"Rap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was encountered by Sam Cole, an accomplished cudgel-player, who parried his blows coolly, and gave him a severe rap on the head that dazzled him. But he fought on, till he heard footsteps coming behind him, and then rage and despair seized him, he drew back, shifted his hammer into his right hand and hurled it with all his force at Cole's breast, for he feared to miss his head. Had it struck him on the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... at the sound of hurried footsteps outside. There was a smart rap at the street door, then the handle was turned, and the next moment, to the dismay of all present, the red and angry face of one of Mr. Cooper's brother-constables was ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... like a wary turtle. A flash of lightning makes him draw it back again.) Ha! It's beginning all over again. Rain by the bucketfuls against the window-panes. Something in the chimney is trying to imitate that far-away rumbling. Everything's falling to pieces ... and She gave me a rap on ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... and hearing the clock strike six, he dropped into a sweet sleep, from which he did not awake until roused by the rap of a servant, who, entering his room, handed him a note which ran as follows:—"Sir,—I owe you an apology for the inconveniences to which you were subjected last evening, and if you will honour us with your presence to dinner to-day at four o'clock, ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... thoughts like these, I toiled onward. All that day I walked without a particle of nourishment. When I reached Highgate, it was eleven o'clock at night, but in one house I saw a light, and I ventured to rap at the door. It was opened by a pale, but pleasant looking woman. "Kind lady," said I, "will you please tell me how far it is to the States?" "To the States!" she exclaimed, and in a moment she seemed to understand both my character and situation. "You are now in Vermont ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... take a false oath; also to curse. He rapped out a volley; i.e. he swore a whole volley of oaths. To rap, means also to exchange or barter: a rap is likewise an Irish halfpenny. Rap on ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Hesden!" There was a timorous rap upon the window of Hesden Le Moyne's sleeping-room in the middle of the night, and, waking, he heard his name called in ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... he went and down another, until at last he came to a great, black, ancient ramshackle house; and that was where he lived. In he walked without so much as a rap at the door, and so led the way to a great room with furnaces and books and bottles and jars and dust and cobwebs, and three grinning skulls upon the mantelpiece, each with a candle stuck atop of ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... the lads always took capstan-bars, or gunners' handspikes, or crows with them, to rap the beasts over the noses if they got to be troublesome. No, no, I have no liking for bears and wolves, though a whale, in my eye, is very much the same sort of fish as a red herring after it is dried and salted. Mabel and I had ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... canary, poor dear little thing! The hours and hours that creature has strained its throat to say 'Sing and be merry,' when I had not a rap in my pocket! It would have made a stone feel ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Beatrice was just snuggling down into the delicious coolness of her pillow, she heard someone rap softly, but none the less imperatively, on her door. She opened one eye stealthily, to see her mother's pudgy form outlined in ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... not, made a little sharp rap on the table, and there was a movement of suppressed misery like a quiver in her slender upright form. Her voice was low and tremulous. "If you'd got religion, Ephraim, you wouldn't speak in that light manner of one who has the ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... came upon it, which almost caused her to shriek aloud. Yet it was a quiet rap, and a neighbor's voice answered as she asked tremulously who was there. She hastened to open the door, so welcome was the sound of the well-known voice; but there, opposite to her, in the driving rain, rested the ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... football player," complimented Phil. "Well, here we are—outside the sanctum of the man who controls the destinies of Medford pigskin chasers. Shall I rap?" ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... neither he nor his companion were overcertain of the way. Once they missed the right turn, wandered down a blind alley, and plunged into a pile of offal awaiting the scavenger dogs. But finally the seaman stopped at a low door in a narrow street, and a triple rap made it open. The scene was squalid. A rush-candle was burning on a table. Around it squatted seven men who rose and bowed as the strategus entered. In the dim flicker he could just recognize the burly shipmaster Hasdrubal and gigantic Hib, the Libyan "governor," whose ebon face betrayed ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... was talking about my sister, Margaret. I can still see her weaving the cloth—Boom!... Boom!—and she hear that all the day and get mighty tired. Sometimes she drop her head and go to sleep. The Mistress get her then sure. Rap her on the head with almost anything handy, but she hit pretty easy, just trying to ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... argument? There was nothing to prove that she cared for him, notwithstanding this agreeable conclusion by contrast. As a matter of fact, he came earthward with a rush, weighted down by the conviction that she did not care a rap for him except as a conveniently moral brother-in-law. He was further distressed by Edith's comfortless, though perhaps well-qualified, announcement that she believed her sister to be in love; she could not imagine with whom; she ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... eager female listeners, who in turn relate, inquire, sympathize, or cheer. If I dare express a doubt that the path to victory will be a flowery one, eyes flash, cheeks burn, and tongues clatter, till all are checked up suddenly by a warning rap for "Order, order!" from the amiable lady presiding. Thus we swallow politics with every meal. We take a mouthful and read a telegram, one eye on table, the other on the paper. One must be made of ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... want to tell you something. Swear that you will never tell my father or mother. I don't give a rap for music; I hate it, but I like the young men here in Balak, no, not the citizens. They are slow, but the soldiers, the regiment attached to the Royal Household. I've met a Lieutenant Fustics—oh, he's lovely, belongs ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... blossoming out. That's repartee, that is. With the accent on the rap, too. Never you mind; I think old 1812 and I will get on all right after this. It doesn't seem to bother him any, so I don't see why it should worry me. Nice motherly old ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... backward in that line, and kep' up his end pretty well: and pretty soon they was a-roarin' and haw-hawin' inside about as loud as the storm outside; when all of a sudden, 'bout midnight, there come a loud rap ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rap sounded upon the door, and at once a soldier entered. He advanced to the centre of the room, stopped, clicked his heels together, saluted, and ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... my first experience of Will with hysteria, for it amounted to that. I remembered that to cure a bevy of school-girls of it one should rap out something sharply, with a cane if need be. Yet Will was not like a school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of refusal to retreat. I yearned for Fred's camp-fires, and Fred's laugh, hot ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... them record shysters? Eighty years old and never won a case. No, thanks, Inspector. I'll plead my own case; then I got at least a chance to beat this rap. ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... house, and banishing at once the occurrence from her mind, she did not give it a second thought. At night, however, while she was waiting to go to bed, she suddenly heard a sound like a rap at the door. A band of men boisterously cried out: "We are messengers, deputed by the worthy magistrate of this district, and come to summon one of you to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... step, brisk and official, was heard in the corridor. There was a short rap on the door, after which Unwine, cadet officer of the day, wearing his red sash and sword, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... would be at home! but for the hindrance of husband and children, we should have felt sorely tempted to bring her away with us. Then there was a tall, handsome fellow, a man of all work, in the establishment, who would rap at my door at all hours of the day with two enormous jugs of boiling water. I required a considerable supply of hot water early in the morning wherewith to fill my portable indiarubber bath—a perpetual source of amusement in the Lozere-and he seemed to think that a warm ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... here, Merriwell," he exclaimed, "that won't go down with this crowd. You all know I don't care a rap about ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... in order to shine in society that grace of manner is an asset; comparatively few people in a community care a rap about "society" anyway! A man of affairs whose life is spent in doing a man's work in a man's way is not apt to be thrilled at the thought of putting on "glad" clothes and going out with his wife to a "pink" tea ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... distance in the synovial pouch underneath the quadriceps. The patella is raised from the front of the femur by the collection of fluid in the joint—"floating patella"—and, if firmly pressed upon, it may be made to rap against ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... care a rap for Herr von Steinhardt or Herr von anybody else," the German cried. Then he said curtly to a cringing ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... swords, and so by those means suffer a solution of and division in the continuity of their aerial and invisible substances; as if some lackey, snatching at the lard-slices stuck in a piece of roast meat on the spit, should get from Mr. Greasyfist a good rap on the knuckles with a cudgel. They cry out and shout like devils, even as Mars did when he was hurt by Diomedes at the siege of Troy, who, as Homer testifieth of him, did then raise his voice more horrifically loud and sonoriferously high than ten thousand men together would have ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... step in the corridor. Ruth had been mistaken so many times that she did not raise her head or look up. A rap on the door, and before she could say "Herein!" ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... dark, and Nellie, who confidently expected to stay all night, had whispered to me her intention of "tying our toes together," when there came a tremendous rap upon the door, and without waiting to be bidden in walked Mr. Gilbert, puffing and swelling, and making himself perfectly at home, in a kind of offhand manner, which had in it so much of condescension that I was disgusted, and when sure Nellie ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... the Swash had her boat in the water, manned with four powerful oars, Spike steering it in his own person. Our young mate placed Tier in the bows, to point out the deepest water, and kept his sail a rap full, in order to get ahead as fast as possible. Ahead he did get, but it was on a course that soon brought him out in the open water of the main passage through the reef, leaving Spike materially astern. The latter now rose in his boat, and made a signal with his hat, which the boatswain perfectly ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... quickly bringing them into order headed them back again to their grim work. I have been pleased to see that this brave lad has received a well merited distinction from his Sovereign, but at the time the only comment made upon his behaviour by his O.C. was, 'The young beggar ought to get a rap over his knuckles for exceeding his duty.' Such feats are constantly occurring, so often indeed as to hardly ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... When all the stars were shining bright, There came a rap on our house door Which made me leap from bed to floor. To me had come a telegram From my old chums, Dick, Tom and Sam Asking if I had a notion To sail with them upon the ocean. To skim ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... grinned a bit, and, still with his little fingers touching the seams of his trousers and the palms of his hands turned to the front, lifted his left foot and scratched his right shin with his heel, till a sharp rap on the ankle brought the foot down to the ground again, and caused him to brace ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... fell back in confusion and fright. "An aodaisho[u] in the Butsudan! Help! Aid this Hana!" As she fled the snake with a thud fell on the tatami. Unrolling its six feet of length, it started in pursuit. Iemon stepped behind it and caught it by the tail. A sharp rap behind the head stunned it. It hung limp in his hand. "Hana, please open the amado."—"No, no: this Hana cannot; move she will not."—"Coward!" said Iemon. "Time comes when Hana, for generations in the future existence, will wander hill and dale in such form."—"Ara!" The woman was properly ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... son, though it was present in her mind always, and occasioned her inexpressible anxiety and disquiet. She had caused the brass knocker to be screwed off the inner door of the chambers, whereupon the postman's startling double rap would, as she justly argued, disturb the rest of her patient, and she did not allow him to see any letter which arrived, whether from boot-makers who importuned him, or hatters who had a heavy account to make up against next Saturday, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said decidedly. "If it was a ghost it wouldn't rap: it would come through the keyhole." Liddy looked at the keyhole. "But it sounds very much as though some one is trying to ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... There came a rap at the door, and the accountant whom Gray had put to work upon the bank's books entered. "I'd like to talk to you about this report," the ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to. Though not so tall as a west of London footman, he was as shapely; and he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of money in the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely. The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised the ancient companion profession. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I put it into my mouth to secrete it, hardly knowing what I should do afterwards, but I was thinking how I should act, when one of the superintendents passing (that crabbed old Portuguese belonging to the next gang), and seeing me idle and in deep thought, he struck me with his cane such a smart rap on the shoulders, that he not only made me jump out of my reverie, but the diamond went down my throat. I'm sure if I had tried to swallow it I could not have done so, but the shock forced it down. Well, this has occasioned my death, ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the Atlantic also, but then congenial tastes and education form the divisions there and every one is in his proper sphere. Upon the Pekin we found that rank and position formed a strong element in the case—regardless of merit. Vandy and I being republicans, not caring a rap about either birth or position, and without social status in England, seemed to be the only cosmopolitans on board. From the major- general and family down to the clerk of a mercantile house and ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... he alone of mortals is impervious to love, and so the discovery that he is in it suddenly alters his views of his own mechanism. It is thus not unlike a rap on the funny-bone. Did Gavin make this discovery when the Egyptian left him? Apparently he only came to the brink of it and stood blind. He had driven her from him for ever, and his sense of loss was so acute that his soul cried out ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Tom Tallington slept, the scriggly legs of a beetle were rather too much when they began to work in his ear, and he started up and brushed the creature away, the investigating insect falling on the floor with a sharp rap. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... cap an bad bag can map as mad gag fan nap at pad hag pan rap ax sad lag ran hap rat gad tag tan jam sat sap fag ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... mother's house, a queer library of these unsold books which he used to exhibit to visitors laughing grimly over his unfortunate venture in the field of letters. My aunt sent me one day to carry a message to Mrs. Thoreau and my rap on her door was answered by no other man than this odd son who, on the threshold received my message. He stood in the doorway with hair which looked as if it had been dressed with a pine-cone, inattentive grey eyes, hazy with far-away musings, an emphatic ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... begin to imagine. Surely I've done everything I could to simplify matters, to straighten them out, and to give you a chance to rectify your folly. I've effaced myself; I've broken my heart; I've promised Aunt Marion to go in for a job for which I'm not fitted and don't care a rap; and yet you come here, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... There was a rap at the door which communicated with Beevor's office, and Beevor himself, a florid, thick-set man, with ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Thornton concurred, giving Tom a rap on the shoulder. "And now you know, you won't tell? You won't tell that I've gone to New York?" ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... rap for family," he said, "but at the same time I suppose every man would like his daughter—" Here he stopped abruptly. "I mean to say," he said, "would like to have for his son-in-law a man of good family. I grant that it is a very stupid prejudice, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... surgeon arrived to see me in the afternoon. The Countess was busy somewhere with Buckhurst, who had come with news for her, and the German surgeon's sharp double rap at the door did not bring her, so I called out, "Entrez donc!" and he stalked in, removing his fatigue-cap, which action distinguished him ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... parchment might not have been quilted into any one of those old brocaded petticoats? and who knew the unrevealed wealth of that trunk of yellowed papers, that had brought only the sum of ten dollars in the rag-man's scales? More than once Helen had started at the rap at the door, half expecting an announcement that such and such a document had been found among that heap of trumpery, thought to have been worthless as yellow autumn leaves, which would install them as the possessors of such and such domain,—raps ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... never a day that the King did not devoutly read his Bible, and he was determined that everybody should read it the same way. The result was a kind of Puritanism that filled the churches and compelled the employment of men to go around with long sticks to rap the people on the head when they fell asleep. Christian the Fourth was not the first ruler who has tried to herd men into heaven by battalions. But his people would have gladly gone in the fire for him. He was their friend. When ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... superior, he was cunning enough to keep on the right side of Master Archy, by letting him have the set-to all his own way. It was no easy matter to play at fisticuffs with the young lord, even with gloves on, for his temper was not particularly mild when he was crossed. If he happened to get a light rap, it made him mad; and in one way or another he was sure to wreak ample vengeance upon the offender. Dandy was therefore obliged to handle ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... understand," he began, "that I don't care a rap for the life of a single man in the regiment. You know that I would send the 748 of you men and horses galloping into the pit of perdition with no more compunction than I ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... the office. Murray stares into the fire. Miss Howard reappears from the office and goes out by the door to the hall, rear. Carriage wheels are heard from the drive in front of the house on the left. They stop. After a pause there is a sharp rap on the door and a bell rings insistently. Men's muffled voices are heard in argument. Murray turns curiously in his chair. Miss Gilpin comes from the office and walks quickly to the door, unlocking and opening it. Eileen enters, followed by Nicholls, who ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... natural instinct of the trailer made him advance with caution, and, when he was close enough to the door he heard: "Oh, he's a clever gent, well enough, but they ain't any of 'em so clever that they can't learn somethin' new." Hal Dozier paused with his hand raised to rap at the door and he heard Pop say in continuation: "You write this down in red, sonny, and don't you never forget it: The wisest gent is the gent that ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Marguerite, and entered the Rue de Boucheries. About half way down the street they stopped before a mean-looking house. Develour rapped twice in quick succession at the door, and then, after a short interval, once more, and louder than before, immediately after the third rap, the door was partially and cautiously opened, and some one asked, in an under ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... close, trying to console her, but the Gibsonian cop, being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, for he was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help so far as the power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with his nightstick till the sound goes up to the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... woman for whom the Paris Surete was searching everywhere; "but your face betrays the truth, my dear. Don't worry," she added in a tone of sympathy. "No doubt he'll write as soon as he is back in England. Personally, I don't believe he really cares a rap for the Ranscomb girl. It's only a matter of ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... afternoon as he sat dozing in his chair a sharp rap on the study door awakened him with ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... thinking to the present. So far as he could remember, he hadn't completely pulled the trigger. That at least meant that whatever the rap was it wouldn't be too tough. With luck, the syndicate would get him off with a couple ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... allowed to talk five minutes without an interruption which brought on another and another until the speaker was drowned in a storm of contending yells. Their struggles to get the floor with bawlings, bellowings, and contortions, and the senseless rap of the ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... to surprise the secret hidden within the house by the ravine. They peeped into the windows at night. Now and then somebody would rap on the pane, and quickly take to ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... number of these captives, and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... called himself a Socialist, or any disgraceful thing like that, so many years ago. It is that sort of thing "Kappa" must invert if he wants a change in our public schools. You may arrange and rearrange curricula, abolish Greek, substitute "science"—it will not matter a rap. Even those model canoes of yours, "Kappa," will be wasted if you still insist upon model schoolmasters. So long as we require our schoolmasters to be politic, conforming, undisturbing men, setting up Polonius as an ideal for them, so long will ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... to be "out of Spirits." Why doesn't he come to New-York, where he can get plenty of the article, either in the sense of the Tap or in that of the Rap? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... mountain of bed clothes, dreamed that people were rapping noisily on his door, and grinned in his dream, meaning to let them rap until they tired of it. Suddenly a voice sounded through his defiant slumbers, clear and charming as a golden ray parting thick clouds. The next moment he found himself awake, bolt upright in the icy ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... like to see a ball go by him without getting a rap," answered Frank, who was now the catcher. "The ball always seems to think it is no use to try ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... were striking eleven when he arrived, and in the perfect stillness of that upper corridor. I heard the bustle which heralded his approach, heard the rap upon the door opposite, followed by a muffled "Come in" from Weymouth. Then, as the door was opened, I heard the sound of a ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... rap. 'I have never formed a deep attachment,' continued Knight. 'I never have found a woman worth it. Nor have I been ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... at work doing some examples in geometry when there came a sudden sharp rap on his door. Thinking that one of his school chums had come to have a word with him before retiring, he threw the door open and found ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... sensible of his absurd position, caned by his enemy, and ridiculed by his friends, in whose cause he was suffering. On these occasions, he often made a run, open-mouthed, at the sailors; in return for which mutinous proceeding he was sure to get a smart rap over the nose from his own party, which more than counterpoised the anguish at the other extremity of his person, giving ludicrous occupation to both his hands, and redoubling the shouts of laughter at his expense. In short, poor St. Jago literally got what is currently called monkey's ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... sharply on the door and they waited tensely for a response. The officers' right hands were on the handles of their automatics and revolvers. There was no response to Gibson's rap. He clenched his fist and hammered loudly on the solid panel of ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... cheek, and thanked her for the pleasing recreation she had given him. She had scarcely spoken, when a carriage was heard driving somewhat rapidly through the Square, then stopped, it appeared at their door, and a thundering and truly aristocratic rap resounded, startling not a little the inmates of that ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... in your own hand," said Mr. Dempster, "and ask the spirit his name, and then pass your finger over the alphabet—the rap will arrest you at the ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... Roberts would have thought it worth his while to deprecate at that moment. This was, anybody coming to bother him. The worthy Justice did not like to be bothered. A good many people are of the same opinion. He had that evening but one enemy in the world, and that was the man who should next rap at ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... are safest, there's a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus ending from Euripides,— And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as Nature's self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol, on his base again,— ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... me,—and this although I was somewhat severely held to the proper observance of worship. I remember well that at the age of six years, if I faltered in the public reading of the Psalter, a gentle rap on the side of my head from my father's knuckles reminded me ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... Here a smart rap on the wall of the next room caused a sudden lull in the fun, and Mrs. Bassett's voice was heard, saying warningly, "Girls, go to sleep immediate, or you'll wake ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... had gone to bed; but he was expecting a summons to someone who was dangerously ill. He was not startled, therefore, at the knock which came to the front door about twelve; but he was rather surprised at the character of the knock, so slow and loud, with a pause between each rap. His study-door was but a step from that which led into the street. He opened it, and there stood—Mr Bradshaw; his large, portly figure not to be mistaken even ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... least forewarning, there came a smart rap on the door. The sound smote the company of whispering, laughing girls into a company of frightened, trembling culprits. They hardly dared breathe, and when the commanding rap came for a second time neither Ruth nor Helen had ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... beat all. They'd got a whoppin' big panther in the trap an' was takin' turns rappin' it on the nose with a light stick. But that wa'n't the point. I just come out of the brush in time to see Harry rap it. Then he chops six inches off the stick an' passes it to Rocky. You see, that stick was growin' shorter all the time. It ain't as easy as you think. The panther'd slack back an' hunch down an' spit, an' it was mighty lively in duckin' the stick. An' you never knowed when it'd jump. It was caught ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... care a rap for your blue-stockings. I like a girl to look pretty and sweet in a muslin dress, her hair with the sun on it slipping over her shoulders, a large hat throwing a shadow over the garden of her face. I like her to come and sit on my ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... BartleMUDs are noted for their (usually slightly offbeat) humor, dry but friendly syntax, and lack of adjectives in object descriptions, so a player is likely to come across 'brand172', for instance (see {brand brand brand}). Bartle has taken a bad rap in some MUDding circles for supposedly originating this term, but (like the story that MUD is a trademark) this appears to be ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Scholar Phelps' finger against the door panel was the rap-rap-rap sound characteristic ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Wood complains that we mock, Though he may be a blockhead, he's no real block. He can eat, drink, and sleep; now and then for a friend He'll not be too proud an old kettle to mend; He can lie like a courtier, and think it no scorn, When gold's to be got, to forswear and suborn. He can rap his own raps[1] and has the true sapience, To turn a good penny to twenty bad halfpence. Then in spite of your sophistry, honest Will Wood Is a man of this world, all true flesh and blood; So you are but in jest, and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... triumphantly. "She doesn't care a rap for men. She's absorbed in her children and her husband." Then, after a pause, she added: "Well, she's welcome to him. I can't see what she ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... through the rest of the wood and nearly to the end of the path through the shrubbery. She spared no effort to set his mind at ease, protesting that she did not care a rap how furiously her husband abused her. A few yards from the edge of the East lawn they stopped, but they lingered over their parting. She promised to meet him in the East wood ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... Mr. Rolling, I don't care a rap for ships," said she. "They don't interest me any more, and I don't think they are the ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... FAIRY. The heralds rap on the floor with their staves—the trumpets sound—[Three strokes of a bell are heard; the tower chamber takes on its former appearance.] Alas! the time is up. Pehr, do you wish to go out and taste ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... in action, when a rap at the door startled me. "Come," I shouted. In answer to my call, a young man, a neighbor, entered, carrying a sack filled with coal. He explained with some embarrassment, that in his extremity ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... parting, but gave them strict charge to keep up their spirits, and hope every thing would turn out for the best. In about two hours after, as they were sitting at breakfast, and endeavouring to strike out some plan to attain my liberty, they heard a loud rap at the door, which Lucy running to open, she met the bleeding body of her brother, borne in by two men who had lifted him from a litter, on which they had brought him from the place where he fought. Her poor mother, weakened by illness and the struggles ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... author of the Immaterial Theory, was one morning musing in the cloisters of Dublin College, an acquaintance came up to him, and, seeing him rapt in contemplation, hit him a smart rap on the shoulder with his cane. The dean starting, called out, "What's the matter?" His acquaintance, looking him steadily in the ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, or why, or when, or wherefore, you don't take the trouble to inquire; but there you are, pasting the lining in the lid of a portmanteau. Confound that other apprentice in the back shop, how he is hammering!—rap, rap, rap—what an industrious fellow he must be! you have heard him at work for half an hour past, and he has been hammering incessantly the whole time. Rap, rap, rap, again—he's talking now—what's that he said? Five o'clock! You make ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... University under a man who knew more in a minute than all the 'tommy rot' you've been filled up with. I also lived on an Illinois farm, and I speak from practical experience. I know what I am talking about, and I don't care a rap for all the theories that can be stacked up by your modern college professor, who wouldn't know a pumpkin if he met one rolling down hill. I tell you God Almighty never made the black corn belt land to be worn out, and he ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... old Tompkins will have to rap pretty loud to make me budge at eight bells," said Tom with a portentous yawn, as he peeled off his reefing jacket and turned in "all standing," as he expressed it, with the exception of his boots. He was too tired to undress; and besides, he thought, in his lazy way, what was the use of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... again now, sent out a flash such as Basil knew. "You're not going to fail me, are you?" she exclaimed. Her impulse was to add shrilly, "Now that you've made your own market, and don't care a rap what happens to any one else!" As she was Mrs. Bal's guest still, and had been royally entertained, she sacrificed the momentary satisfaction. Besides, this was the last moment in which it would be ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... friend I will spare your life on condition that, for the future, you shall guard our treasures. If you are hungry take this little table and rap on it, saying, as you do so: "The dinner of an emperor!" and you will get as much food ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... be broken, so far as Dock's surgical skill could discern. The jar of the fall had doubtless racked his frame severely; but the miser was still a strong man, physically, and could bear a pretty hard rap. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... evening as she was putting things away in the kitchen before going up to bed that she heard some one rap at the window. Could this be Fred? Her heart was beating; she must let him in. The area was in darkness; she could ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... your room, and don't let me see you till tea-time. You must be taught respect as well as obedience,' and Mr. Fairbairn gave the table a rap that caused his son ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... rap at the door, and Mrs. Lyon entered. "Good-morning, Anna. Here are your clothes. I have pressed them. And I suppose these are your shoes and stockings!" and she set down the stout shoes and the knit stockings that Anna had supposed had been ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis |
