"Head off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way pay for her, because forty dollars was a lot of money for me in them days. Why, when I got that cow she never give enough milk to wet down a salt risin', and she was as old as Methuselah. All she could do was to eat, and she et her head off. I couldn't see her starve and I couldn't sell her. I kept her for two years, and finally a butcher come along and offered me eight dollars for her and I let her go. Wasn't I mad! I never could abide any one by the name of Silas ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... culpably negligent in not laying down a large stock for private consumption before the Great Drought set in. The Delorme found that out, then that his ancestral acres bordered on Long Island Sound, and finally that the Sybarite was loafing its head off. What could be more simple, she suggested, than that monsieur should ballast his private yacht with champagne on the homeward voyage, make his landfall some night in the dark of the moon, and put the stuff ashore on his own property before morning. Did he ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... ownership, absolute and utter, to the point of death, may satisfy a tyrant or a slave-driver, it does not satisfy the loving heart of God. It is not real possession at all. In what sense did Nero own Paul when he shut him up in prison, and cut his head off? Does the slave-owner own the man whom he whips within an inch of his life, and who dare not do anything without his permission? Does God, in any sense that corresponds with the longing of infinite love, own the men that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... so I'll make the size of the bundle atone for the price. If I peel you while I wait on the sap I'm that much ahead. I can spread you on drying trays in a few seconds and there you are. Howl your head off, Bel, I don't care what you have found. I wouldn't shoot anything to-day, unless the cupboard was bare and I was starvation hungry. In that case I think a man comes first, and I'd kill a squirrel or quail ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... my ear for?" he moaned dismally. "Want to split my head off? Woodsy's over yonder; talkin' with a man name of Blenham. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... caught them tryin' to teach us they always whipped them. I learned to read and write from 'em and I'll never forget how hard it was for 'em to get a chance to teach me. But if they caught you tryin' to write they would cut your finger off and if they caught you again they would cut your head off. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... locks at me,' Sir Moon-Calf!" and she made a little grimace across the table at Julian, who responded to it with a complacent smile—"You can talk, talk, talk—of course! every man that ever sat in clubs, smoking and drinking, can talk one's head off—but you've got to LIVE, as well as talk! What do you know about self-indulgence being 'paramount,' except in your own case, eh? Do you think at all of the thousands and thousands of poor creatures everywhere, who completely sacrifice their lives ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... ef you ain't ther fust tenderfut I ever saw thet wouldn't hev bragged his head off ef he'd killed a grizzly! Why, boy, you don't seem ter know whut ye've done! You've made a record. Ary other tenderfut I ever saw'd go back East an' publish ther story in all ther papers. He'd be hailed ez a mighty chief an' a tin ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... "So that is your little game, is it? You would bribe those men to betray me, to put me into your power! Very well! Now you jump down into that longboat at once; and if you dare to open your mouth again and speak another word of temptation to the men, I'll blow your head off," and he ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... hit as safely through short as if he had thrown it. McCall's little legs twinkled as he dashed over the grass. He had to head off that hit and he ran like a streak. Down and forward he pitched, as if in one of his fierce slides, and he got his body in front of the ball, blocking it, and then he rolled over and over. But he jumped up and lined ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... Minister of Finance the other night that now that you were the father of a real Emperor's grandson, you had a valid claim to respectability, and he'd bite the head off the first person who said you ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... that wouldn't kill the grub; he has a stomach that will stand most anything. The only thing I know is to cut his head off. (Laughter.) ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... ceasted he would give him two or three darkies and let him marry his daughter. Young master Henry (he was just eighteen) he say he goin' to take old Lincoln the first thing and swing him to a limb and let him play around awhile and then shoot his head off. But I 'member the morning old mistress got a letter that told how young master Henry was in a pit with the soldiers and they begged him not to stick his head up but he did anyway and they shot it off. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... do with it, you'll find—the woman is to be treated with respect or I'll blow your damned obstinate head off." ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... or fearful of its issue. Hermeias and Zeuxis, two of his bitterest enemies, shouted out that he was an Impostor[275] and rushed upon him. One of the two thrust a sword through his side, the other smote his head off with an axe. It was then the women's turn. Megallis's female slaves were given the power to treat her as they would. They first tortured her, then led her up to a high place and dashed her to the ground. Eunus avenged his private wrongs by the death of his own masters, Antigenes and Python. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... times,' said Scott. 'You see I didn't know much about milking or babies. They'll chaff my head off, if the tale ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... had well gone, the white bear came and begged her to undo his collar. The Princess was so scared she almost swooned away; but she felt about till she found the collar, and she had scarce undone it before the bear pulled his head off. Then she knew him again, and was so glad there was no end to her joy, and she wanted to tell her father at once that her deliverer was come. But the lad would not hear of it; he would earn her once more, he said. So in the morning when they heard the ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... I do hope you will, sir. Why, I'd sooner have cut my head off than do such a thing. Forsake yer! Why I was half mad when I found you'd gone on, and I run and shouted here and there till I was hoarse as a crow; and when I found I was reg'lar lost there, I can't tell you what I ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... there you'll go without me," declared Whopper firmly. "I wouldn't tempt that—-er—-crazy fellow again for a billion dollars! Why, he might come out and carve a chap all up with a butcher knife, or blow your head off with a gun!" ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... relieved of my pocketbook containing over two hundred dollars in money once. By Jove! I was mad enough to knock the fellow's head off, ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... his chair. "Look here," he said with a laugh, "don't pretend I haven't been boring your head off with all this talk about myself. You've been too patient. I'm off. Shall I see you to-morrow? Perhaps you'd lunch with us to-morrow? It would be a great pleasure for my wife. We're at the ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... wood and came with suddenness upon a vedette, posted beneath a beech tree. The vedette brought his short rifle to bear upon the apparition. "Halt! Halt, you in blue! Halt, I say, or I'll blow your head off." ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... at sight. After you've got it you may be pleased to death with what's inside it an' then again you may not. So we settled mostly on caramels for Katie. I said to Dave comin' home it was lucky men warn't held down to one sort of candy like they are to one sort of wife, an' he most laughed his head off. Then he asked me what kind of sweet I thought Katie was, an' I told him I reckoned she was the caramel variety, an' he said he thought so, too. We warn't fur wrong neither, for she's turned out 'bout as we figgered. Mebbe she ain't got the ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... ago; that's different. I'm never satisfied, I know, but I should like to see it blow its head off ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... as if he would nod his head off. "I saw him go in, and he hasn't come out, for I've kept watch," said he. "You better get away from here before he knows you ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... was not one of our people that killed him. Our people can't strike like that. He stuck the knife here, then slashed over there, and almost cut his head off." ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... had been Doctor Trescott," exclaimed Martha, loudly, "I'd have knocked that miserable Jake Winter's head off." ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... Villa will be shut up during my absence; it cannot take to itself wings, nor eat its head off during my absence. Probably in future I shall spend my time between this place and various big towns abroad, so that I shall ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... will have it that my genius is thrown away in England. And they inform me rather brutally that my seat in Parliament would be far more easily filled than this Sharapura post. Also the young Rajah has done me the honour to ask for me. We went pig-sticking together once—years ago, and I chanced to head off Piggie at a critical moment for young Akbar. On the strength of that, he wants me to go and be his political adviser for a few months. It seems the State is in rather a muddle. His father was a shocking old shuffler, and there are plenty of budmashes about, if report ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... land they fell in with was the Lizard, being the most southerly point of Cornwall, which they mistook for the Ram-head off Plymouth; and as the night was at hand, they tacked out to sea, laying their account to make an attempt upon our ships in Plymouth next morning. In the mean time, while thus deceived in the land, they were discovered by captain Fleming, a pirate or freebooter who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Chuck?" Coonie cried, running up, with a friendly, anxious expression on his face, for Chuck was almost sneezing his head off. ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... happy, but it can avoid certain troubles. Love in a cottage is only all right for the week-end when you have a nice house in London as well, and a season ticket or a motor, and electric light and things, and a telephone. Oh, by the way, our telephone here is eating its head off. We never use it. Go and ring up to the grocer, not to forget to send the things, will you, dear? He's got a telephone, too—the only tradesman ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... have heard!" he said in Punjabi, as if he were biting my head off, and I expect the German officer believed he had cursed me. I saluted and ran, and one of the Turkish officers aimed a kick at me as I passed. It was by the favor of God that the kick missed, for had he touched me I would have torn his ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... my head off," Mizzoo declared, "if that'll keep you on the move with me, for it's one thing meeting a ghost in the desert all alone, and quite another when there's a pair of us. Yes, I know you don't believe nothing I say about that spirit, and I only hope we'll come on it tonight! ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... crutch for a man that could also be used as an opera-glass. Whenever the man leaned on it up it went, and when he put it to his eye to find William, it flew out into a crutch and almost broke the top of his head off. Once he invented a rope ladder to be worn as guard chain and lengthened out with a spring. He put it round his neck, but the spring got loose and turned it into a ladder and almost choked him to death. Then he invented a patent boot heel to crack nuts with, but ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... wouldn't, because I'm sure he was really a very nice young man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn't have got at him to knock his head off, because he was ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... his stool, put his right hand into his sack-coat pocket, extracted therefrom part of a paper of "Maple Dew," and replenished his left cheek with an ample wad of "fine-cut." John took advantage of the break to head off what he had reason to fear might turn into a lengthy digression from the matter in hand by saying, "I beg pardon, but how does it happen that Mrs. Cullom is in such circumstances? Has the family ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... be the first cause or man that has been betrayed by the bottle. Condor, let me fill your glass. It is clear that if our dear friend Newt has a weakness it is the bottle; and if our enemies at Washington, who want to head off this Grant, have a strength, it is finding out an adversary's soft spot. We may find in this case that it's dangerous playing with edged tools. But I've great faith in his want of principle. We can show him ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... had had the car out in Amsterdam; for the city, with its network of electric trams and tremendous traffic, is far from ideal for motoring, and I wanted to keep the nerves of my people cool for sight-seeing. Therefore the automobile had been eating her head off in a garage, while we pottered about in cabs, driven by preposterously respectable-looking old gentlemen, bearded as to their chins, and white as to the seams ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... of a rifle poked into my ribs. They made me get off my horse. And they made me walk back along the trail. They fired bullets each side of me and laughed at me when I dodged. They told me if I looked back they'd shoot my damned head off." Donald's eyes were filled with tears of self-pity and the remembrance of his helpless rage. "They kept firing at me until I'd passed the stream. I hid in the willows, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even see the men who had been firing ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... and instantly was all excitement. It was a big fellow, he said,—one of three big ones that inhabited the creek. He would get him this time. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Oh yes, I'll blow the top of his head off." He was loaded for gallinules, and I, being no sportsman, and never having seen an alligator before, was some shades less confident. But it was his game, and I left him to his way. He pulled the boat noiselessly against the bank in the shelter of tall reeds, put down the oars, with which he ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... generals, prefect, mayor, civil and military authorities, all threw down their napkins, and hastily donning their best clothes, they went in the pouring rain through the streams of water running in the streets to take up their posts; while I, who was the cause of all this commotion, was laughing my head off as I made off at full speed drawn by three ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... you—you young'uns, give me a minute's peace? Land knows, I'm almost gone up; washin', an' milkin' six cows, and tendin' you, and cookin' f'r him, ought 'o be enough f'r one day! Sadie, you let him drink now 'r I'll slap your head off, you hateful thing! Why can't you behave, when you know I'm jest about dead?" She was weeping now, with nervous weakness. "Where's y'r pa?" she asked after a moment, wiping her eyes ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... with figures of the proper heroical length and nakedness. The anticlassicists did not arise in France until about 1827; and, in consequence, up to that period, we have here the old classical faith in full vigor. There is Brutus, having chopped his son's head off, with all the agony of a father, and then, calling for number two; there is AEneas carrying off old Anchises; there are Paris and Venus, as naked as two Hottentots, and many more ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... having to keep along the shore so as to avoid the natives who would have killed them had they ventured inland, were easily intercepted by the Government cutter which was always dispatched in cases of the kind to head off fugitives upon their only possible course. Of the party, only one man was found alive. In their dreadful need the men had cast lots as to who should be killed and eaten by the others, and this went on until only the one man remained. His sufferings ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... reckless Prince. "How canst thou be so unworthy as to be for ever flinging thy bloody hand in my face, as the ghost of Gaskhall threw his head at Sir William Wallace? Bethink thee, thou art more unreasonable than Fawdyon himself; for wight Wallace had swept his head off in somewhat a hasty humour, whereas I would gladly stick thy hand on again, were that possible. And, hark thee, since that cannot be, I will get thee such a substitute as the steel hand of the old knight of Carslogie, with which he greeted his friends, caressed his wife, braved his antagonists, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... If he keeps a dairy herd he tests each cow and knows exactly how her yield is progressing so that it is impossible for her to "beat her board bill." No longer is it even considered good form to chop the head off the old rooster; the Farmer sticks him scientifically, painlessly, instantaneously dressing him for market in the manner that commands the highest price. So with the butter, the eggs and all the rest ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... which he had sent his son to head off, and it was now in the woods not a hundred paces distant. Jacques, Michel's eldest son, beat up the woods with Barbichon and Ravaude, the heads of the pack, and in about five minutes the boar was found in his lair. They could have killed him at once, or at least shot ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... mud-worm as you presume to rise in this house against this noble soul, the wonder is,' added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a very ugly turn indeed on Wegg's cravat, 'that I didn't try to twist your head off, and fling THAT out of window! So. That's the last short speech, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... a hen with its head off, or whatever French hens do," said Rosamond; "if she whisks that broken-armed boy home as fast as she whisked herself off they'll ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... second officer. I stood by as if all these things were happening to some other chap whom I was seeing through with it. Mr Powell stared at me with those shining eyes of his. But that bothered skipper turns upon me again as though he wanted to snap my head off. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... pushed the tiller sharply round, and the boat was speeding diagonally for the bank. The change of course gave her a fairer wind, but the tug was coming up so fast that it looked as if she must head off the fugitives. Full steam had been put on, and our affrighted friends, when they looked back, saw the tumbling foam at the bow, the spreading wake streaming fanlike to the rear, and the dark figures crowding forward, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... when it does blow, it blows fit to take your head off, and you have nothing to do but to cruise under bare poles, and hope that nothing will get in your way. There is one thing, they are not gales like we have here, but cyclones, and instead of getting blown along for hundreds of miles, you go round and round, so that if there ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... perceiving their defenseless condition, without offering violence to the family, attempted to capture the negro, who happily proved an over-match for him, threw him on the ground, and in the struggle, the mother of the children drew an axe from a corner of the cottage, and cut his head off, while her little daughter shut the door. The savages instantly appeared, and applied their tomahawks to the door. An old rusty gun-barrel, without a lock, lay in a corner, which the mother put through a small crevice, ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... served the bean soup in a long-necked vase. The stork had a beak that reached down the neck of the vase and drank the soup with ease. The fox had a short muzzle and couldn't get it. The trick made him mad and he bit the stork's head off. Why should the brain worker invite the manual worker to a confab and then serve the feast in such long-necked language that the laborer can't get it? "Let's spill the beans," the agitator tells him, "then we'll all get some ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... without the signal and consequent long start by the runner, the latter is frequently put out at the plate, as the infielder who fields the ball will ignore the batsman and throw the ball to the catcher to head off the runner and prevent a run being scored. In close games the "sacrifice-hit," a part of team batting, is an important element. It consists, when a runner is on base, of a hit by the batsman resulting in his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... was impossible to make the old man realize his own absurdity. "Well, you needn't bite my head off," he said pettishly. "Come on, let's go out. A little rain won't ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... blowing, or I fancy I should have gone out that way. However, I grabbed up a rifle, and then opening a trap door, dropped down into a little cubbyhole under the floor, where we used to keep our batteries. What I brought the rifle along for I can't say, unless it was to blow the top of my own head off. The place was like a bake-oven and all the air I received came through a small crack in the floor, and it was not long until I ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... gloom, within the doorway, two vague figures rained dagger-blows. Janina, mortally stabbed, practically blew the head off one of these door-keepers. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... doubt that it would be advisable," Carroll answered thoughtfully. "As I've pointed out, you have spent a good deal of the cash you got when you turned the Clermont over to the company. In fact, that's one reason why I didn't try to head off this timber-hunting scheme. You can't spend much over the search, and if the spruce comes up to expectations, you ought to get it back. It would be a fortunate change, ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... didn't speak to me, An' we couldn't get him laughin' an' we couldn't make him smile, An' he said the toast was soggy an' the coffee simply vile. Then Ma said: "What's the matter? Why are you so cross an' glum?" An' Pa 'most took her head off coz the paper ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... skeleton in our cupboard. The mater says so, and she ought to know. Every time the mater has a show, the moment the door is opened, in comes Great-aunt Jane, and sits it out until every one has gone. If any one dares speak to her she snaps his head off, and if they let her alone, she's furious, and gives it to the mater after they're gone. Most of the crowd know her by now, and pretend they don't see, ... and she gets waxier and waxier. Would you like to ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... moved across the mountains to new lands in the Valley, southwestern Virginia, and Kentucky. In fact, Virginia had to head off an attempt by North Carolinians, headed by Richard Henderson, to detach Kentucky from Virginia. The state had to watch attempts by other states to claim Virginia lands in the Ohio country. To forestall these attempts Virginia took two steps. In ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... you'll find the Atlantic bergs are different. There's a lot of ice in the North Pacific but it's mostly in small pans. No big stuff comes through Bering Strait. It would strand. And then the Aleutian and Kuril Islands make a sort of breakwater to head off big bergs. But in the North Atlantic there's nothing to keep the big Greenland glacier breaks from floating south right into the very path of the steamers. In fact that's what they do. You'll see some real ones ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... comfort me—I tell you my dolly is dead! There's no use in saying she isn't—with a crack like that in her head. It's just like you said it wouldn't hurt much to have my tooth out that day; And then when the man most pulled my head off, you hadn't a word ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... how 't one has so little an' t' other so much. That Mr. 'Super' Metcalf now, as fine a man as treads shoe leather, never a doubt I doubt, yet himself judgin' it fair, since the man Wingate wanted the beast, the man Wingate should have him. Anyway, there he stands, brayin' his head off in the 'Supe's' stable, in trust for the old man'll never bestride him. Nobody rides him at all, Miss Amy says; yet here's me gineral heart-broke for him; an' the cripple goin' afoot; an' all them little Metcalfs envyin' an' covetin'; an' ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... drawing-room. I did feel bad, because I knew it would be our last real talk, and she looked simply sweet in her new blue dress and her Sunday afternoon expression. She can look as fierce as anything and snap your head off if you vex her, but she's a darling all the same, and I adore her. She's been perfectly sweet to me these three years, and we have had lovely talks sometimes—serious talks, I mean—when I was going to be confirmed, and when father was ill, and when I've been homesick. She's so good, but not ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... you are hindering my journey. Surrender at once, and I will take you with me. If you don't I will set this dog to bite your head off!" ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... good or bad, whether he was a patriot or a usurper, so far as his ultimate influence is concerned, if he was the instrument of an overruling Power; for God chooses such instruments as he pleases. Even in human governments it is sometimes expedient to employ rogues in order to catch rogues, or to head off some peculiar evil that honest people do not know how to manage. But because a bad man is selected by a higher power to do some peculiar work, it does not follow that this bad man should be praised for doing it, especially if the work is good only so far as it is overruled. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... lovely!