"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Win coolly. "I believe it was an English admiral who backed Dewey up at Manila when the Germans tried to butt in. After that battle somebody wrote a poem about it and wrote the truth, too. This ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... indignantly echoed the farmer, to Lyon's great astonishment. "Don't you go to say that; for if you do, devil burn me if I don't knock you down with the butt end ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... tell how to fight against thee "with the sword of his mouth," and to make thee a butt for his arrows; and this is a dispensation most dreadful (Rev 2:16; Job ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... without running a very great risk, both from the English shells that burst while I was there, but likewise from those of the French. One of the largest of their shells bursted within nine or ten yards of me: there was a single rock close by, about the size of a butt; and I got instant shelter under it in time to avoid the fury of the shell. Where it burst the earth was torn in such a manner that two or three butts might easily have gone into the hole it made, and it threw great quantities of stones and dirt to a considerable distance. Three shot were also ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... the log turned outward from its circling fellows, quivered for a moment in the cleft, then shot smoothly forth into the sluice. With a groan Henderson came to his senses, starting up and catching instinctively at the butt of the heavy Colt in his belt. At the same instant the coil of a rope settled over his shoulders, pinioning his arms to his sides, and he was jerked backwards with a violence that fairly lifted him over the projecting root of the birch. As he ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... day late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphege sat at the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting his wooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front and rear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of late autumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolid Indian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... spotted a sniper post, coolly stretched himself out on the ground, muttered: "Three hundred yards," and squinted along the sights. Ping, ping ... two bodies fell limp from a platform—up a leafy tree. The Private slowly cut two notches on his rifle-butt. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... but his audience had fled. From beneath one of the life-boats protruded the riding-boots of Colonel Beamish, the tall form of Lighthouse Harry was doubled behind a water butt. A shell splashed to port, a shell splashed to starboard. For an instant David stood staring wide-eyed at the greyhound of a boat that ate up the distance between them, at the jets of smoke and stabs of flame ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... is said to have occurred in the college career of Dr. Paley. When a student at Christ's College Cambridge, he was distinguished for his shrewdness as well as his clumsiness, and he was at the same time the favourite and the butt of his companions. Though his natural abilities were great, he was thoughtless, idle, and a spendthrift; and at the commencement of his third year he had made comparatively little progress. After one of his usual night-dissipations, a friend stood by his bedside ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... grog, interrupted the steward, his features settling down, with amazing flexibility, into their natural economy. But, dyesee, squire, I kept my hatches chose, and its but little water that ever gets into my scuttle-butt. Harkee, Master Kirby! Ive followed the salt-water for the better part of a mans life, and have seen some navigation on the fresh; but this here matter I will say in your favor, and that is, that youre the awkardest green 'un that ever straddled a boats ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... proper functionary the flour was obtained, and the raisins; the beef-fat, or "slush," from Old Coffee; and the requisite supply of water from the scuttle-butt. I then went among the various cooks, to compare their receipts for making "duffs:" and having well weighed them all, and gathered from each a choice item to make an original receipt of my own, with due deliberation and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... had realised immediately what a distorted account he had received as to the state of things in Prague, where all he found ready for him was a mere handful of childish students. These admissions made him the butt of Rockel's good-humoured chaff, and after this he won the reputation among us of being a mere revolutionary, who was content with theoretical conspiracy. Very similar to his expectations from the Prague students were his presumptions with regard to the Russian people. These ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... always accustomed to treat the subject as a butt for the shafts of ridicule, I fear I did not then speak of it with due respect. Conjecturing that "the baby" must have a fine development, I ventured to ask what bumps ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... me, but Miss Julia whipped me every day in the mawning. During the war she beat us so terrible. She say, "Your master's out fighting and losing blood trying to save you from them Yankees, so you kin git your'n here." Miss Julia would take me by my ears and butt my head against the wall. She wanted to whip my mother, but old Master told her, naw sir. When his father done give my mammy to Master Sam, he told him not to beat her, and iffen he got to whar he jest had to, jest bring ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... Claus, and then I saw the scythe and knew it must be old Father Time. The hour-glass puzzled me no little though. The man has cotton batting wings. One of them is a little wabbly, but what can you expect from Caledonia? They're always trying to butt the bull off the bridge. They're jealous of our town. Oh, they stooped to all the mean, underhanded tricks you ever heard of to get the canning factory to go to their place instead of here. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... to post a squad at a certain point where the spies were supposed to have hidden a quantity of petrol. The place in question was close to a rifle-butt. Men were detailed to guard all roads leading to the marsh, and to allow all traffic, whether motor-cars, carts, or pedestrians, to pass unchallenged. The sentries were on no account to show themselves, except to hold up everything and ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... that three or four of the others came across. They did not sit down, but stood round listening to the conversation, and sometimes joining in. Dick's feeling of uneasiness increased, and thrusting one hand carelessly into his girdle, he grasped the butt of one ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... soul of the grape. Why, this now, which you account so choice, were counted but as a cup of bastard at the Groyne, or at Port St. Mary's. You should travel, mine host, if you would be deep in the mysteries of the butt and pottle-pot." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... romantic revival of our own time sought for one mind on which to lay the burden of its anger, one hard master or pedant who could be made responsible for the drying up of the wells, Malherbe again was found. He became the butt of Hugo's splendid ridicule. He was the god of plaster that could not hear or speak or feel, but which fools had worshipped; a god easy to break to pieces. His austerity—for them without fullness—his meagre output, his solemn reiterated code of "perfect taste," moved them ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... never gave any particular heed to it. I used to see the automatic lying in the drawer of the wardrobe in Mr. Parrish's room in a wash-leather case. I noticed this steel appliance, sir, because the case wouldn't shut over the pistol with it on and the butt used to ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... against a man who was looking down. He said nothing at all, and I was dazed by the light. Barnes remarked hurriedly, "This 'll be your Mr. Macdonald"; and, turning his back on me, forgot my existence. I felt more alone than ever. The man in front of me held his head low, as if he wished to butt me. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... sneaked over the bank and through our barbed-wire fence that everyone puts up here, and out a little ways to where I had heard one snoop; and, sure enough—what do you think? He seen me first and knocked my gun out of my hands with the butt of his. It got me mad, because it is a new gun and I am taking fine care of it; so I clanched him'—that's what Squat says, clanched. 'And, first, he run his finger into my right eye, clear up to the knuckle it felt like; so I didn't say a word, but hauled off quick ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... he leisurely stooped to pick up the pistol, and approached her ladyship; "the bullet is not yet cast that is to be my billet. Here," said he, dealing Rust a heavy thump upon the shoulder with the butt-end of the piece, "take back your snapper, and look you prick the touchhole, or your barking-iron will never bite for you. And now, madam, I must take the liberty of again handing you to a seat. Dick Wilder, the cord—quick. It distresses ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... description were perched on the boughs of the neighbouring trees, apparently watching the fight. I was afraid to risk a shot at the one with which Chumbo was engaged in combat, lest I might injure him; I therefore rushed forward and dealt it a blow on the head with the butt of my rifle, which fortunately stunned it, and enabled Chumbo to cast it from him to a distance—just at the moment that one of its claws had ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... nearest corner after him. Julia would not have done that; with the instinct of the wild animal and the rogue for cover, and for the value of the obvious in concealment, she would have looked by the water butt first. It was not a hiding-place; the bush beside did not half conceal Captain Polkington, yet he stood dark and unobtrusive against it and so close to the door that in looking out for him one naturally looked beyond him. As Johnny went round one ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... don't you butt in. I know what I'm doin'. Please don't talk to me now. There, Kenelm," turning to the trembling nominee for matrimonial offices, "that'll do for tonight. You go along with your sister and be on hand ready to take me to the ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... neavur neavur luvd befoar shee saw me passen bi hur paws frunt dore wenn shee wuz hangen on the gait ann i Lookt foolish att hur wenn ime goen bi. Uv korse sheed hadd sum boze butt nun thatt sturd hur hart down too itts deppths until shee hurd me wissel ann shee saw mi fais. Ann wenn shee furst saw mee sheed neavur luv agen shee sedd shee noo. ann iff i shunnd hur eye sheed be a nunn ann bidd thee wurld ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... another stood on his head on the sofa. There was a beautiful young lord there, that sort of figure that no woman can resist. There was a delightful youth who seemed inclined to empty the mustard-pot down my neck; him I could keep in order, but the beautiful lord was attempting to make a butt of me. With his impertinences I did not for a moment intend to put up; I did not know him, he was not then, as he is now, if he will allow me to say so, a friend. The ladies retired about then, and the festivities continued. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... and passing through the door went out on the porch. I sat down and was slipping off my socks, to put on dry ones, when I heard a rustling in the room behind me. The next moment Col. Tucker had his gun leveled on me, but it flashed in the pan. He then whirled up the butt of it to fell ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... the rifle by the barrel with the muzzle against his shoulder, having aimed the butt at the crouching lion. Chunky had had a severe ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... than ever mine was. My mother begged me to come with her, and I went. The phaeton was waiting, but we had scarcely started when some fellow seized the horses' heads, and a couple of ruffians attacked us. One of them I beat over the head with the butt of the whip, so that he dropped the cudgel with which he was about to strike me; then lashing the horse, I shook off the others and got safely away. I cannot imagine who they were or why they ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a yell as the woolly creature gave him a hard butt, knocking him out of his seat. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... perhaps because she flushed so prettily as her slight anger rose. But whatever the reason she was always the butt for their good natured teasing. And no matter how much she resented it, she turned it off with a joke. Yet it could be seen that she always turned to Shirley Williams, ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... on the 23d of February, when a pack of about twenty wolves attacked him. He jumped upon a big rock, which was soon surrounded, and there he fought the savage beasts off with the butt of his gun until he got a sure shot, when he killed one, and while the others fought over and devoured the carcass, he made the best of the opportunity to get back into camp. It was a most fortunate escape, as ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... sur son destrier, with a vilain whom he has captured (this is a mark of lateness, some of the verisimilitude of the early time having been dropped), he plays him no tricks. Nay, when Isengrim and he begin to play chess he is completely worsted by his ancient butt, who at last takes, in consequence of an imprudent stake of the penniless Fox, a cruel but appropriate vengeance for his former wrongs. Renart is comforted to some extent by his old love, Queen Fiere the lioness; but pain, and wounds, and defeat have brought him ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... torch, pulled out the wick and stamped it into a patch of burnt ground, threw the torch back from the fire line, and started clubbing the fire out of the grass with the butt ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... His talk was not witty so much as charming. He never said a word that could anger anybody, and only became the more benevolent the more tipsy he grew. Many of the wags derided the poor fellow in his cups, and chose him as a butt for their satire: but there was a kindness about him, and a sweet playful fancy, that seemed to Esmond far more charming than the pointed talk of the brightest wits, with their elaborate repartees and affected severities. I think ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... afterwards, I bethought me to examine the old musket. It was a heavy, old-fashioned "queen's arm," with no unusual marks, as I thought; but upon a silver plate, let into the hollow of the butt, I found, coarsely and strongly engraved, "JOAB ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Yimville had proved unfortunate, the Judge's face flushed with anger and he bent forward and shook a threatening finger at Jimmy and declared, "I never make terms with a malefactor. If you had an idea that I am the type of man to use as the butt for a silly, asinine jest, I'll teach you to think differently. Mark that and ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... out on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... Whittemore, eighty years old, come running with his musket, taking deliberate aim, firing three times, and bringing down a redcoat every time he pulled the trigger. But a soldier leaped from the ranks, ran upon and shot the old man, stabbed him with his bayonet, beat him with the butt of his musket, leaving ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... became savage. "You come along with me—quick an' quiet. This old Colt ain't loaded, but ef I hit you over the head with the butt of it, ye'll think ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... water, had been shot several times through the head. A parish priest named Dergent was taken to Aerschot, stripped, and tied to a cross in front of the church; his fingers and toes were crushed and broken with the butt-end of a rifle. The inhabitants were made to pass in front of him and were each compelled to urinate on him in turn; then he was shot and his body thrown into ...
— Their Crimes • Various
... a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... again as he reached the Indian's side. The Indian stopped and drew a knife. "You would, eh? Take that, will you?" Leaning down over his horse's neck Cameron struck the Indian with the butt of his gun. Before he could rise the three constables in a converging rush were upon him ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... unknown to his frigid and stilted predecessors, and dared to depict Nature as she really is, not as she was misrepresented by the modish authors and artists of the age. Some persons seem shy of owning an acquaintance with this work; indeed, it has been made the butt of ridicule by the disciples of a decadent school. Its faults and its beauties are on the surface; Rousseau's own estimate is freely expressed at the beginning of the eleventh book of the Confessions and elsewhere. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... spirits who are not sated but satisfied with permanency. For there, too, is a reason that we are so glad to hide in the equipoise as an eternal fact that we are surfeited with constancy. Drowning in the malmsey-butt is no better than the Thames. Enjoyment to-day is secured by the certain prospect of sorrow to-morrow, which is not wilful, but a lesson of life, and as we suppose, at last, of the central life, just as the creation at daybreak is supported ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... incredibly short time the fire was lighted, and when Shad brought up a kettle of water from the river Bob had already cut a stiff pole about five feet in length. The butt end of this he sharpened, and, jamming it into the ground, inclined it in such manner that the kettle, which he took from Shad and hung by its bail upon the other end of the pole, was suspended ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... your body in an instant without preliminary flourishes; and in the excitement of talking for victory, he would use any device that came to hand. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said Goldsmith, quoting a phrase from Cibber, "for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... there when Van Cleft comes down. Let him Third Degree that little Jane from the garage. Keep them two men apart, too—oh, that's all right, the fellow is a friend of mine on the 'Frisco police force. He won't butt in." Silence for a moment, then: "Oh, shucks, let 'em yowl! They've got more than kidnapping to worry about for the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... thet's him, all right." The deputy gave vent to a short, mirthless laugh. "Oh, I rapped him with the butt; had ter do it. He'd got hold ov a club somwhar, an' wus goin' ter give yer another. It will be a while, I reckon, 'fore he takes much interest. What'll I ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... He's got that land from McLagan. He's going to run a ranch. He's going to play big dog. Gee! That's the game! Say, master Jim," he went on, apostrophizing the absent man he had so easily learned to hate, "I'll make you a sick man before the snow falls. Gee! You'd butt in in my affairs. You're standing Eve's friend." He laughed. "Go ahead, boy. I'll play up to you. Eve shall tell you I'm a reformed man, and you'll ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... the ape of a King; A tragical Caesar acted by a clown, Or a brass farthing stamped with a kind of crown; A bauble that shines, a loud cry without wool; Not Perillus nor Phalaris, but the bull; The echo of Monarchy till it come; The butt-end of a barrel in the shape of a drum; A counterfeit piece that woodenly shows; A golden effigies with a copper nose; The fantastic shadow of a sovereign head; The arms-royal reversed, and disloyal instead; In fine, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... work. The gentlemen who sustained the side demanding equal rights for women in these conventions, were Randall, Rice, Cruttenden, Cavert, Fanning, Johonett, Coburn, Wilder, and Farnham. The opposition was led by Davies, Valentine, Buckley, Anthony (not S. B. A.), Ross, an old bachelor, the butt of ridicule, the clown of the Convention; and McElligott, the latter hardly ranking with the rest, for though opposed, he was always a gentleman, the others being ofttimes so coarse in their sneers and innuendoes, that they ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... daring mien was remarked by Courfeyrac, Enjolras, and Combeferre, but whom none of them knew, joined them. Gavroche, who was occupied in singing, whistling, humming, running on ahead and pounding on the shutters of the shops with the butt of his triggerless pistol; paid no attention to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... making advances when unfairly treated. I had always lived in an atmosphere of confidence, love, and goodwill,—perhaps I had been a little spoilt by the kindness of my friends, and now it seemed hard to be a butt for ill-natured sarcasms. These shafts, however, were seldom, if ever, let loose in the presence of my husband, who would not have tolerated it; the want of welcome being as much as he could bear. Still, there was no doubt ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... a mark for mockery:—a standing butt for wit to level at. Jest after jest hath been huddled upon her close cap, and stuck, like burrs, upon her weeds. Her sables are ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... my hands," he remarked; and we noticed as he spoke that he held a heavy revolver in his hand, and that the butt of another one protruded from his sash. "I am armed and you are not. If one of you moves or speaks he is a dead man. If not, I shall not harm you. You must wait here for an hour. Why, you FOOLS" (this with ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was young, I was no more used to lie than the sheep whose milk I sucked or the he-goats with which I would butt in the joy of my strength and beauty. Lies were unknown In those times, nor had the sheep's fleece yet learned to assume factitious hues; and my soul has remained unchanged from that day to this. See, I go naked as in the golden age of Saturn; and my spirit is veiled as little as my body. ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... bringing the butt of his musket lightly to the deck; "but for all that, Leonard, it's dangerous business, for ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... the water-butt at the back of Thomas's house. Well, you can reach the windows of the chamber by standing on the butt. The window's not hard to open, for I've often seen Alice throw it up; and I'm sure it's not fastened. Now, just suppose we ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... his left breast, notwithstanding which he succeeded in releasing himself from the grasp of his adversary. The sentinel, however, returned to the charge, and following him up closely, felled him to the earth with a blow from the butt-end of his musket. Still, however, the thief struggled violently, and prostrate as he was, endeavoured to bring down his opponent by seizing his legs: the soldier was now compelled, in self-defence, to transfix his prisoner to the ground, by running his bayonet through his left arm, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... expectantly. Buck ground the butt of his cigarette under one heel and reached for the makings. He had an almost irresistible desire to take the garrulous old man by the shoulders and shake him till ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... exists,' would be my reply, and thereupon he would seize me by the hair, for he was rather an awkward person to deal with. Another factor as concerned making me ashamed of my scholarship was the ignorance of the townspeople in general, and in the end I became the common butt, a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... this steadily ever since its establishment, without serious injury. No good cause has ever received much backing from it till it became the cause of the majority, or indeed has escaped being made the butt of its ridicule; and we confess we doubt whether "the friends of progress," using the term in what we may call its technical sense, were ever a sufficiently large body, or had ever sufficient love ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... "a sore chest he may have tomorrow, but dead he is not, for I turned the lance-point back as I spun it, and it was the butt-end I threw at him!" ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... delayed a second. The butt of the pistol that would equalize the affair was almost within his grasp, and Muller stood in the light, but he saw an ominous glint in the pale blue eyes and the farmer's fingers tighten on the haft. There was ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... with courage as unique as his ubiquity, he blustered in like a whirlwind, brushing P. Sybarite to one side, the wounded boy to the other, and pausing only a single instant to throw back the skirts of his tunic and grasp the butt of the revolver in his hip-pocket, demanded in the voice of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... they met a man and woman. The man's name was John Ransom, and this Hawksworth stepping up to the woman and going to kiss her, Ransom interposed and pushed him off, upon which Hawksworth knocked him down with the butt end of his piece, by which blow about nine o'clock ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... to join the group. I found myself looking down at one of those thickset Burmans whom I always associated with Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-clotted mass, and a heavy stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him. I started back appalled ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the right, broke upon the ear like volleyed thunder. A clap of thunder from a clear sky could not have startled him more, had he been at work upon his father's farm. His earnest simplicity afforded great amusement to his comrades, and for a while made him the butt of a New York Regiment that then chanced to be marching abreast. Raw recruit as he was, cowardice was no part of his nature, and he indignantly repelled the taunts of his comrades. Gloom deep settled was visible upon his countenance, however, although ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... hemlock boughs are generally used, and should be from the tips of the branches where the wood is not too large. Commence at the back part of the shelter, and lay down a row of the boughs with the butt of the branch towards the front. Overlap these with another nearer row and continue the operation, laying the evergreen as evenly as possible until the whole interior is smoothly covered. The projecting ends at the front, should now be secured ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... energetically delivered and accompanied by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... I was taking a long drink at the scuttle butt, I saw some of the niggers creeping back to the village through the trees, and watching what I was doing. I soon let ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... quick!" and Dick Claiborne swung the butt of his rifle high and brought it down with a crash on Chauvenet's head; then Armitage paused ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... answers derived new questions; she went so far as to speak of painting, of music, of dancing—even of sculpture! She proved herself equally familiar with the pencil, with tunes, and with books, until Thaddeus was petrified by so much learning, and feared that he might become the butt of ridicule, and stammered like a little lad before his teacher. Luckily the teacher was beautiful and lenient; his neighbour guessed the cause of his perturbation, and shifted the talk to less deep and difficult subjects, to the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... here evoked of Brash the publican, who had been a special butt for some of the youthful pranks of R. L. S. and his friends, inspired in the next few weeks the sets of verses mentioned below (vol. 24, pp. 14, 15, 38) in letters which show that the fictitious Johnson and Thomson ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... universally admired. The Arab poet sings of the beauties of his camel. The bull, the cow, the dog, and even the cat have all been praised in prose or verse; but the poor donkey still remains an ass, the butt of ridicule, the symbol of stupidity, the object of abuse. Yet if there be another and a better world for animals, and if in that sphere patience ranks as a cardinal virtue, the ass will have a better pasture-ground than many of its rivals. The donkey's ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... corraled. He'd put down his rifle and Shillito had a gun; I reckon it was the sharp butt of a heavy automatic that cut my head. Then I didn't like the fellow; he'd come through the train before and looked ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... perhaps that Titmouse was, in a manner, excused by his necessities? But, in the mean while—to proceed—his circumstances were becoming utterly desperate. He continued to endure great suffering at Mr. Tag-rag's during the day—the constant butt of the ridicule and insult of his amiable companions, and the victim of his employer's vile and vulgar spirit of hatred and oppression. His spirit, (such as it was,) in short, was very nearly broken. Though he seized every opportunity that offered, to inquire ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... me to an open spot in the jungle-growth, and, sitting down on the butt of a twisted TOA, indicated by a sweep of his tattooed arm the lower course of what had once been the ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... unpleasantly modulated voice asks us to say our prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on. I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers. Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols. Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Lordship preferred sacrificing me to his desire not to immolate his friend." M. Arago also came off with very doubtful honours from a wrestle with the uncombative Martyr; who is perfectly clear (and so are we, let us add) that scientific men are not the men for his purpose. Of course, he is the butt of "utter and acknowledged ignorance", and of "the most gross and foolish statements", and of "the unjust and dishonest", and of "the press-gang", and of crowds of other alien and ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... the whole of this property with a couple of tubs, one to catch rain-water and t'other filled with garden mould. If the sea rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... something rather splendid in the attitude of a man who can take a whole nation as his butt and bend every circumstance to his purpose of ridicule and attack. Our satirists to-day are contented to pillory individuals or possibly a sect or clique. Marvell's enjoyment in his own exuberance and ingenuity is so apparent and infectious that it matters nothing to us whether he was ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the sticks for the shafts the Cave-men made gifts to the wood-gods, and asked for the straightest and toughest branches that grew on the trees. Then they cut the branches carefully and carried them home to the cave. There they peeled them from butt to tip and smoothed them with stone scrapers. Sometimes they rubbed them with fat and laid them away to dry. It was hard work to make a crooked stick straight. But the Cave-men tried many ways and at last they learned ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... universities and sport, and now throbbing under the stress of the new deadly game, to understand poor Doggie Trevor? They had no time to take him seriously, save to curse him when he did wrong, and in their leisure time he became naturally a butt for ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... meals, in spite of the double allowance which my master was privately instructed by my kind parents to give me. The sense of the ridiculous, which is but too much alive in grown persons, is tenfold more active and alert in boys. Once detected, I was the constant butt of their arrows,—the mark against which every puny leveller directed his little shaft of scorn. The very Graduses and Thesauruses were raked for phrases to pelt me with by the tiny pedants. Ventri natus—Ventri deditus,—Vesana gula,—Escarum gurges,—Dapibus indulgens,—Non dans fraena ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Master Benden, as he was a-coming away, looked as sour as crabs. And old Tabby—Oh, lack-a-daisy-me! didn't she have at him! She's a good un, and no mistake! She stuck to his heels all the way along, and she beat him black and blue with her tongue, and he looked like a butt of alegar with a hogshead o' mustard in it. Hooray for old Tabby!"—and Silas announced that sentiment to the neighbourhood at the top of his ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... stoker on the coastwise freighter San Gardo, was the butt of the ship; every man of the crew imposed on his good nature. He was one of those persons "just fool enough to do what he's told to do." For thirty of his fifty years he had been a seaman, and the marks of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... In a blackened butt of an inn, a group of Senegalese were hiding. They were great six-foot fellows, with straight bodies, and shoulders for carrying weights—the face a black mask, expressionless, save for the rolling whites of the eyes, and the sudden ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... careful aim. Desmond felt the wind of the bullet as it whizzed past him. Next moment he leaned slightly sidewise, and, never loosening his hold on the reins with his left hand, he brought the weighty butt of his whip with a rapid cut, half sidewise, half downwards, upon the horseman's head. The man with a cry swerved on the saddle; almost before Desmond could recover his balance he was amazed to see the horse dash suddenly to the right, spring across the ditch, and gallop at ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... she'll be going and hiding herself away till the end will come, and they find her stretched like a dead sheep with the frost on her, or the big spiders, maybe, and they putting their webs on her, in the butt of ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge
... of abscesses, bruises, wounds, or long-continued irritation by the harness. Among the more common causes of fistula of the poll (poll evil) are chafing by the halter or heavy bridle; blows from the butt end of the whip; the horse striking his head against the hayrack, beams of the ceiling, low doors, etc. Fistulous withers are seen mostly in those horses that have thick necks as well as those that are very high in the withers; or, among saddle horses, those that are very low in the withers, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... "You butt in too much, that's what!" said David. "It's just like Phoebe says, you boss too much. I ain't going to take it ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... well versed in all knowledge before he reached his tenth year. Then his adopted father appointed for him a horse that he might learn cavalarice and the shooting of shafts and firing of bullets at the butt,[FN561] and then brought for him a complete rider that he might teach him all his art and when he came to the age of fourteen he became a doughty knight and a prow. Now one chance day of the days the youth purposed going to the wild that he might hunt,—And ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... you lately, Sparks," he observed, applying a steady match flame to the oval butt. He spoke in his usual tones, with a gruffness that balanced on a razor edge between rough jocularity and official harshness. "What's new? Have ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... a little butt of rain to-night, but my lawn is far from being drunk yet. Did not you find the Vine in great beauty? My compliments to it, and to your society. I only write to enclose the enclosed. I have consigned your button to old ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... sat and thought hard through two cigarettes. Then he thumbed out the butt, got to his feet, and started to return to the hotel. For it had suddenly come upon him ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... touching the question of the expectant Jorrocks and the missing purse. Beyond, however, eliciting many sallies of wit from the younger spirits, for it was part of the major's policy to lay himself open to be a butt, his laudable perseverance was entirely thrown away. At last he gave it up in disgust, and raising his stick hailed a passing 'bus, into which he sprang, taking a searching glance round to see that no one was following him. After a drive which brought him ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was countersigning the Note of Capitulation in the headquarters at Aldershot, the Auriole swung round from the northward and descended on to the turf flying the flag of truce. He saw it through the window, got up, put his right hand on the butt of the revolver in his hip-pocket, thought hard for one fateful moment, then took ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the butt of his cigar and keeping well ahead of the shadowing native. Always keep a "shadow" moving until you're ready to deal with him is one ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... had just reached it when there was a cry from the walls, on which two Indians were sitting. The Indians sprang down, seized their spears, and lunged at the seven as they entered. One spear caught Little Babiche in the arm as he swung aside, but with the butt of his musket Noel dropped him. The other Indian was promptly handled by Pierre himself. By this time Corvette and Jose had shut the gates, and the Fort was theirs—an easy conquest. The Indians ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to MacDougall the chief facts he had gathered at Fort Churchill. When he had finished, the young Scotchman reached over to the table, seized his revolver, and held the butt end of ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... backwardness in accepting and swallowing the very liberal allowance that had been offered to them; I also accepted mine; and, upon the pretence of being thirsty and therefore desiring to add water to it, I took it aft to the scuttle-butt, deftly hove the spirit overboard, and filling the pannikin with water, drank the contents with the greatest apparent gusto. And now, as certain vague possibilities began to present themselves to my mind, I contrived to draw Hardy, Green, Anstey, and Sendell ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... "A plebe is fed three meals a day, like anyone else. If he gets hurt he has a right to medical and surgical attendance. He is allowed to attend chapel on Sunday, just like an upper classman, and he may receive and write letters. But he mustn't butt into upper-class privileges." ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... to fall away and with the butt of his left hand Crawford struck the acceleration lever. He could make more time now when less of his attention was drawn to the ups and downs ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Tresidder had but scant courtesy paid him. When it became known that my father was disinherited, no matter how unjustly, these same folks discovered that Richard Tresidder was a very mine of wit and goodness, while my father was made a butt ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Mrs. Hala Hammond Butt (Miss.) discussed The Changed Intellectual Qualifications of the Women of this Century, with the intense eloquence of Southern ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... led him often to miss opportunities of effective intervention. The sensitiveness of his nature appeared in his falling in love at first sight with a Highland girl whom Burke and he casually met during a tour. His loss of her made a painful impression on him.[406] The butt of an unkind fate, he seemed destined also to be the leader of lost causes; and the proud and penniless emigres found in him their most ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... as soon have thought of applying such adjectives to Judas Maccabeus as to Jesus; and even St. Luke, who makes Jesus polite and gracious, does not make him meek. The picture of him as an English curate of the farcical comedy type, too meek to fight a policeman, and everybody's butt, may be useful in the nursery to soften children; but that such a figure could ever have become a centre of the world's attention is too absurd for discussion; grown men and women may speak kindly of a harmless creature who utters amiable sentiments ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... be straggling passengers along the road, some of whom came slowly, as if they had received hurts; all seemed wearied. Among them one form appeared which Rose soon found that she recognized. It was Robert Hagburn, with a shattered firelock in his hand, broken at the butt, and his left arm bound with a fragment of his shirt, and suspended in a handkerchief; and he walked weariedly, but brightened up at sight of Rose, as if ashamed to let her see how exhausted and dispirited he was. Perhaps he expected ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... when she heard the soldier assigned to their home bang on the door with the butt of his rifle, fled to the kitchen, where she stood listening and watching. She nearly cried out when the soldier thrust the bayonet of his rifle at her father, and all the resentment of her race at such injustice rose ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... as to the need of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic, a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New World betimes, with the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... time, and not for the last, Mr. Punch asks, where is The Public Prosecutor? Why is it that the observations of Mr. Justice BUTT and Sir HENRY HAWKINS are disregarded? Very much "for the public benefit" was the sentence of one year's imprisonment passed on the journalist who, without one tittle of trustworthy evidence, attempted to blast the character of an innocent man. But is it not still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... lengthens after it has passed, somewhat like the spoke of a wheel. In the second of its presence a red handkerchief a woman wears on the ricks stands out, the brass on the engine glows, the water in the butt gleams, men's faces brighten, the cart-horse's coat looks glossy, the straw a pleasant yellow. It is gone, and lights up the backs of the sheep yonder as it runs up the hill swifter than a hare. Swish! The north wind darkens the sky, and ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... removed by two ramrods, screwed together by the locking-bolt being omitted. I needn't again go over the twenty-four different screws, but, in ease of accident, it will be well to retain their various outside thread diameters in your memory, specially not forgetting that those of the Butt Trap Spring, the Dial Sight Pivot, and the Striker Keeper Screw, stand respectively at .1696, .1656, and .116 of an inch. Of course you will remember the seven pins, and that, if anything should go wrong with the Bolt Head Cover Pin, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... might be wrought by leading a rope from the side lever of the other engine through blocks so as to give a horizontal pull to the hanging starting bar, and the bar could be brought back by a weight. Another plan would be, to lash a piece of wood to the cross tail butt of the damaged engine, so as to obtain a sufficient throw for working the valve, and then to lead a piece of wood or iron, from a suitable point in the piece of wood attached to the cross tail, to the ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... the butt of an alleged cigar, into which he had stuck a sharpened match as a visible means of support, a boy who was probably not so old as he looked sat upon the curbstone at the corner, and claimed the world for his cuspidor. He was an ill-favored ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... larger than common. The bony buttresses of the forehead over the eyes, too, as they rose above the strong lower face, were emphasised, looking truly as though, if tongue and pen failed to make a way, the shoulders could push one, and, if worse came to worst, the head would butt one. Next to Luther was a head of Christ; then in the same line, with nothing in the position or quality of the pictures to indicate that the subjects were any less esteemed, a row of royal personages, whose military trappings ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... are necessary at the sides and top of the door. That at the hinged side can be as shown at A, Fig. 5, the closing side as at B, and the top as at C in the same drawing. These are all in section and are self-explanatory. In hinging the door, three butt hinges should be used so as ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... ffor tydyngs heer we her ffrom alle the worlde. ... Item, the Duke of Burgoyne hath conqueryd Lorreyn and Queen Margreet shall nott nowe be lykelyhod have it; wherffer the Frenshe kynge cheryssheth hyr butt easelye; but afftr thys conquest off Loreyn the Duke toke grete corage to goo upon the londe off the Swechys [Swiss] to conquer them butt the berded hym att an onsett place and hathe dystrussyd hym and hathe slayne ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... before a glass, he endeavoured, the pistol in his right hand, to bring the muzzle to bear on his left temple. He found this impossible, and signified his annoyance with a grunt. Then he tried the pistol with his thumb on the trigger and his hand clasping the back of the butt. Here he ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... diligent searche for your family as you required butt I have not discovered muche that will be to your satisfaction. I send you, Sir, a coppie of certain things sette down in the Parish Register of St. Clement Danes, wch I thoughte most like to be of interest to you. Bye these you will discover that Walter ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... dramatically, "that I've got you where I want you, thank you. You have killed Peabody dead as a cigar butt! Now I can tell them how his friends tried to bribe me. Why do you think I came in your car? For what money YOU got? Do you think you can stack up your roll against the New York Journal's, or against Tammany's?" His shrill voice rose exultantly. ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... first affected amusement over his own vanished day dream—hiding his virgin disappointment in his own breast; but when he began to turn upon his feelings he turned upon his comrades also. Cass was for a while unpopular. There is no ingratitude so revolting to the human mind as that of the butt who refuses to be one any longer. The man who rejects that immunity which laughter generally casts upon him and demands to be seriously ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... him. "You in this, Mr. Farrar? You're liable to have a heluvatime if you butt into my business without an invite. Shack—and ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... essential to the meaning of all that followed. Where should I meet her? What would she say? I had asked these questions before and found an answer. Now they came again with a trail of fresh implications and I had no answer for them at all. As I approached Nettie she ceased to be the mere butt of my egotistical self-projection, the custodian of my sexual pride, and drew together and became over and above this a personality of her own, a personality and a mystery, a sphinx I had evaded only ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... secret came to me like a flash, and the trick was learned. I had been using the great board and was weary. I exchanged with Exploding Eggs for a plank three feet long and fourteen inches wide. Almost exhausted, I waited as usual with the butt of the board against my stomach for the incoming breaker to be just behind and above me, and then leaped forward to kick out vigorously, the board pressed against me and my hands extended along its sides, to get ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Nelson had drawn rose before her: the one man standing alone in his rage on the platform, overwhelmed by his calm young adversary, beaten and made the butt of laughter for a thousand. Her father had been in the wrong in that quarrel, and somehow she was sure, too, he must have been wrong in the "personal" one, as well: the mysterious difficulty over ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... court-fool was generally not a wit, but a naive blockhead, who believed all that was said, and was therefore a butt for jests. He only placed a letter in Cercas' hand, and disappeared. When Cercas had read the letter, she changed colour and seemed to become a different being. Overcome with rage, she could ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... once married to a racing man of shady reputation and great wealth, but having soon wearied of the mock-respectability of a quasi-matrimonial existence, she makes the acquaintance of Mr. Justice BUTT at a moment when he is engaged neither upon the probate of wills nor on the collisions of ships. Yet her dislike of one husband who happened for a time to be her own has not in the least impaired ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... little company of Irish Home Rulers that had appeared in Parliament in the early '70's was Isaac Butt. His repeated attempts to have the subject considered were as often rejected with derision. In his own party he was opposed by an element which desired to resort to aggressive measures to compel the English to heed Ireland's demand for local self-government. ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... holster with a convulsive jerk of the big man's wrist. Yet the spit of fire came from Riley Sinclair's weapon, slipping smoothly into his hand. Quade did not fall. He stood with a bewildered expression, as a man trying to remember something hidden far in the past; and Sinclair fingered the butt of his gun lightly and waited. It was rather a crumbling than a fall. The big body literally slumped down ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... leaped at the words. He felt an impulse to jump up and shout; but he kept his cheek to the rifle butt and responded: ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... be vain of!) gave Vance a shove into a corner to get him out of her husband's sight; and in the corner Vance was glad enough to stay hid while the giant ate an enormous supper, and drank a whole cask of ale which his wife drew for him from a huge butt in ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... he did that, Chick and Ten-Ichi dashed out of the woods and helped him; and Ten-Ichi, none too gentle, now that his anger was aroused, rapped the sentinel on the head with the butt of his pistol, so that he stiffened out ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... the butt of my gun ahead of me, and moved it up and down and right and left, trying the inequalities of the ground. To make no sound required the very greatest care; a slip of an inch might have caused a ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Stump, "but them's Mrs. Haxton's very words as I helped her up the ship's ladder. Hello! Where's the fire? Unless I'm much mistaken, young feller, there's a first-class row goin' on outside our bloomin' cafe. No, no, don't you butt in among Arabs as though you was strollin' down Edgware Road on a Saturday night, an' get mixed up in a coster rough-an'-tumble. These long-legged swine would knife you just for the fun of it. Keep full an' by, an' let any son of a ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... hoards and other mysteries," he said, "have no kind of attraction for me. I feel sort of discouraged when they bubble up round me. You're young, Daisy, and naturally inclined to romantic joys. Just you butt in and worry round according to your own fancy. There's only one thing I'd rather you didn't do. Don't get interfering in any serious way with Smith. Smith's a ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... butt in on the young ladies' day together," returned John. Benny's recital had touched him, but he could not forbear a smile at the youngster's courage of conviction. "I tell you, I'm the aggrieved party in this ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... well to explain that there is a latent meaning, apparent only to Galloway folk of the ancient time, in the word "cuif." It conveys at once the ideas of inefficiency and folly, of simplicity and the ignorance of it. The cuif is a feckless person of the male sex, who is a recognized butt for a whole neighbourhood to sharpen ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... reaching a little plateau on the side of a spur, old Rii stopped, and beckoned to us to keep silence, at the same time sending all the boys below the plateau. Peering cautiously through the jungle, we saw, lying down on the moss-covered ground at the butt of a tree, a sow with her litter. We lay very quiet till the boys had formed a cordon at the lower edge of the plateau, so as to cut off escape in that direction, and then Rii whispered to me to shoot the sow in the belly, but not to hit any of her litter if I could help it, as we could ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... "Mate," said Moran to Wilbur one day, after a dinner of turtle steaks and fish, eaten in the open air on the quarterdeck; "mate, this is slow work, and the schooner smells terribly foul. We'll have the dory out and go ashore. We can tumble a cask into her and get some water. The butt's three-quarters empty. Let's see how it feels to be ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... so I did. But look'ee, 'tis a smooth sea, a fair wind—aha, it needeth no pistol butt to persuade you to it this time; you go of your own will and most express ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... and composed much of his poetry while lying out on the hills, wrapped in his plaid and tending his flocks like any Corydon or Thyrsis. He was a singular mixture of genius and vanity, at once the admiration and the butt of the Blackwood's wits, who made him the mouthpiece of humour and eloquence which were not his, but Christopher North's. The puzzled shepherd hardly knew how to take it; he was a little gratified and a good deal nettled. But the flamboyant figure of him in the Noctes ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... close to him, and he shouted. There was no answer; but Allonby, who could scarcely hear his own voice, did not consider this astonishing, and tried again. Still no answer came back, and, coming up with the sleigh at every stride, he dragged the butt of his sling rifle round and fumbled at the strap with a numbed ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... way of passing his life than in dangling about women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He did—it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments—he did know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew Alison much ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... learned was the only place of safety, the roof of the house. And when he was not stirring up the animals, he was playing jokes on the cowboys. Holy John, a middle-aged, thick-witted fellow, who never knew what had happened to him until the rest were roaring with laughter, was the special butt of his tricks. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... indictment he was arraigned for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr.,—as Richard Kildene,—and yet he had seen his cousin lying dead before him, during all the years that had passed since he had fled from that sight. In battle he had seen men clubbed with the butt end of a musket fall dead with wounded temples, even as he had seen his cousin—stark—inert—lifeless. He had felt the strange, insane rage to kill that he had seen in others and marveled at. And now, after he had ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... shout we ran forward, I hearing Jack cry, "The bayonet! the bayonet!" I saw in the smoke and fog men fall to right and left, and in a moment was after Jack, who stood between the guns, fencing with two big grenadiers. I clubbed one of them with my butt, and Jack disposed of ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... smooth as possible. The clerk of the weather has a neatly worked flat stick, on which lengths are marked off by notches; these lengths are measured by laying the stick along the radial side of the left arm, the butt end against the anterior fold of the armpit. A notch is then cut at each of the following positions: one notch about one inch from the butt end, a second opposite the middle of the upper arm, one opposite the elbow, one opposite the bend of the wrist, one at the first interphalangeal joint, one ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... had been times when need forced her into straits where her lot seemed to her almost as low as that of the slave-like wives of the tenements, made her almost think she would be nearly as well off were she the wife, companion, butt, servant and general vent to some one dull and distasteful provider of a poor living. But now she no longer felt either degraded or heart sick and heart weary. And when he passed the worst crisis her spirits ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... like lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round—for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder—struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained the trees, and, pausing for a moment, shouted ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... little Sister Ursula told, and the invalid laughed himself faint once more. When Sister Ursula re-settled the pillows, her hand fell on the butt of a revolver that had come from the desk by the head of the bed. She did not understand what it was, but ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... its birth. You're merely a butt for our mirth. You're a "sheeny" — and therefore despised And rejected as "scum ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water. These, however, were minor advantages. The important thing, the insurmountable obstacle which kept these three skilled tailors away from the big cloak-shops, was the fact that one had to work on Saturdays there, while ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... armed with a Martini-Henry, found himself shunned by all his comrades on account of his cartridges not containing smokeless powder, and was obliged to entrench himself on his own at some distance from the rest. The poor fellow was the butt of all the primitive humourists from the backwoods, and was assured with much solemnity that his rifle would draw all the British fire in his direction, and that he was as good as dead already. Thorny ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... policy. But on the 28th Chamberlain told me that Forster would resign. In my diary I say: "The Chancellor and Lord Kimberley may go with him. In this case the Irish Secretaryship would be offered to Shaw" (member for Limerick, Mr. Butt's successor as leader of the moderate Home Rulers), "but he would refuse because he could not get his county to return him. Then it must come either to Chamberlain or to myself. I said I should wish in this event that he should take it and I succeed him at the Board ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... sprung to his feet, his eyes blazing with the pent-up wrath that had been in them for many days. He was tense, his muscles straining; and his fingers were moving restlessly near the butt of the huge pistol that swung at his hip. The fingers were closing and unclosing, betraying the ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... only Omnipotent Good, why the existence of evil?—he asked in ever-growing bitterness, till so-called altruism became to him a mockery; and he took a painful delight in twisting his wisdom into the most fantastic forms, which he also made the sport and butt of formal logic; knowing always, in his own heart, the evil that was wrought in him by those bitter reflections that formed the refuge of his idle hours. Ah! ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... so hospitable!—Among all these parasites two individuals stood forth with special prominence: a dwarf named Janus or the Two-faced, a Dane,—or, as some asserted, of Jewish extraction,—and crazy Prince L. In contrast to the customs of that day the dwarf did not in the least serve as a butt for the guests, and was not a jester; on the contrary, he maintained constant silence, wore an irate and surly mien, contracted his brows in a frown, and gnashed his teeth as soon as any one addressed a question ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev |
