horses were already tethered to the rails of the fence, and the jury of view and its escort had disappeared within. A very spirited fracas was in progress between the visiting dogs and the inhospitable home canines, and once Ben appeared in the passageway and ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... passes, et l'ile et le rivage Tremblent sous ce fracas monstrueux et sauvage. Ils vont, viennent, jamais fuyant, jamais lasses, Froissent le glaive au glaive et sautent les fosses, Et passent, au milieu des ronces remuees, Comme deux tourbillons et comme ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... of an hour before they were made aware, by unmistakable odors, that they were nearing the Stock-Landing. There, while they were yet just a trifle too far away to catch its echoes, had occurred an incident—a fracas, in fact—some of whose results belong with this narrative to its end. While they amble toward the spot let us reconnoitre it. Happily it has long been wiped out, this blot on the city's scutcheon. Its half-dozen streets were unspeakable mud, its air was stenches, its buildings ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... opportunity to concoct a plan for escape, and it was necessary for them to go on to the restaurant in Longacre Square. It occurred to Hugh that it would be timely to explain why they were not dressed for dinner. They were on their way to the hotel to dress when the fracas took place. The plain-clothes man was not interested. Evidently the authorities did not apprehend much trouble from the two young people; their guardian performed his duties perfunctorily and considerately. He even disappeared from view after they ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... obliged him to transfer the onerous duty of writing the editorial on the Big Bluff Extension to the hands of the Honorable Abner Dean, Assemblyman from Angel's. The loss of the Honorable Mr. Dean's right eye in an early pioneer fracas did not prevent him from looking into the dim vista of the future and discovering with that single unaided optic enough to fill three columns of the "Star." "It is not too extravagant to say," he remarked with charming deprecation, "that Indian Spring, through its own perfectly organized system ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... upset him so easily. Yet, after we had taken care of Miss Langdale and matters had quieted down, I thought I might get some idea of the cause of the fracas and asked him if he knew of any reason. Why, he looked at me kind of blankly, and I swear he acted as though he had almost forgotten it already. I tell you, ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... Ezra Girdlestone was never known. Some years after Tom heard from a commercial traveller of a melancholy, broken man who haunted the low betting-houses of San Francisco, and who met his death eventually in some drunken fracas. There was much about this desperado which tallied with the description of young Girdlestone, but nothing certain was ever ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with his two neighbors, had taken no part in the affray beyond defending himself from blows or missiles, was even more astonished at the general good-humor that now succeeded than at the fracas itself. If there had been any bad blood among the combatants, it seemed to have been spilled, for there was now nothing but laughter and applausive drumming of fists upon the table. The company were as pleased with their own performance as the holiday faces that greet with ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... states that he was present, a few years ago, at Fort Snelling, Upper Mississippi, at the time the fracas occurred in which the Sioux fired on the Chippewas and killed four of their number. Col. Snelling exhibited the greatest decision of character on this occasion. He immediately put the garrison under arms, and seized four Sioux, and put them in hold till their tribe should surrender ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... about the eyes, which is the reason the doll-eyed boy had fallen into the drag-net—I permitted myself to accept my own opinion as evidence. The Peruvian was in all likelihood in no condition to recognize a man from a loup-garou by the time the fracas started. Much ardent water had flowed that night. I took the suspects down to Ancon station and let them cool off in porch rocking-chairs. Then I gave them passes back to Pedro Miguel for the evening train. The doll-eyed boy smiled girlishly upon me as he descended the steps, but the correspondent ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... were echoed by about twenty other darkies, who, attracted by the noise of the fracas, had gathered within a safe distance of the cabin. They went off with Jim, to raise the other plantation ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... showed surface only—a hard, bright surface, almost glazed, devoid of all expression save deadly seriousness. Bert's eyes showed madness. The eyes of the Irishmen were angry and serious, and yet not all serious. There was a wayward gleam in them, as if they enjoyed the fracas. But in Billy's eyes was no enjoyment. It was as if he had certain work to do and had doggedly settled down ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... over glasses of mulled wine. Jasper drugs the wine, and thus provokes a violent scene; next day he tells Crisparkle that Neville is "murderous." "There is something of the tiger in his dark blood." He spreads the story of the fracas in the town. ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... present referred to some rude creatures in a neighboring room who peeped and stared at the dancing. There was also awaiting me with my mail an anonymous letter, which I burned without reading through. Next I learned that the man who frightened them on the homeward way and then deserted after a fracas with Mr. Willett was Howard, of 'A' Troop, and that man's associations in town are matters of notoriety. That was the chain that led to my belief ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... gun was scarcely heard, so stunning to the ears of all was the fracas that continued; though the effect of the discharge was soon evident on the muchocho. It ceased ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... commotion among the monkeys—about a hundred of them squealing and yelling and gesticulating at once. It was on the ground, where the monkey-crowd swayed to and fro like any civilized mob. I ran up to see what the fracas was about, but not without some misgivings as to the risk of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... offering bargains. The eager games of the children, snatched between onsets of imminent peril as cart or truck came whirling through and scattering the players. Finally the episode of the trade fracas over the remains of a small and dubious weakfish, terminating when the dissatisfied customer cast the delicacy at the head of the stall-man and missed him, the corpus delicti falling into the gutter where it was at once appropriated ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... retentit dans la redoute. Je vis se baisser tous les fusils. Je fermai les yeux, et j'entendis un fracas pouvantable, suivi de cris et de gmissements. J'ouvris les yeux, surpris de me trouver encore au monde. La redoute tait de nouveau enveloppe de fume. J'tais entour de blesss et de morts. Mon capitaine tait tendu mes ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... happened. The burglar had not waited to ask for my card, but had contented himself with planting one blow from the shoulder on my left eye, before I could get upon my legs. And my revolver. Well, I had not had the ghost of a chance to use it. It was in my pocket. Fifteen minutes after the fracas, Mrs. Pinkerton came to my room, completely dressed, and insisted upon coming in to hear all about it and to overwhelm me with thanks and admiration. I was as modest as heroes proverbially are, and then and there told her never to refer to the ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... and junior classes which, in American colleges dictate in these affrays, found their dignity toppling, and in consequence there was a sudden oncome of the entire force of upper classmen football players naturally in advance. All distinctions were dissolved at once in a general fracas. The stiff and still Gothic windows surveyed a ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... I've told you you can just send for both of them and ask them yourself. I don't care a cent what you do for I'm going to leave this hateful school tomorrow and you can't stop me. And I'll tell dad all about this fracas too. I hate you and everything in the school—so there, now!" and with this final explosion Eleanor turned and fled from the room. Erin Go Bra! If Eleanor's story had not collapsed Miss Woodhull her English certainly would have compassed that result. She fell ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... had appealed to him. Then he told of his whaling adventures and of the few days he had spent on the Pribilof Islands, recounting the Japanese raid with great gusto. The Deputy Commissioner, who had heard nothing but the official account of the fracas was intensely interested and he questioned Colin closely, noting carefully the boy's clear understanding ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... did not, but who inserted the lines claimed by another person in the manuscript submitted? Were you in the cottage the other night? Some one was, for my servant heard some one prowling about, and a little later there was some sort of fracas outside. How did Manners receive his black eye? Can you ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... the shoulders; but Micky was accustomed to fighting, and made a vigorous resistance. In the midst of the fracas Mr. Rockwell ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... dressed leisurely, and by and by went down to the kitchen and watched his hostess making broth. The fracas with Dobson had done him all the good in the world, for it had cleared the problem of dubieties and had put an edge on his temper. But he realized that it made his continued stay in the cottage undesirable. He was now the focus of all suspicion, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... by the fracas in Tahar's cafe, were seething with excitement, and several of them, gathered together in a little crowd, were quarrelling and shouting at the end of the street near the statue of the Cardinal. Domini's escort saw them ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... cette sommite elevee qu'etoit situee une montagne qui s'eboula en 1751, avec un fracas si epouvantable, et une poussiere si epaisse et si obscure, que bien de gens crurent que c'etoit la fin ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... knew that he would not see him. The earl had fled ignominiously; he had declined to be present at the grand fracas between his wife and his son; he had left it all ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... my mother's spirit and my master's temper as well. Our social state was now perfectly intolerable. We were on the eve of a general fracas. This last scene occurred on Tuesday; and on Saturday evening following, without counsel or advice from any ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... travelling by that of Lyons, missed him. When she at length joined him in Paris, he received her with marked coldness; but, after a few days, the intercessions and explanations of friends restored harmony between them. He felt acutely, says De Bourienne, the ill effects which a domestic fracas must produce at the moment when all France was expecting him to take the chief part in some ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... countryman finds the town a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects are their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... continued its forward progress, and as those waiting clubs began to swing and play there was a confused exchange of shouts, yaps and yelps that must have filled a listener's heart with wonder, providing he did not know the meaning of the fracas. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... character over, the girl, you may be sure, having spoken feelingly and eloquently about his kindness and courage, and many admirable qualities. She kindled when she heard the report of his behaviour at the commencement of the fracas with M. de Castillonnes, his great forbearance and good-nature, and his resolution and magnanimity when the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a general row, for Billy's friends at once backed him in resenting the blow, and, though the fracas lasted but a few minutes, there were several burials next day ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... Creek camp with the despatch recalling the cavalry. They started at dawn, wounded and all; had a long range fight with Tontos toward evening, and another next morning, but forged slowly and steadily ahead with only slight loss, and came in sight of the flag and the fracas late the second afternoon. Turner was glad to get back, he said, since it seems he was needed, but was no sooner back than he was eager to launch out again. Hadn't they heard? Why, there had been great doings up on the Mogollon. Old Gray Fox himself had taken the field ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King |