—to eat a rose. But mine was a chicken, and before I thought I cut his poor little pink head off with my spoon. And it reminded me of the day when we were little and my brother John made me hold our poor old red rooster while he chopped his head off with the ax, and of course it made me sick, and I just had ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... and shiver in a naked stall, And day by day sat brooding in his chair, Devising plans how best to hoard and spare. At length he said: "What is the use or need To keep at my own cost this lazy steed, Eating his head off in my stables here, When rents are low and provender is dear? Let him go feed upon the public ways: I want him only for the holidays." So the old steed was turned into the heat Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street; And wandered ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... head off if he was sick. It doesn't seem real neighborly, Miss Thorley. And you are neighbors. You live right over his head. I expect he has dyspepsia and that's the reason he looked so—" she hesitated over a word, "unfriendly. Why when Mr. Lewis, he's the postmaster in Mifflin, had dyspepsia ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... Kingdom, folding her hands in her lap. "When you were children. He came home at half-past eleven next morning, and when I asked him where he'd been he nearly bit my head off. I'd been walking the floor all night, and I shall never forget his remarks when he opened the door to the police, who'd come to say they couldn't ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... for my feet to get my shoes off I bumped my head off, and the more I bumped my head off the less I got my shoes off, and the less I got my shoes off the more I seemed to bump my head off, so I decided that in order to keep my head on I had better keep my shoes ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh
... the woman to allow any sense of fear, or any solicitude as to the respect due to herself, to stand in the way of the performance of a duty. It may be declared on her behalf that had it been in her nephew's power to order her head off in punishment for her interference, she would still have spoken had she conceived it to be ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Sanders and Davies was very brief and decidedly grave. Sanders had at first assumed the light air of superiority of the old cadet toward the plebe, and, to head off questioning, plunged into that species of deprecatory and officious advice which is generally prefaced by, "Now, my dear boy, let me as a friend," etc., etc. Like the chaplain's wife, Sanders started with the best intentions, and just as she had excited Mira's resentment ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... knock my head off when I think that I am to blame for not being able to send you word yesterday of the happy conclusion of this affair!! * * I cannot apologize enough, but assure you I punished myself by two days' suspense (a letter had been misdirected to the surgeon which delayed his visit). I did intend ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... be either—either—a—bicycle—or a printing press—or Indian clubs; and if it is a bicycle, it must be the real kind—wooden ones are not allowed in processions; and if it is clubs, I shall knock my head off; so it better be a printing press. It doesn't make any difference to you this year, does it, as we have not got to buy a new carpet? I have decided; it shall be a printing press, and I shall get orders enough to ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... the turn of Donna Emilia, a very burning poetess, for a Sapphic ode; and so on and so on. After three days Ippolita found herself yawning her head off; the longing for freedom returned, for the open country, the hills, the goatherds. Not for her home in the Vicolo: this everlasting love-making with its aftertaste of stale sugar had turned her sick of Padua. The whole city, to her mind, reeked ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the wife of Iarlaid, when she heard of it. 'My brother the Red Gruagach will take the head off Manus as well in Old ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... is about as queer as its owner. Mrs. Gates, wife of the proprietor, can be, and usually is, very cross and disagreeable, and I rather dreaded stopping there alone. But she met me pleasantly—that is, she did not snap my head off—so I gathered courage to ask for a room that would be near some one, as I was timid at night. That settled my standing in her opinion, and with a "Humph!" she led the way across a hall and through a large room where there were several beds, and opening a door on the farther side that led to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... judge. The foreman of the jury, a South Carolinian by birth, had risen, revolver in hand, with the evident intention of executing the prisoner on the spot. "You have sworn to abide by the finding of the court," continued the judge angrily. "If you don't put up that gun I'll blow your damned head off." ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... old book. I should never have thought of it by myself, and then, of course, I would never have done such a thing. And now, it is just perfectly dreadful. I know papa thinks I have been too bad to love any more, and mamma is so sick, and Ann looked as cross at me as if she would just like to bite my head off, and I most know she will scold and scold at me to-morrow, and there, Aunt Emma had to come the first time I ever did such a thing, and now, I suppose she thinks I run away every night, and I never, never did before, and it is n't fair, so;" ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... hard-hearted as many devils to take them as nails stuck in the door! In some neighbourhoods children are taken into the vineyards on Innocents' Day, when they strike the vines with switches and sing: "Bear, bear fruit, pretty vine, else will I cut thy head off." ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... needn't take my head off! I haven't got any other and can't spare it!" answered Mrs. Gratacap, not in the least abashed. "I don't want to go bothering hotel help; I always keep out of their way, for they have a holy horror of us nurses, and the fuss ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... troops have done in the last year, showing America at its best, helping to save hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, moving with lightning speed to head off another threat to Kuwait, giving freedom and democracy back ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... conclude the tedious fray: And the sage, who knows all languages, runs away. Yet Lob has thirteen hundred names for a fool, And though he never could spare time for school To unteach what the fox so well expressed, On biting the cock's head off,—Quietness is best,— He can talk quite as well as anyone After his thinking is forgot and done. He first of all told someone else's wife, For a farthing she'd skin a flint and spoil a knife Worth sixpence skinning it. She heard him speak: 'She had a face as long as ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... take my head off," said Aunt Ruey, roused as much as her adipose, comfortable nature could be. "You've been a-talkin' at me ever since you came in from the sink-room, as if I was to blame; and snappin' at me as if I hadn't a right to ask civil questions; and I won't stan' ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... I'm threatenin' to knock her head off, or somethin'. There there, don't ee cry! We'll go see papa soon.—Confound it, man, I can't go on with this thing! There, there! See, child, we're goin' to have some nice hot pancakes now; goin' to have breakfast now. See, ol' pap's goin' to fry some pancakes. ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... guess I won't try that again. It stuck in my throat and I got a strangling spell. I coughed till—well, I thought I was going to get out of taking medicine altogether. It's a terrible fear that grips a fellow when he gets something stuck in his throat and knows that he can't lift his head off his pillow. It isn't so much that he's afraid to die—it's the death struggle ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... infantry under Marmont to come up, Napoleon sent Nansouty's cavalry around to the left to head off Olsuvieff's advance and interpose between him and the rear guard of Sacken's division. Even the noise of the little battle—for the skirmish was a hot one—a mile down the road, did not apprise the Russian of ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... me so tired," asseverated Mrs. Arty, "to think of the old goats that men put up for candidates when they know they're solemn old fools! I'd just like to get out and vote my head off." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... warned the man tensely, himself livid with rage. "If you move a step closer I swear I'll knock the head off your shoulders! Not another inch, you contemptible whelp, or I'll brain you!... That's better," he continued as the captain, caving, dropped his fists and moved uneasily back. "Now give that boatman money for taking me ashore. Yes, I'm going—and if we ever meet again, take ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... a revolver, cocked it, and presented it at the lad's head. "You can tell me the truth now or I'll blow your head off," he growled. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... through Spring Hill at noon, and deploying just beyond on a run, interposed barely in time to head off the advance of Hood's cavalry, Wagner arriving by the Columbia pike from the southwest and the cavalry by the Mount Carmel road from the east. General Forrest, commanding Hood's cavalry, had used his superior ...
— The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee - read after the stated meeting held February 2d, 1907 • John K. Shellenberger
... for a doll or cat or something she could call her own and talk to. She asked Miss Amanda, who said "No." She added, "I have no money to give for such foolishness as a doll, and a cat would eat its head off." ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... the bark's course in every direction, also guarded her from danger. I knew that so long as deep-sea porpoises kept with us we had nothing to fear of the ground. When the lookout cried, "Porpoises gone," we turned the bark's head off-shore, backed the main-tops'l, and sent out the "pigeon" (lead). A few grains of sand and one soft, delicate white shell were brought up out of fourteen fathoms of water. We had but to heed these warnings and guides, and our course would be tolerably clear, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... Yas, I's seen dat foot befoh! (Gives foot a yank) Dat's her ol' trick, Mars Edgah. She jes foolin' yo'! Don' yo' be so soft hearted next time. Yo' jes take her by de back ob de neck and wring her head off! ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... time made the proper surgical suture. "Leave it alone this way," said he, "and mind what I tell you. Seems like you can't kill a man out in this country. You can do things in surgery out here that you wouldn't dare tackle back in France, or in the States. I suppose, maybe, I could cut your head off, for instance." ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... the trigger and Wilbur fired again. A moment later, the Ranger came running into the clearing. But before he reached the boy's side the cat had fallen limply to the ground. The second shot had gone clear through her skull, and, being fired at point-blank distance, had almost blown her head off. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... so difficult!" she laughed. "If you'd stop betting your head off on two pairs, Mr. North, you wouldn't find ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... Bertha—the whole thing! I'm showing my hand for the first time. Cloran's the man that's making you wear those clothes; Cloran's the only one who could go into the witness box and swear that you were the woman who murdered Deemer; and Cloran's the man who has been working his head off for two years to find you. We've tried a dozen times to bump him off in a way that would make his death appear to be due purely to an accident, and we didn't get away with it; but we can afford to leave the 'accident' out of it to-night, and go through for keeps—and that's what we're going to do. ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... to her, as she sat with her head hanging down, and kissed her cheek, and said: Yea! and I was not there to smite the head off that accursed one; and I knew nought of thee and thine anguish, as I took my light pleasure about these free meadows. And he turned very red, and went nigh ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... go and talk to him," she said, when we heard my father's cough. "Go, speak to him, and beg his pardon. He won't bite your head off." ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... over, he said to the Giant, "I will shew you a fine trick: I could cut my head off one minute, and put it on sound the next. But ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... hurry had not carried off the map but left it lying on the ground, still Frank realized that the Portuguese had not actually needed the document to aid Muley-Hassan to find the cache. The Arab was no doubt familiar with the location anyway, but to head off all danger of the boys getting there first, it was vital to stop Diego at all costs. In a few bounds Frank reached the little indentation in the bank where the canoes ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... wouldn't! When I think of it, I always want to see what's coming next, and so I always wait till next is over. Well! I suppose there's somebody happy somewheres. But it ain't in them carriages. Oh my! how they do look sometimes—fit to bite your head off! Good-bye!" ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... tell us where we may find him, pardner?" spoke up Tad, observing how the land lay and wishing to head off friction. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... with a dissipated and immoral swagger and a knowing, devil-may-care tilt of the head, was sidling off to the left. Two or three young pullets were following the lead of this ancient pirate, evidently fascinated by his recklessness. The captain turned to head off the wanderers. They squawked and ran hither and thither. He succeeded in turning them back, but, at the moment of his success, heard triumphant cluckings at his rear. The rest of the flock had, while his attention was diverted by the rooster ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... beat me, the pair of you! You're crazy to want her, and she's crazy not to want you. She liked to a' bit my head off for perposin' you, and you want to lick me for ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... He's working so hard and he does get cross with his critics. Hurry up, Bill, and get outside, or he'll snap your head off! Quick! Fly! ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... basket, Eshcol-grape wise, like the walnuts. When we told Mother, she made no objection. She would have given her own head off her shoulders if, by ill-luck, any passer-by had thought of asking for it. Besides, it solved the difficulty of ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... muttered Cap in a sort of soliloquy,—"not over lubberly, though he should have put his helm a-starboard instead of a-port; for a vessel ought always to come-to with her head off shore, whether she is a league from the land or only a cable's length, since it has a careful look, and looks are ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... asks. She's got easy asking. 'What did papa do?' The whole shop, I tell you. A sheep with a baa inside when you squeeze on him—games—a horn so he can holler my head off—such a knife like Izzy's with a scissors in it! 'Leon,' I said, ashamed for Naftel, 'that's a fine knife like Izzy's so you can cut up with.' 'All right then'—when I see how he hollers—'such a box full of soldiers to have war with.' 'Dollar seventy-five,' says ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... deep, writhing shame tortured her, so she was not easy till she had again quarrelled with Theresa and had almost shaken her sister's head off. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... said Kerick. "Head off that drove of four-year-olds. The men ought to skin two hundred to-day, but it's the beginning of the season and they are new to the work. ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... result was that she could not even hit the tree on which the paper was fastened. She screwed her face up into a frightful grimace and turned her head away when she fired, as if she expected the explosion to blow her head off. But Ned gallantly assured her that she would be a good shot in time and never made one remark about "the way girls do such things." Hinpoha persisted until she had hit the paper once and then left to put her slumgullion over ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... that woman that hath a wise man to her husband!" responded Licorice, irreverently. "Go to sleep, for the sake of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, or I shall get up and chop thy head off, for thou art not a whit better ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,' Plornish growled, 'and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever I met with such. The way she snapped a person's head off, dear me!' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... your head off an' scalp you an' leave you hanging on a tree, I could," he said fiercely, "an' I will, too, if you go on calling ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... yourself? But the land is theirs beyond dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to me, and said, "Write us a petition." So I wrote one. And Bezpandin heard of it, and began to threaten me. "I'll break every bone in that Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders...." We shall see how he will knock it off; ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... trembled so that he could scarcely draw a line, and he was driven nearly mad with the necessity of presenting a calm, thoughtful exterior when the effervescence within, as he afterwards admitted, almost blew his head off like ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... was about to begin, and while the party still stood on the river bank, the leader wrenched the head off a chicken and took observations from the blood and intestines. These were not as satisfactory as was desired, but were considered favorable enough to warrant beginning the march tentatively. Upon the entrance of the party into the forest the omen bird was ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... "Well, don't bite my head off, old man," replied Ola. "I haven't hurt your fool of a boy. I have only been joking ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... left but that of sheering across his hawse, first on one bow, then on the other, raking him as we crossed, always having in view the retarding his way, by obliging him either to receive us athwart his bowsprit, in which case we should have turned his head off shore, or to sheer as we did. He, foreseeing our intention, did so; but never lost sight of gaining the shore. In this situation we had continued for a considerable time. His bowsprit had been at two different times over our quarter-deck, but never so far forward as to enable ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... down. One evening, the weather being hot, and Davis being very thirsty, he sold his bride for some punch. His wife's relations, being indignant, seized Davis, who told them, being, perhaps, still a little under the influence of the punch, that he did not care if they took his head off. But his "in-laws" knew a more profitable way of being revenged than that, and sold him to Seignior Joffee, a Christian black. Soon afterwards Captain Roberts, in the Royal Fortune, arrived in the bay, and Davis ran away and joined ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... congregation scattered through the pasture and felt like telling them to hurry, for the long sermon had already begun! But one ancient worthy, very late on his way to the meeting, happened to stand in our way, and Sheila bit his dry head off, which ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... weep in this house, Kokua,” he said. “And yet I would give the head off my body that you (at least) might ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... trouble? Say, Charlie, boy," he cried, his big face flushing painfully, "it don't matter to me a curse what you are. You're my brother. See? I wouldn't do you a hurt intentionally. I'd—I'd chop my own fool head off first. Can't anything be done? Can't I do anything to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... or less than that she should ask Dr. Linton to allow Bess to play with him some time in the Abbey. She wondered whether she dared. His temper was still decidedly irritable, and it was quite uncertain whether he would receive the suggestion graciously, or snap her head off. She thought, ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... turn over, it's as bad as being struck by a six-foot diamond-back. They lock their jaws, and the poison—— But I've seen a man snap the head off one of those big snakes. Let's see if you have the nerve to toss this little ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... Englanders. There is an Englishman here, with his sister, and they seem to be rather nice people. He is remarkably handsome, but excessively affected and patronising, especially to us Americans; and I hope to have a chance of biting his head off before long. The sister is very pretty, and, apparently, very nice; but, in costume, she is Britannia incarnate. There is a very pleasant little Frenchman—when they are nice they are charming—and a German doctor, a big blonde man, who looks like a great white bull; and ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... degree of prompt celerity that he could not possibly call forth by a direct act of volition. At all events, on the present emergency, without in the least degree knowing what I was about, I brought my gun from my shoulder into a horizontal position, and blew the snake's head off almost ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... never have got her to kneel down to their ugly images, not if they'd cut her head off for it. She's just like a stone wall. Nell did, till Cissy got hold of her and told her not; but she didn't know what it meant, so I hope it wasn't wicked. You see, she's so little, and she forgets what is said ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... to go. But listen. If I had the chance you've got here,—if I had a ranch like this, and cattle, and horses, and a father and mother and uncle like you've got,—I never would look a camera in the eye again as long as I live. That's straight, old-timer. Why, I'm working my head off trying to get enough ahead so that I can have a ranch of my own! So I can slap a saddle on a horse that carries my brand, and ride out after my cattle, and haze them into my corral; so I can have a home that is mine. I never did have one, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... I've swotted my head off all these months! A chap needs some rest if he's to do himself ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world, And world's exile is death,—then banished Is death mis-term'd: calling death banishment, Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe, And smil'st upon the stroke that ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... he had wakened in heaven, yet he must needs awake to find that the look and manner of earth had returned. Her sensitive pride made her guarded even in expressing her gratitude, and she purposed to slip his head off upon her shawl whenever he showed signs of awakening, so that he might believe that the earth only ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... who took the polite phrase literally. "More like you'll want to knock his head off. Old Timer," he leaned over the saddle horn, "seein' as you're from Missoury, I'll tell you private that you'd better keep on travelin'. Company ain't wanted at the Scissor Outfit, and they'd high-tone it over you so 'twouldn't ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... perfect! I respected him! Liked him better than I ever had before! I never saw anything so well done as the way he carried it off! I was never so uncomfortable in all my life, though we united in laughing, ha, ha.... Charlie would have taken my head off, if he had dared, afterwards in a corner of the parlor. But the first word he said, I cut in, short as pie-crust, 'Young man,' I said, 'if you aren't careful I shall sit on you. Do you know how much I weigh?' And ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... her down tightly," he explained. "That pasture fence is no good at all, and I never trusted to it. I pegged Blossom down with a good long rope, and Daisy, too; and Daisy is gone while Blossom is still eating her head off." ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... soon to lose. More than one boy kept his eye on him during his public devotions, possessed by the same feeling the man had who followed Van Amburgh about with the expectation, let us not say the hope, of seeing the lion bite his head off ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... from the enemy cut our deputy-sergeant-major in two, and having passed on to take the head off one of my company of grenadiers named William Hooper, exploded in the rear not more than one yard from me, hurling me at least two yards into the air, but fortunately doing me little injury beyond the shaking ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... to say her prayers and just as he was going to chop her head off, her two brothers arrived at the castle, burst open the door, killed the cruel wretch, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of yours did the old man a good turn to-night, but you shan't make fools of us again." And a few days later, when Alexander attempted to head off the same mob as it made for the press of Rivington, the Tory printer, they would not listen to him. But the effort raised him still higher in the estimation of the patriots, for they saw that his love of law and order was as great as his passion ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... "today is Slim's birthday and we were going to celebrate by having a chicken dinner. So Slim went out to buy a chicken and came back with a live one. Then he didn't have the heart to chop its head off, and was trying to drown it in a barrel of water when you came up. By the way, Slim, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... with a carload of arms and munitions, passed on the way to head off the latest revolted "general." The newspapers of the capital appeared, some rabidly "anti-American," stopping at nothing to stir up the excitable native against alleged subtle plans of the nation ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... dey warn't no schools for de Niggers in dem days. If a Nigger wuz seed wid a paper, de white folks would pretty nigh knock his head off him. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration |
