"Knuckle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ought to have done. That is the period when the bones grow, muscles develop—everything grows. Another thing against me is the length of my fingers. When the fingers are longer than the width of the hand across the knuckle joint, it is not an advantage but a detriment. The extra length of finger is only so much dead weight that the hand has to lift. This is another disadvantage I have had to work against. Yes, as you say, it is a rather remarkable hand in regard to size and suppleness. But I hardly ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... have told us what we, as scouts (Mr. Ellsworth always called himself a scout), ought to do. They have outlined a program for us. Now if you run off and join the army in the hope of doing a man's work, why then some man has got to knuckle down and ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... long forgotten, and the strongest affection in his life had been for Parsons. An only child of sociable tendencies necessarily turns his back a good deal upon home, and the aunt who had succeeded his mother was an economist and furniture polisher, a knuckle rapper and sharp silencer, no friend for a slovenly little boy. He had loved other little boys and girls transitorily, none had been frequent and familiar enough to strike deep roots in his heart, and he had grown up with a tattered and dissipated affectionateness that was ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to me for the rest of the night, and we'll say no more about it. There's no great damage done—nothing but a sore knuckle." I was feeling now the return effects of my blow on the coolie's chin. I felt too much in fault myself to call my attendants very sharply to task. It was through me that Luella had come into danger, and I had to confess that I had failed in prudence and had come ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... The knuckle or leg of veal is the best for soup. Wash it and break up the bones. Put it into a pot with a pound of ham or bacon cut into pieces, and water enough to cover the meat. A set of calf's feet, cut in half, will greatly improve it. After it has stewed ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... church in Ulster County, New York, came home and began teasing me to change to Jacobus. At first I would not give up to what I thought just her silly taste for a name she thought more stylish than plain old Jacob; but she sent back to New York and got a certified copy of the record. So I had to knuckle under. Jacobus is in law my name just as much as Teunis, and both of them, I understand, used to be pretty common names among the Vandemarks, Brosses, Kuyckendalls, Westfalls and other Dutch families for generations. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wet the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... gripped him from behind. My hand on his mouth stifled his outcry. His black knife blade waved blindly. Then my clenched knuckle caught his temple, and dug with the twisting Santus blow. I was expert at it, and I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... the full glare of the astral lamp seemed centred on that pudgy hand, in its inevitable glove, that had fixed so firm a gripe on the back of the mahogany chair as to strain open one of the fingers of the tight, tawny kid-glove worn by Dr. Englehart. This had parted slightly just above the knuckle of the front-finger, and revealed the cotton stuffing within. Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed, which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this term as concerned the profession he affected at all, but merely (as shall ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... whether my scouts will let me off for a week or two, but my boss wants me to take a good rest before I knuckle down to work. I'm off for August anyway. Don't expect me before that, but if I should show up on a surprise raid, don't drop dead. I may go over the top some fine day and drop in on you like a hand grenade. ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... all the rings with which she had once tried to dim the sparkle of the sapphire, and, dropping them into his pocket like so much dross, slipped on the Idol that covered her third finger in a splendid bar from knuckle to joint. Holding her by just the tip of that finger, leaning back a little, he looked into her eyes, and she, looking back, knew that it wedded ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... eye to eye, he managed so that while retaining the leaden balls tied to its disengaged corners one in each hand, the net was presently in an extended roll on the ground before him. Leaning forward then, his hands bent inwardly knuckle to knuckle at his breast, his right foot advanced, the left behind the right ready to carry him by a step left aside, he waited the attack—to the beholders, a figure in shining ebony, giantesque ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... peace! thy words are air. Thou hast not got burghers by the ear, that know not a veal knuckle from their grandsire's ribs; but soldiers-men that have gone to look for their dear comrades, and found their bones picked as clean by the crows as these I doubt have been by thee and thy mates. Men and women, saidst thou? And ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Corpuscles.*—Blood for this purpose is easily obtained from the finger. With a handkerchief, wrap one of the fingers of the left hand from the knuckle down to the first joint. Bend this joint and give it a sharp prick with the point of a sterilized 'needle just above the root of the nail. Pressure applied to the under side of the finger will force plenty of blood through a very small ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... bench. I saw before me suddenly her brown face and neck; she had fastened her apron a little low down in front, to be long-waisted, as was the fashion; the girlish contour of her thumb affected me tenderly, and the little wrinkles above the knuckle were full of kindliness. Her mouth ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... hospital. We were acquaintances in London, and with the eye of a hawk he picked me out of a load of dirty, khaki-clad wretches, and pounced on me with "What on earth did you come out here for?" I told him "to play knuckle bones." ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... ceasing to be a long, outstretched finger, seems to fold back into itself, knuckle-fashion, and presently is but a part of the oddly foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by the black dot of watchers clustered under a battery of lights, like a swarm of hiving bees. Out in midstream the tugs, which ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... He had no great cause to "buck up," his share of the boiled leg would be very small indeed and entirely knuckle, the Professor holding that the knuckle ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... we were looking across a bare, shallow valley at the opposite knuckle of hill-side, around the foot of which the valley doubled back out of sight. A solitary grey line of broken earth ran like a mole burrow up the bare knuckle and vanished over the top. A line of bare, dead willow stumps marked a ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... 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 and landed a hard right on the side of his jaw and dropped him just like that. It was one peach I handed him and he slumped down like a sack of mush. I am here to tell you it was just one punch, though a dandy; but he had tried ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... bottle neck, shed its feeble light upon the table, which, owing to the provident kindness of Mr. Wood, was much better furnished with eatables than might have been expected, and boasted a loaf, a knuckle of ham, a meat-pie, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Palamedes, a sort of universal genius, who hit upon many other contrivances, among the rest, weights and measures. But this worthy lived in the times of the Trojan war, and yet Homer makes no mention of dice—the astragaloi named by the poet being merely knuckle-bones. Dice, however, are mentioned by Aristophanes in his comedies, and so it seems that the invention must be placed between the times of the two poets, that is, about 2300 years ago. At any rate the cube or die has been in use ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Jim, who saw too late that he had made a mistake. "Your sort o' folks knuckle to the devil more nor I do. A good bein' I take to, but a bad bein' I'm careless with; an' I don't make no more o' slingin' his name round nor I do kickin' an ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... such a foil and counterfeit and perverse and prosperous parody as the son of Hortense Beauharnais of Saint-Leu to the son of Letizia Buonaparte of Ajaccio. For Shakespeare too, like Landor, had watched his "sweet Octavius" smilingly and frowningly "draw under nose the knuckle of forefinger" as he looked out upon the trail of innocent blood after the bright receding figure of his brave young kinsman. The fair-faced false "present God" of his poetic parasites, the smooth triumphant patron and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... turned the unconscious man over on his back. Then he caught up a couple of towels and securely tied, first the inert wrists and then the feet. Quickly knotting a third towel, he wedged and drilled a sharp knuckle joint into the flesh of the colorless cheek, between the upper and lower incisors. When the jaw had opened he thrust the knot into the gaping mouth, securely tying the ends of the towel at the back ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... carried heavenward "on flowery beds of ease" while it lasted. There is very little ease where Theodore Roosevelt leads, as we all of us found out. The lawbreaker found it out who predicted scornfully that he would "knuckle down to politics the way they all did," and lived to respect him, though he swore at him, as the one of them all who was stronger than pull. The peace-loving citizen who hastened to Police Headquarters with anxious entreaties to "use discretion" in the enforcement of unpopular laws found it out ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... have a care where they go, and to whom they appeal, yet Ester's father was growing more desperate every moment. He went boldly to the door and gave a timid rap with his knuckle. That hand once bold enough to strike a king from his throne was weak and trembling on this night. At sound of the knock, the husband and father seemed to have suddenly changed. The lion may sport and play with his whelps in his lair, but when the intruder enters his domestic abode, all is ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... he held his knuckle to the key. A tiny spark flashed between the key and his knuckle. It was a little flash ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... mortified that I ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any but kings' sons, or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals in the urchin line, and fly my kite with only ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... WORK.—Fig. 227 is a section through a small box similar to a lady's work-box (the back of the box in the illustration is enlarged in thickness to clearly show the position of the hinge). In this case the knuckle of the hinge is let into the woodwork until it is flush with the back of the box, and the gauge would have to be set to the total width of the hinge. The back edges of the lid and the back edge of the lower portion of the box are planed away at an angle ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... Ellis. "We give them their money's worth, don't we? They'd pay two dollars for a theater seat without half the thrills—no chances of seeing a car turn turtle or break its steering-knuckle and dash into the side-lines. Two ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said Old Jock, "I know the Yankee game, Mister—blood an' thunder an' belayin' pins an' six-ounce knuckle-dusters! Gun play, too, an' all the rest of it. I know that game, Mister, and it doesn't come off on my ship—no' till ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... person answered respectfully,—"Very well, thank you," though his nod was as condescending as his new master's; because he felt that a boy who could ride bareback and turn a double somersault in the air ought not to "knuckle under" to a fellow who had not ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... to see them who did not come away converted to an enthusiastic belief in the man and his work. Public sentiment, that had been half reluctantly suspending judgment, expecting every day to see the colonel "knuckle down to politics" like his predecessors, turned in an hour, and after that there was little trouble. The tenement house children organized street cleaning bands to help along the work, and Colonel Waring enlisted them as regular auxiliaries and ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... conquering spirit of all-besetting drowsiness that attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader is he that hath never sinned by drowsing in church time? Let him read on; and I'll realize by description ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... screwed a tear out of his eye with a dirty knuckle, and departed abruptly, leaving the little teacher just about ready ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... shan't, unless I get some outside help. My brain isn't that sort of brain. It's another sort. Only one has to knuckle down to these ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... a gal," said he at length, judicially. "Hit ain't usual; but seein' as a gal don't pick atween men because one's a quicker shot than another, but because he's maybe stronger, or something like that, why, how'd knuckle and skull suit you two roosters, best man win and us to see hit fair? Hit's one of ye fer the gal, like enough. But not right now. Wait till we're on the trail and clean o' the law. I heern there's ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... welcome, for the Reverend Mr Cockran—in charge at the time—had a weakness for the old hypocrite, and entertained strong hopes of bringing about his reformation. For two days he stayed in the parsonage kitchen, smoking his pipe, revelling in the odds and ends, such as knuckle-bones, stray bits of fat and tripe, which fell to his lot, and proudly exhibiting himself in one of the minister's cast-off black coats, which contrasted rather oddly with a pair of ornamented blue leggings and a ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... to-morrow and I don't want any of you to be taken alive. What I want is two prisoners and if I get them I have a way which will make them divulge all necessary information as to their guns. You have your choice of two weapons—you may carry your 'persuaders' or your knuckle knives, and each man will arm himself with four Mills bombs, these to be used only in ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... others[318] and again he refers to the matter on January 20.[319] On January 19 Wilson wrote: "We get our hairy faces and mouths dreadfully iced up on the march, and often one's hands very cold indeed holding ski-sticks. Evans, who cut his knuckle some days ago at the last depot, has a lot of pus in it to-night." January 20: "Evans has got 4 or 5 of his finger-tips badly blistered by the cold. Titus also his nose and cheeks—al[so] Evans and Bowers." ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like the rapid clack of knuckle bones. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... minute he had both paws working overtime and such a knuckle twisting no mortal man ever ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... into the turn. "If I could find a man that I'd trust my life with on these roads, I'd have me a chauffeur," he grumbled for the millionth time. "That reformed blacksmith musta welded these nuts on to the bolts," he added, and muttered something savage when the wrench slipped and he barked a knuckle. "Well, what yuh want? Go ahead and have it, or do it—only don't stand watching me when I'm trying to—" He gritted his teeth, threw the wrench away and picked up another. "Go ask your mother," he exclaimed. "Tell her I'll ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... said Mulvaney; "av she shuts her hand tight, thumb down over the knuckle, take up your hat an' go. You'll only make a fool av yoursilf av you shtay. But av the hand lies opin on the lap, or av you see her thryin' to shut ut, an' she can't,—go on! She's not past ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... the kiddish kick-up along o' the visit of the Hempress! Why, if we 'ad that duffer, DEROULEDE, on Newmarket 'Eath, we should just duck him in a 'orsepond, like a copped Welsher. Here they washup him, or else knuckle under to him, like a skeery Coster's missus when her old man's on the mawl, and feels round arter her ribs with his bloomin' high-lows. That's yer high-polite French Artists and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... the Emperor has been at our hut several times. He's good enough to approve it." Her host answered calmly, laying a loaf of black bread, a fine seeded cheese, and a knuckle of ham on the table. He then glanced at his guest, expecting her to come forward; but she sat still on her throne of antlers, her small feet in their sensible mountain boots, daintily crossed under ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... room, Alice Weston bared her round young arms and enjoyed a real, old-fashioned wash in a real, old-fashioned washbowl. Who could be unhappy in this glorious country? But mother seemed so unimpressed! "And I hope that steering-knuckle doesn't come for a month," the girl told a framed lithograph of "Custer's Last Fight," which, contrary to all precedent, ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... plow handle better than a gun-stock, Thaine," his father assured him, looking down at the boy's square, sun-browned hand with a dimple in each knuckle. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... number of small rags which occupied the place of the diamond panes that had departed many months before. A child, ill-clad, in fragments of clothes, with long and dirty hair, unclean face, and naked feet, cried at the door, and loud talking was heard within. Mr Fairman knocked with his knuckle before he entered, and a gruff voice desired him to "come in." A stout fellow, with a surly countenance and unshaven beard, was sitting over an apology for a fire, and a female of the same age and condition was near him. She bore an unhappy infant in her arms, whose melancholy peakish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... endeavouring to get the men to treat him with respect, he once more tackled his subordinate superior Jan, who, he thought, from his treating him civilly, was sorry for the 'little misunderstanding' that had occurred between them, and would readily 'knuckle under' now, the moment he assumed his legitimate role and ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Americans. They were mutinous from the start, half of them blacklegs of the vilest type who swore to get the upper hand of him. His mates, boatswain, and carpenter had broken open their chests and boxes and had removed a collection of slung-shots, knuckle-dusters, bowie-knives, and pistols. Off Rio Janeiro they had tried to kill the chief mate, and Captain Waterman had been compelled to jump in and stretch two of them dead with an iron belaying-pin. Off Cape Horn three sailors fell from aloft and ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... of the original leather; the round blue bonnet grown gray with wind and weather: the belts that looked like old harness ready to yield at a pull; his skene dhu sticking out grim and black beside a knee like a lean knuckle:—all combined to form a picture ludicrous to a vulgar nature, but gently pitiful to the lover of his kind, he looked like a half mouldered warrior, waked from beneath an ancient cairn, to walk about in a world other than he took ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the door of the world's treasure-house guarded by a child—an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones—on whose favor depends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one half my torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not lie within the experiences of a Greek galley-slave. But now, or there was no virtue in books, he had talked of ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... lieutenants, captains, and majors in the air force, or infantry battalions, or tanks, or trench-mortars, and they had drawn good pay, which was their pocket-money. Now they were at a loose end, hating the idea of office-work, but ready to knuckle down to any kind of decent job with some prospect ahead. What kind of job? What knowledge had they of use in civil life? None. They scanned advertisements, answered likely invitations, were turned down by elderly men ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the panel out in a twinkling. The cupboard was five feet high by four broad and had a well in the bottom covered by a lid, which I lifted and, to my amazement, found the cavity filled with revolvers, automatic pistols, life-preservers, knuckle-dusters and other weapons, each having a little label—bearing a number and a date—tied neatly on it. I shut the lid down rather hastily; there was something rather sinister in ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... hesitant knuckle, without her door. It was impossible, impossible. A wild thought of rushing in and killing her as she slept rose in my mind. And then, in a flash, the better solution came to me. All hands were asleep. Why not creep aboard the Ghost,—well I knew the way to Wolf Larsen's bunk,—and kill ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... arms a parcel that she had ready. 'I had bought a knuckle of ham—it was for supper—for us—for us two—and a liter of good wine. But, ma foi! when I saw there were five of you, I didn't want to divide it out so much, and I want still less now. There's the ham, the bread, and the wine. I give them to you so that you can enjoy them by yourself, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... this," he would go on, "and I'll close my account. As it is, I think I will remove my patronage to a firm which will treat me civilly. Why, sir, I've never heard anything like it in all my experience." Upon which the man would knuckle under and go away forgiven, with a large ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... I know the signs. When a Great One rises up in the midst of a Republic and puts her hands on her hips and says 'What are you going to do about it?' and there isn't anything to do about it, you have a dictator, and all that you can do is knuckle down and be good." ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... right. You can see him now if you want to. Why did you go and ride that little devil Knuckle-Duster when ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... handle firmly; cover it with your whole palm, but don't squeeze it to death; just grip it evenly—tuck it away. And keep your elbow down; and crook your wrist, in a drop, until your trigger knuckle is pointing very low—at a man's feet if you're aiming ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... bowlder over against the rock and mounted, and ran his finger over the crack. It was not a large crack and offered no encouragement, but the lad was determined not to be satisfied until he had established facts beyond all dispute. He ran his finger, as stated, along the crack, and his knuckle pressed against the roof, and to his surprise there appeared to be a loosening. He examined it and he saw that there was a uniform crack running along the roof inclosing a space about two feet square. The lad instinctively pressed on the center between the cracks, and lo, there ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... here a-quar'l'n' with her in this very kitchen, an' eggin' me on! Wa'n't she goin' to turn you out o' your own daughter's home? Wa'n't that what I turned her out fer? I didn't turn her out, anyhow! I only told Orville this house wa'n't big enough fer his mother an' me, an' that neither o' us 'u'd knuckle down, so he'd best take his choice. ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... unprovided or destitute caravan was clear from this lady's occupation, which was the very pleasant and refreshing one of taking tea. The tea-things, including a bottle of rather suspicious character and a cold knuckle of ham, were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and there, as if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat this roving lady, taking her tea and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... I'd Banting you, and fit you to run without puffing, and get on without four or five meals a day. What an absurd hand that is for a man! You ought to be ashamed of it!' And Mrs Jo caught up the plump fist, with deep dimples at each knuckle, which was fumbling distressfully at the buckle of the belt girt about a waist far too large for a youth of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Several canoes alongside. At 4 Wongaroa Island south-east about 3 miles: at 5 light breezes, made all sail along the coast, at 6 Cavill Island east by south. Wongaroa south-east by south. Knuckle Point west 5 leagues, A.M. Knuckle Point south 3 miles: set up. At noon North-West Cape about ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... found in the cave, half-burnt faggots, the remains of a fire no doubt left by a party of Indian hunters, who had also spent a night there. With these they were enabled to boil their kettle, and make a mate of their favourite yerba tea; while the "knuckle" of mutton and some cakes of corn bread still left, needed no cooking. It is after all this was over, and they had been some time conversing on the many strange incidents which occurred to them throughout the day, that they ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... to rest on ruins of earlier cities, city upon city, and fourteen cities, down to a stratum where, still earlier, wandering herdsmen drove their flocks, and where, even preceding them, wild hunters chased their prey long after the cave-man and the man of the squatting-place cracked the knuckle-bones of wild animals and vanished from the earth. There is nothing terrible about it. With Richard Hovey, when he faced his death, we can say: "Behold! I have lived!" And with another and greater one, we can lay ourselves down with a will. ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... is good to eat, Tender for old teeth, Gristle for young teeth, Big deer and fat deer, Lean meat and fat meat, Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone, Liver and heart. Food for the old men, Life for all men, For women and babes. Easement of hunger-pangs, Sorrow destroying, Laughter provoking, Joy invoking, In the smell of its smoking And its sweet ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... niggling stroke ever came from that torso or forearm or thigh. He hewed with a broad axe, not with a chisel, and he hewed true—that was the joy of it. The men of Meissonier's time, like the old Dutchmen, worked from their knuckle joints. These new painters, in their new technique—new to some—old really, as that of Velasquez and Frans Hals—swing their brushes from their spinal columns down their forearms (Knight's biceps measure seventeen inches) and out through their finger-tips, with something of ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... fortune but not in figure, my cook has made all this out of a hog! It would be simply impossible to meet up with a more valuable fellow: he'd make you a fish out of a sow's coynte, if that's what you wanted, a pigeon out of her lard, a turtle-dove out of her ham, and a hen out of a knuckle of pork: that's why I named him Daedalus, in a happy moment. I brought him a present of knives, from Rome, because he's so smart; they're made of Noric steel, too." He ordered them brought in immediately, and looked them over, with ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... make a man of me. And, being a man, there are some things I'm not likely to forget. Say, you've passed sentence—you and your friends, which include Jim Thorpe. You won't have to carry it out. I'll knuckle down, because I know you all. But, by gee! I've struck what you're looking for, and when I've gathered the dust I'll make some folks jump to my own tune! Get ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... a "J. I. Case" or a "Buffalo Pitts," and was moved by five pairs of horses attached to a "power" staked to the ground, round which they travelled pulling at the ends of long levers or sweeps, and to me the force seemed tremendous. "Tumbling rods" with "knuckle joints" carried the motion to the cylinder, and the driver who stood upon a square platform above the huge, greasy cog-wheels (round which the horses moved) was a ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... it seemed, for the maid had forgotten to light the lamp. Without pausing to take off his greatcoat, he hung up his hat, ran nimbly upstairs, and knocked with a light knuckle on his bedroom door. It was closed, but no answer came. He opened it, shut it, locked it, and sat down on the bedside for a moment, in the darkness, so that he could scarcely hear any other sound, as he sat erect and still, like some night animal, wary of danger, attentively alert. ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... I was a-saying, the Brownie at Hilton Hall would play at mischief, but if the servants laid out for it a bowl of cream, or a knuckle cake spread with honey, it would clear away things for them, and make everything tidy in the kitchen. One night, however, when the servants had stopped up late, they heard a noise in the kitchen, and, peeping in, saw the Brownie ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... my friend, apologising in the most handsome way for the unintentional insult; and, putting out a brawny hairy paw like that of Esau's, he gave a grip to my poor little mite of a hand that made each knuckle crack, as he introduced himself in rough and hearty sailor fashion. "Me name's Tim Rooney, as I tould you afore, Misther Gray- ham—sure, an' it's fond I am ov bacon, avic, an' ham, too, by the same token! I'd ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... mouths, to laugh and speak and munch their crusts, all at once) the scene in the Lysis of the dice-players. There the boys are! in full dress, to take part in a religious ceremony. It is scarcely over; but they are already busy with the knuckle-bones, some just outside the door, others in a corner. Though Plato never tells one without due motive, yet he loves a story for its own sake, can make one of fact or fancy at a moment's notice, or re-tell other people's better: how those dear skinny grasshoppers ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... the fingers are comparatively common. When they result from direct violence, such as a crush between two heavy objects, they are often multiple and compound. Indirect violence, acting in the long axis of the bone and increasing its natural curve, such as a blow on the knuckle in striking with the closed fist, usually produces an oblique fracture about the middle of the shaft, the proximal end of the distal fragment projecting towards the dorsum. Apart from this there is little deformity, as the adjacent metacarpals ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... to knuckle very submissively to your lordship's argument. The fact is, that the said Sir CUMMERBUND, on hearing my answers when I was acting in the capacity of a harrowed toad under my friend WITHERINGTON'S cross-examination, very ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... more commonly happens to the bones corresponding to the middle and ring finger, and occurs between the knuckle and the wrist, appearing as a swelling on the back of the hand. On looking at the closed fist it will be seen that the knuckle corresponding to the broken bone in the back of the hand has ceased to be prominent, and has sunken down below the level ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the vial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... Graduates of the slums of New Orleans, their education in villainy was naturally perfect. They had the vaguest ideas of meum and tuum; and small personal difficulties were usually settled by the convincing argument of a bowie-knife, or brass knuckle. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... opened the huge pasty, but, where he expected to find ham, he found such hardness that he could not thrust in his knife. After trying several times, it occurred to him that he had been deceived; and, indeed, he found 'twas a wooden shoe such as is worn in Gascony. It had a burnt stick for knuckle, and was powdered upon the top with iron rust ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... said the old man, blinking at her through sudden tears, "that's what the doctors say." Here he loosed one hand to rub at each bright eye with a bony knuckle. "An' 'im so young—so game ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... winter's day, half clad and worse fed, with child on her back and basket on her arm, to practise the art of double-dyed lying and deception on honest, simple people, in order to bring back her ill-gotten gains to her semi-clad hovel, on which to fatten her "lord and master," by half-cleaned knuckle-bones, ham-shanks, and pieces of bacon that fall from the ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... over the ruffian, became possessed of a sudden and uncontrollable indignation. He pecked the man on the head with the knuckle of his forefinger, saying ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... remedy, have been cured by taking daily at breakfast a decoction made from the leaves and tops of the Wood Betony. Culpeper wrote: "This is a precious herb well worth keeping in your house." Gerard tells that "Betony maketh a man have a good appetite to his meat, and is commended against ache of the knuckle bones" (sciatica). ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... now poor Gubbins had more to learn! It may seem very easy to turn a crank, to pump, to shoulder a box, to help carry a bale, or to push at a capstan bar, and this certainly is not skilled labour. Yet there is a way of doing each of these things in a painful, laborious, knuckle- cutting, shoulder-bruising, toe-smashing manner, and a ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... the stuff that cheers sometimes and never fails to inebriate, the added incentive does not necessarily mean also added muscular development or more weight behind the punch. Ford, fighting as he had always fought, be he drunk or sober, came speedily to the point where he could inspect a skinned knuckle and afterwards gaze in peace ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... peeping into the mouths of his bags, "I find here a goodly piece of pigeon pie, wrapped in a cabbage leaf to hold the gravy. Here I behold a dainty streaked piece of brawn, and here a fair lump of white bread. Here I find four oaten cakes and a cold knuckle of ham. Ha! In sooth, 'tis strange; but here I behold six eggs that must have come by accident from some poultry yard hereabouts. They are raw, but roasted upon the coals and spread with a piece of ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... "You are a wonder, mother dear. You wouldn't come off of your high-horse for anything, would you? By Jove, that's what I like most in you. You never knuckle." ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... a knuckle of veal all the meat that can be made into cutlets, and stew the remainder in five pints of water, with an onion, a bundle of herbs, and a blade of mace. Cover it close, and let it do on a slow fire, four or five ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... stood thinking for a moment and then walked across to a window, outside of which was a hen-coop with two knuckle-bones lying beside it. These he picked up, and taking the hen from the coop, he tucked it ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... with these books when the Vicomte entered, after knocking at the door. He referred to this courteous precaution by a little gesture indicating the panel upon which his knuckle had sounded. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... and a Knuckle of Veal, put them a boiling in a Pipkin of a Gallon, with some fair water, and when it boils, scum it, and put to it some salt, two or three blades of large Mace, and a Clove or two; boil it to three pints, and strain the meat, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... length of ribbon, lace or other goods without the use of a rule or tape measure; but what shall we use in their place? Look at your thumb—how long is it from the end to the first joint? And the middle finger, from the end to the knuckle on the back of the hand? Isn't it nearly four and one-half inches or one-eighth of a yard? That is what the average grown person's finger measures. To get the correct length of your finger, hold the end of a tape line to the end of the finger with ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... can have that in a jiffy—but the steak, Lord love you, the old ooman won't stand it at this time; but there's a cold round, mayhap a slice of that might do—or a knuckle of ham?" ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I'll come at it soon enough," went on Bacon, as he turned up another burr in a very awkward corner. In his nervous excitement the wrench slipped, banging his knuckle. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... was as smooth as the finest silk, and when unloosened it hung straightly down, shining about her ivory face. Her lips were thin and scarcely colored at all, and her hands were sharp, quick hands, seeming all knuckle when she closed them and all fingers ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... be attacked. But Lord Coleridge holds that it may be attacked. How then can he ask that it shall only be attacked in polite language? And if Freethinkers must only strike with kid gloves, why are Christians allowed to use not only the naked fist, but knuckle-dusters, bludgeons, and daggers? In the war of ideas, any party which imposes restraints on others to which it does not subject itself, is guilty of persecution; and the finest phrases, and the most dexterous special ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... that job is done! I've rasped every knuckle I've got and worn out the knees of my pants. Nice little crop though, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... there's no think like breakin' off short, there's nothink like turnin' the corner sharp, and fightin' the devil tooth and nail. It's an awful tussle at first, an' I thought I was goin' to knuckle under more'n once. So I would ef it hadn't 'a ben fer you, but you give me this little ban', Miss Amy, an' looked at me as if I wa'n't a beast, an' it's ben a liftin' me up ever sence. Oh, I've had good folks talk at me an' lecter, an' I ben in jail, but it all ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... to change it altogether." A great breeder of shorthorns[444] says, "In the anatomy of the shoulder modern breeders have made great improvements on the Ketton shorthorns by correcting the defect in the knuckle or shoulder-joint, and by laying the top of the shoulder more snugly into the crop, and thereby filling up the hollow behind it.... The eye has its fashion at different periods: at one time the eye high and outstanding from the head, and at another time ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... It may be made of beef alone, but, if desired very rich for a special dinner, requires the addition of either a chicken or a knuckle of veal. Allow, then, for the best soup, a soup-bone,—the shin of beef being most desirable,—weighing from two to three pounds; a chicken; a slice of fat ham; two onions, each stuck with three cloves; one small carrot and parsnip; ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... deead; They may be sincere but aw daat em, If they're honest, they're wrang i' ther heead. They've all some pet doctrine, an wonder Why fowk wi ther plans disagree, They expect yo should all knuckle under, But aw wodn't for all ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... went to the barn, leavin' me shakin' with his jolt. He was game all right! He figured me out as the prodigal son, and wa'n't goin' to knuckle. He intended for me to do all the knee exercise. I drifted along up the path toward ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the sunshine, watching them, with his tongue hanging out. The sun was now quite high in the sky and the day was warm. The children paddled in the water and built a dam, and sent fleets of leaves down the stream, and played knuckle-bones on a flat rock beside it, until at last they were hungry, and then they ate their ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... not too clean, was laid, and on it, with much parade of knife and fork, appeared a very dry knuckle of ham, a plate of yellow soda biscuit, and a pallid and flabby pie. Spite of himself, Calvin's cheery face fell as he looked on this banquet; but he sat down, and ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... pounds; eh, youngster? I began business with 100 pounds less; and here I am. Money breeds money; do you understand that?" and here Joey received a knuckle in his ribs, which almost took his breath away, but which he bore without flinching, as he presumed it was a mark of ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat |
