"Penknife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his pocket for his penknife. It was gone. The blank expression of disgust on his face made ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... letters and papers. A raised writing-desk was at one side of the table, and behind it in a green morocco chair with curved arms there sat the Emperor. A number of officials were standing round the walls, but he took no notice of them. In his hand he had a small penknife, with which he whittled the wooden knob at the end of his chair. He glanced up as we entered, and shook his ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nothing worse than watching, spying, and following a creditor. Have confidence in me; I shall find out if Lady Alexandrine sticks a penknife in the contract, which appears to me quite improbable; for, without flattery, general, you are too handsome a man, and too generous ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... seemed quite comfortable. He did not strike at the mosquitoes; they appeared to understand that he did not wish to trifle. Neither did his thoughts or feelings trouble him; he sat and sharpened a small penknife on his boot. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... size of a large fist with three spots at one end. Learning from trustworthy books that at a certain stage of development the nut contains a delicious beverage like lemonade, I sent one of my heroes up a tree for a nut, through the shell of which he bored a hole with a penknife. It was not till long after the story was published that my own brother—who had voyaged in Southern seas—wrote to draw my attention to the fact that the cocoanut is nearly as large as a man's head, and its outer husk is over an inch thick, so ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... few papers before I became so weak . . . But in the drawer there you will find some pieces of linen clothing—only two or three—marked with initials that may be recognized. Will you rip them out with a penknife?" ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... lest a sun-stroke should be added, and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the rugged path, in the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I could extemporize a crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a thicket, and was feebly working on a branch with my penknife, when the sound of a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... have since got quite used to the most of them, and their only effect is to remind me of my own rash ventures in a foreign tongue. There are one or two words which recall the pain it gave me to control my emotions. He would produce his penknife, for instance; and, contemplating it with a despondent air, would declare it to be the most difficult word in the English language to pronounce. 'Ow you say 'im?' 'Penknife,' I explained. He would bid me write it down; then having spelt it, he would, with much effort, and a sound ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... brown bride had a little penknife, That was both long and sharp, And betwixt the short ribs and the long, Prick'd fair Ellinor to ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... replied Kaunitz, with truthful simplicity; while he carefully placed his paper, pens, lines, and penknife in the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... in the dark with a pen would do the same with a penknife, were he equally safe from ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... 8, about the eighth of an inch thick; rub over a plain mould with a little fresh butter; lay on the paste very even, and equally thin on both sides; pare it round the rim; then with a small penknife cut out small pieces, as fancy may direct, such as diamonds, stars, circles, sprigs, &c.; or use a small tin cutter of any shape: let it lie to dry some time, and bake it a few minutes in a slack oven, of a light colour: remove it from the mould, and place it over a tart, or any ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... about that penknife you picked up and went shares in," ses Peter. "I wouldn't be ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... covered with a few spots like warts, and there are some lines on the margin. The gills are not attached to the stem, and are white with a creamy hue. The stem is also white, tinged faintly with yellow. We will take a penknife and divide it into halves, cutting straight through the stem and cap. We find the stem is filled with a spongy substance, and we can now see more clearly the position of the gills. Our specimen measures 2 inches ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... which she had pointed, Grizel tied the postman's horse to a tree, at a safe distance from the road, and set about unfastening the straps of the mail-bags. With a sharp penknife she ripped them open, and searched for the government despatches among their contents. To find these was not difficult, owing to their address to the council in Edinburgh, and of the imposing weight of their seals. Here ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... is out of order, and aguish: I doubt the worse for this accident to Mr. Harley. We went together to his house, and his wound looks well, and he is not feverish at all, and I think it is foolish in me to be so much in pain as I am. I had the penknife in my hand, which is broken within a quarter of an inch of the handle. I have a mind to write and publish an account of all the particularities of this fact:(1) it will be very curious, and I would do it when Mr. Harley ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... picked the largest of the fruit and put it into his mouth. It was as hard as ivory. He pulled out his penknife, with which he used to sharpen his pencil at school. With great difficulty he cut the fruit in two, to find within only a soft, bitter pulp. Then he tried another and another. All were like the first one, and he gave up trying because he was at length convinced that none of the fruit ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... commiseration was sitting with his high chair tilted back, with his knees against the edge of his desk, with his hat almost down upon his nose as he looked at his visitors from under it, and he amused himself by cutting up a quill pen into small pieces with his penknife. It was not pleasant to be pitied by such a man as that, and so Peregrine ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... in the world a notion that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian,[40]—as unfit for any handiwork or public labor as a penknife for an axe. The so-called "practical men" sneer at speculative men, as if, because they speculate or see, they could do nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy—who are always, more universally ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... turned out, it is sure to get heated. From this neglect I have seen a perfect steam issuing from the house in the morning when the doors have been opened; and I have known, as a natural consequence, the adhesion of the silver skin to the berry so firm, that it could not be removed by a sharp penknife without slicing ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... the point of a penknife she pulled out the little leaden shot. The young man remained still, holding his breath, as a child does when he is putting the topmost story on a house of cards. He had never heard so soft a voice, never gazed on so perfectly ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... a snapshot photograph of a young officer in khaki and puttees, not very well taken, and badly mounted on a bit of white pasteboard that might have been cut from a bandbox with a penknife; but it was all she had, and there could ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... the grand Signior's seraglio. No; without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the day's labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached. Our hero had his penknife in his hand, which he had drawn for the before-mentioned purpose of carving on the bark; when the girl coming near him, cryed out with a smile, "You don't intend to kill me, squire, I hope!"—"Why should you think I would kill you?" answered Jones. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Seven or eight years ago some street fakir got hold of a showy two-blade penknife at about $2 a dozen. He took his stand on the street and they went off readily at 25 cents. The business seemed to spread all over the country like wild-fire, and especially during the fair season. Jobbers in the inland cities were cleaned out of ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... envelope up to the light in order to discover a watermark. They examined the texture of the paper, the ink and the postage stamp, carefully through a powerful magnifying glass. They scraped one corner of the envelope with the blade of a penknife. They took four photographs, two of the front and two of the back, with the Queen's hand camera. They talked a good deal ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... square moved slightly when pressure was applied to it, and gave up a sound of hollowness beneath the tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty, raised the ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... Sister Angela, she whose Madonna-like face had turned the heads of all the big fellows, disappeared one morning with Hermeline, a stalwart first-form lad, who, from sheer love, purposely cut his hands with his penknife so as to get an opportunity of seeing and speaking to her while she dressed his self-inflicted injuries with ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife. ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... saunters on towards term-time like an idle river very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will, but he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... gun, both barrels of which he had loaded before going to sleep. Tom wished that he had the hatchet, but as it had been left in the boat, he had no weapon but his penknife. Thus armed, the two crept stealthily out of the tent to fight the bear, leaving Joe and Jim in a very unhappy state of mind, with nothing to defend themselves against the bear, in case he should attack the tent, except a tooth-brush ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... much less what Figure they were of: But judging from the lightness and yielding quality of the Cork, that certainly the texture could not be so curious, but that possibly, if I could use some further diligence, I might find it to be discernable with a Microscope, I with the same sharp Penknife, cut off from the former smooth surface an exceeding thin piece of it, and placing it on a black object Plate, because it was it self a white body, and casting the light on it with a deep plano-convex Glass, I could exceeding plainly perceive it to be all perforated ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... cigar-case. He selected a weed with a discriminating care that I felt cast an unwarranted reflection on the quality of the cigars I smoked. I watched him in silence while he cut off the end with a neat, precise stroke of his penknife, lit the cigar and blew a cloud of blue smoke out of his mouth. All the time I was staring at him I could feel Moira's eyes on me, and I knew that she was wondering what made me so boorish and morose. Or, perhaps, with a woman's keen instinct for ferreting ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... had passed out of sight around the willows, Bela, still shaken by sobs, went down on her hands and knees to search for the penknife she had spurned. Finding it, she kissed it and thrust it ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... her "splendid Dr. Papa;" her dear brother Preston, who could whittle all sorts of things with a penknife; her darling Grandma Gray, an old lady with white hair, white cap, and white ribbons; and last, but not least, she had the "beautifullest baby" Philip, who could stand on his head "just as cunning," and "hug grizzly"—that is, like a grizzly bear. Flaxie loved him with her whole ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... of Edinburgh; but it must be recollected, that Dandie's education had been more carefully and continuously carried on, than that of his before mentioned brethren. He selected his master's hat from a number of others, or a card chosen by his master from a whole pack; picked his master's penknife from a heap of others, and any particular article which he might have been told to find, although he would have to search among a multitude of others belonging to the same person; proving that it was not smell which guided him, but an understanding of what he was required ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... towards my sex to reproach himself with,"—alas, yes, some few:—"and he swore that he would never forsake ME; and that if Heaven disposed of my life before his, none but he should close my eyes. He was fingering with a penknife at the time; he struck the point of it into the palm of his left hand, and wrote with his blood [the unclean creature], on a little bit of paper, the Oath which his lips had just pronounced in so solemn a tone. Vainly should I undertake to paint my emotion on this ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... afterward a young doctor named Truman, from the village, desired very much to see the bears in their winter sleep. He got into the sty, uncovered them, and repeatedly pricked one of them with a needle, or penknife, without fairly waking it. But salts of ammonia, held to the nostrils of the other one, produced an unexpected result. The creature struck out spasmodically with one paw and rolled suddenly over. Doctor Truman jumped ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... gleam from the skylight in the roof, but down at the basement, where the lobby opened in the yard, there was a stronger light—the light of a lantern, by which a man stood impatiently examining a key, and picking it with a penknife, as though it ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... indeed we happened to have more direct evidence. One of our seamen, when he was on shore, run a large splinter into his foot, and the surgeon being on board, one of his comrades endeavoured to take it out with a penknife; but after putting the poor fellow to a good deal of pain, was obliged to give it over. Our good old Indian, who happened to be present, then called over one of his countrymen that was standing on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only by requiring a steady hand; whereas, if he should make one of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... content to chop out a little at a time," observed Oliver. "Perseverance will succeed in the end. It might even be done with a penknife, if we did not attempt to work ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... or wound, any privy counsellor in the execution of his office, shall be felons, and suffer death as such. This statute was made upon the daring attempt of the sieur Guiscard, who stabbed Mr Harley, afterwards earl of Oxford, with a penknife, when under examination for high crimes in a committee of the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... well," said Patty, and she listlessly watched Priscilla as she scratched out the name with a penknife. Patty never made the mistake ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... in the side of the circular hill that surrounds the lake, stands the famous Grotto del Cane, closed with a door to enable the keeper to get a little money from the foreigners who come to visit it. You may be sure I was careful not to trim any of the myrtles with my penknife. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... German fired one barrel of his gun at a pigeon, and snapped several caps on the other, which refused to go off. As we approached Henderson, quite a crowd had gathered at the hotel to see the arrest, and just as the stage swung up to the sidewalk, the Frenchman took out of his pocket a small penknife, the largest blade of which could not have been over four inches long. He opened it so quietly that it did not excite my apprehensions in the least, although I had my right hand on my six-shooter, intending to draw and cover him the moment the stage stopped. He made a desperate lunge ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... the book, close to the binding. A page had been cut out with a sharp penknife, so deftly that they had ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... find him hab an hour ago, Massa Geral, when I go to make e beds and put e cabin to rights," said the old man, in a tone that showed he felt, and was pained by the reproof of his young master. "Dis here too," producing a small ivory handled penknife, "I find same time ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... ethereal solution of gold into a wine-glass, and dip into it the blade of a new penknife, lancet, razor, &c., withdraw the instrument and allow the ether to evaporate, the blade will then be found to be covered with a beautiful coat of gold; the blade may be moistened with a clean rag or a small ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... liable to sin, to sleep, to anarchism or to suicide, then all sciences including politics may fall as sterile and lie as fallow as before man's reason was made. Macaulay seemed sometimes to talk as if clocks produced clocks, or guns had families of little pistols, or a penknife littered like a pig. The other view he held was the more or less utilitarian theory of toleration; that we should get the best butcher whether he was a Baptist or a Muggletonian, and the best soldier whether he was a Wesleyan or an Irvingite. The compromise worked ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... to their room early that night where they worked most industriously with scissors and penknife and clothes brush. They had paid a hurried visit to Chicken Little's room when they first came upstairs. This visit did much to sweeten their hour ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... railway; he has begun school late, because he was ill for two years. He is the tallest and the strongest of the class; he lifts a bench with one hand; he is always eating; and he is good. Whatever he is asked for,—a pencil, rubber, paper, or penknife,—he lends or gives it; and he neither talks nor laughs in school: he always sits perfectly motionless on a bench that is too narrow for him, with his spine curved forward, and his big head between ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... your eyes again! You are living your daily life among trifles that one death-stroke may make relics. One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track of a train, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife, the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, which to-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dread memorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... hands to a slave who, armed with a set of small pincers and a penknife (the ancients were unacquainted with scissors), acquitted themselves skilfully of that delicate task—a most grave affair and a tedious operation, as the Roman ladies wore no gloves. Gesticulation was for them a science learnedly termed chironomy. Like ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... making a blow at him, whilst Brady snatched, at a penknife, which one of the others had placed on the table, after picking the tobacco out of his pipe—intending either to stab Traynor, or to cut the knot of the cravat by which he was held. The others, however, interfered, and presented ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms, Cleanly to gird our looser libertines? Give him plain naked words, stripp'd from their shirts, That might beseem plain-dealing Aretine. Ay, there is one, that backs a paper steed, And manageth a penknife gallantly, Strikes his poinardo at a button's breadth, Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns; And, at first volley of his cannon-shot, Batters the walls of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... youthfulness. He put on his black velvet smallclothes, his silk stockings and low shoes with silver buckles, his flowered waistcoat, his high stock and fine French broadcloth coat. His shirt front had two full ruffles beautifully crimped. Miss Recompense did it with a penknife. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... right. The little bag contained only a small silver-handled penknife, a dainty tablet and pencil, a glove-buttoner, a second little handkerchief, fine and ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... from time to time," added the banker, who, having received permission to smoke a cigar, was endeavouring to extract a penknife from ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... it's no easy job, I do assure you, to divide a fowl on a bed, with no plate, no fork, and only a penknife. I can carve well enough under ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... of "Portraits of our Kings and Queens" he put aside as beneath contempt. "Things a Boy Can Do" was more promising. Much more promising. After inspecting a penknife, a pocket-compass, and a pencil-box (which shared the fate of "Portraits of our Kings and Queens"), William returned to "Things a Boy Can Do." As he turned the pages, his face ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... said that the tablecover had been cut into strips to accomplish their purpose; and it was clear that a penknife had been used, for one was found on the floor. Suddenly my attention was called to the fact that two penknives, which no one had hitherto noticed, were produced. They belonged, not to the prisoners, but to ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... connived at nothing, Madame, and I know of no adventurer." Uncle Bob took his penknife from his pocket and tapped on the table with it. His manner was legal in the extreme. He ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... and, having nothing smaller in bills than tens, I was obliged to pay her with this coin. While she was getting ready to leave the office, I sat toying with it and scratched it, as you see, with the point of my penknife; then I gave it to Miss Allandale, and thought no more about the matter. But just before you came in this morning, I received a note from her saying she had been arrested for passing the coin with which I had paid her, it having been declared counterfeit, and she ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... of the best whye veal, cut off the dug and the knuckle, cut the rest into two fillets, and take the fat part and cut it in pieces the thickness of your finger; you must stuff the veal with the fat; make the hole with a penknife, draw it thro' and skewer it round; season it with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and shred parsley; then put it into your stew-pan, with half a pound of butter, (without water) and set it on your stove; let it boil very slow and cover it close up, turning it very often; it will take about ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... fragment is the principal figure in Leopold Robert's first picture, and his masterpiece, L'IMPROVISATEUR, which used to hang in the billiard-room at Neuilly. Either a salvage man, or a looter of enlightened taste, cut it out with a penknife, in the midst of the conflagration, and it is the only ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... with a hooked or knobbed end, with which they belabour their asses sometimes unmercifully. On a certain day, when returning home, riding on his ass, Chantrey was observed by a gentleman to be intently engaged in cutting a stick with his penknife, and, excited by curiosity, he asked the lad what he was doing, when, with great simplicity of manner, but with courtesy, he replied, "I am cutting old Fox's head." Fox was the schoolmaster of the village. ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... 'open (now, very carefully, I beg and beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on my little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl penknife.' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... took the compliment calmly—did not indeed seem to hear it. She was already scratching out the offending words with a sharp penknife, and daintily rewriting them. Then ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Museum drawings one often sees the liberties with the penknife by which the artist would secure difficult effects of snow, or of light on foliage. And sometimes in the margin there are pencil studies from which figures in the illustration have been re-drawn. And nearly always not altogether rubbed out is a first wording ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... brier, bramble, thistle; comb; awn, beggar's lice, bur, burr, catchweed[obs3], cleavers, clivers[obs3], goose, grass, hairif[obs3], hariff, flax comb, hackle, hatchel[obs3], heckle. wedge; knife edge, cutting edge; blade, edge tool, cutlery, knife, penknife, whittle, razor, razor blade, safety razor, straight razor, electric razor; scalpel; bistoury[obs3], lancet; plowshare, coulter, colter[obs3]; hatchet, ax, pickax, mattock, pick, adze, gill; billhook, cleaver, cutter; scythe, sickle; scissors, shears, pruning shears, cutters, wire cutters, nail clipper, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... him. It is the last and the poorest makeshift of a defence to which a man can be brought in his own court! Was it his fault that he was so thin-skinned that all things hurt him? When some coarse man said to him that which ought not to have been said, was it his fault that at every word a penknife had stabbed him? Other men had borne these buffets without shrinking, and had shown themselves thereby to be more useful, much more efficacious; but he could no more imitate them than he could procure for himself the skin of a rhinoceros ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... with poverty, had attracted. Rather than again subject himself to a similar situation, he summoned his young messenger; and, by her assistance, furnished himself with an English hat and coat, whilst with his penknife he cut away the embroidery of the order from the cloth to which ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... some experiments with this well known insecticide, the results of which he communicates to the current number of the Naturalist. A small quantity of the powder was introduced, on the point of a penknife, under a tumbler beneath which various insects were consecutively confined. The movements of the insects brought them in contact with the poison, which readily adhered to their body; in endeavoring to remove it from their appendages a few particles would be carried ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... limp like wet silk. An individual called Kross, probably an insignificant, little man, felt his unimportance so deeply that he gave full licence to his penknife and carved his name in deep letters an inch high. I took a pencil out of my pocket mechanically, and I too scribbled on one of the columns. All that is irrelevant, however. . . You must forgive me —I don't know how ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... doing good turns. They're both cranks in different ways. I know there's a difference, as you say, between just a present and a reward. And it seems silly to say thank you for such a present, just as if it was a penknife or something like that. But we do thank you and we'll take the boat. I just happened to think of a good name for it while you were talking. It was the good turn Pee-wee did yesterday—about the bird, I mean—that made you offer it to us and your giving ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... a penknife. A piece of turf is usually the best place to play. Various positions for throwing the knife are tried by each player, following a regular order of procedure, until he misses, when the knife is surrendered to the next in ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... smile, as you used to do at first, when you come back. You must not be angry with me that I have gone out by myself very often—every day, indeed. I have been so safe. Nobody has ever offered to be rude again to Fanny" (the word "Fanny" was carefully scratched out with a penknife, and me substituted). "But you shall know all when you come. And are you sure you are well—quite—quite well? Do you never have the headaches you complained of sometimes? Do say this? Do you walk out-every day? Is there any ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which gave the King offence. The King agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had made DUKE OF MONMOUTH, to take the following merry vengeance. To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit his nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The King's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting on an assassin to murder the DUKE OF ORMOND as he was returning home from a dinner; and that Duke's spirited ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... He took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket. Opening the large blade, he thrust its point into the object on the table. Little or no resistance seemed to be offered to the passage of the blade, but as it was inserted the tentacula simultaneously began to writhe and twist. Tress ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the remarkable history of the Copris. We cannot deny that the valiant dung-beetle is capable of "evading the accidental" (which to Fabre constitutes one of the distinctive characteristics of the intelligence), since it immediately intervenes if with the point of a penknife we open the roof of its nest and lay bare its egg. "The fragments raised by the knife are immediately brought together and soldered, so that no trace is left of the injury, and all is once more in order." We may read also with what incredible address the mother ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... In the Penknife Scene Clarissa is firmly brave; her Soul abhorred Self-murder, nor would she, as she told Miss Howe, willingly like a Coward quit her Post; but in this Case, could she not have awed Lovelace into Distance, tho' her ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his lords. A physician who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles happened to be present. He had no lances; but he opened a vein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely; but the King ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... utter a deep groan. He was startled, groped in the darkness towards his bed and felt his arm, which was stone cold. He spoke to him and received no answer. He gave the alarm, the watch came in with lights, and it was found that Ledenberg had given himself two mortal wounds in the abdomen with a penknife and then cut his throat with a table-knife which he had secreted, some days before, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... all talking at the same time, I entered the torture chamber. My first impression was one of astonished disgust because of the hideousness of the ink-stained walls, and of the old benches of shiny wood defaced by the penknife carvings of countless school-boys who had been so inexpressibly miserable in this place. Although I was a stranger to my new companions they treated me with the greatest familiarity (they used thee and thou in addressing me) and gave themselves patronizing airs ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... hungry. The ten shillings had, worse luck, lasted all too short. It was now two, ay, nearly three days since I had eaten anything, and I felt somewhat faint; holding the pencil even had taxed me a little. I had half a penknife and a bunch of keys in my pocket, but ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... climbed up a pine and over to the extreme end of a bough; she seemed slow and stupefied in her motions, as if she had drunken of the turpentine and had lost her intelligence. The soft cones of the larch could be easily cut down the centre with a penknife, showing the structure of the cone and the seeds inside each scale. It is for these seeds that birds frequent the fir copses, shearing off the scales with their beaks. One larch cone had still the tuft at the top—a pineapple in miniature. The loudest sound in the wood was the humming ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... wife cannot leave him." So Bridget ran, and the first I heard was the rattle as she pitched down the last six stairs of the first flight headlong. Let us hope she has not broken her leg. I meanwhile am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon corks, and the blade of my own penknife on ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... penknife! Quick, sir, quick! Not that old branch—a sapling. There, that's it. Now you shall hear ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... throat with a feather, nausea is produced; if you wound it with a penknife, pain is induced, but not sickness. So if the soles of the feet of children or their armpits are tickled, convulsive laughter is excited, which ceases the moment the hand is applied, so as to rub them ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... pocket, I found my penknife and cut the rope that tied me. This reminded me of a shipwreck story which Joe had once told me, of a captain who had tied his son to a mast in order that he shouldn't be washed overboard by the gale. So of course it must ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... going out, are surrounded by the usual crowd of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, Heaven knows why, that it is quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at least sixpenny-worth of oranges, a penknife, a pocket-book, a last year's annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a penknife, and tried to scratch out half a line; but he only made a hole in the paper, and was obliged to let the line stand. Then he found he had strangely forgotten to put in the chief thing of all,—about friends telling one another of their faults,—though, ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... Storri, giving the polite Assistant Secretary a kind of leer, "do not that door and lock remind you of the chains and locks upon your leathern letterbags?—a leathern bag which the most ignorant of men would slash wide open with a penknife in an instant and never ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the hearth, there seemed little probability of this panic "taking." Then he calculated the possibilities of secretly cutting away one leg of the table, and so covering the defects of the meal by an unavoidable catastrophe. But he had not his penknife about him, and the two table-knives were ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... the matter in its true light, and so did Ellis, and then they bethought them how they could show him their regard. Unfortunately, as it was the end of the half, none of them had any store of pocket-money remaining; so one proposed offering him a penknife, and another a pocket-comb, and a third an inkstand; indeed, there was no end of the number of small gifts which Monsieur Malin had pressed upon him. He was in ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Executive chamber in my presence as Governor of Tennessee, and said: "Governor, I have been implored by a poor miserable wretch in the penitentiary to bring you this rude fiddle. It was made by his own hands with a penknife during the hours allotted to him for rest. It is absolutely valueless, it is true, but it is his petition to you for mercy. He begged me to say that he has neither attorneys nor influential friends to plead for him; that ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... watched in a blank sort of way Brother Soulsby take out a penknife, and lop an offending twig from a rose-bush against the fence, something occurred to him. There was a curious exception to that rule of Alice's isolation. She had made at least one friend. Levi Gorringe ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... pockets of the dead man's clothes Muller found the following articles: a handkerchief, several tramway tickets, a penknife, a tiny mirror, and comb, and a little book, a cheap novel. He wrapped them all in the handkerchief and put them in his own pocket. The dead man's coat had fallen back from his body during the examination, and as Muller turned the stiffened limbs a little he saw the opening of another ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... of smiling superiority, mingled with a good deal of admiration for the slight active figure arrayed in the blue kirtle and scarlet bodice, on which the warm rays of the late sun fell with so much amorous tenderness. Poor little Lilla! A penknife would have made as much impression as her valorous blows produced on the inflexible, gnarled, knotty old stump she essayed to split in twain. Flushed and breathless with her efforts, she looked prettier than ever, and at last, baffled, she ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... on what terms you have been with this so-called cousin whom you never mentioned to me," said the Baron, paying no heed to Valerie's interjection. "But when he came in I felt as if a penknife had been stuck into my heart. Blinded I may be, but I am not blind. I could read his eyes, and yours. In short, from under that ape's eyelids there flashed sparks that he flung at you—and your eyes!—Oh! you ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... she saw upon the writing table before her a small penknife. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened as she ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... when Harry Esmond, who was indeed but just come to himself, bethought him of a similar accident which he had seen on a ride from Newmarket to Cambridge, and taking off a sleeve of my lord's coat, Harry, with a penknife, opened a vein of his arm, and was greatly relieved, after a moment, to see the blood flow. He was near half an hour before he came to himself, by which time Doctor Tusher and little Frank arrived, and found my lord not a corpse indeed, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... we were at the same place, some Spaniards came into our camp with wine for sale, contained in pigskins carried across mules' backs, one on each side, and whilst the Spaniard was measuring it out of one skin, a hole had been made in the other with a penknife, which lightened both burdens at once considerably, much to the discontent of the Spaniard on finding it out. But I think that all such lesser manoeuvres as this, though bad in themselves, can be perhaps looked over in considering the frequent ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... rounded ends. But its associations render it a treasure among treasures, a rich and priceless gem. For at this Table nearly every man upon the Staff has, from the day it was made, sat and carved his initials upon it with a penknife, when officially elevated to Punch's peerage. As each has died, his successor has taken his place—just as the Institut de France creates Immortals to fill the chairs made vacant by death—and he has cut his initials ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... are drawn. The batten sleeves are small pockets into which thin pieces of cane (called battens) are inserted to help the sail to set nicely. Unless the sail is a good cut to begin with, however, the insertion of these battens will never make it right. The sails should now be cut out with a sharp penknife or scissors, care being taken not to pull the cloth, and especially not along the edges that run across the threads. You then hem the backs and also the foot of the jib. The batten sleeves (which should be of white satin ribbon ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... his penknife and proceeded to impale his cigar upon the blade thereof. "No," he said, to John's proffer of the box, "this 'll last quite a spell yet. Wa'al," he resumed after a moment, in reply to John's remark, "viewin' it all by itself, it was a hard life. A thing ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... he said in his vacuous English voice. "Marshall wrote a 3 by inadvertence and changed it. He borrowed my penknife to erase the figure." ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... recruits of the army of Sir John Falstaff. "A half-faced fellow," so thin that Sir John said, "A foeman might as well level his gun at the edge of a penknife" as at such a starveling.—Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. act iii. sc. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... and in many similar discussions, in which exact mineralogical knowledge was required, it is remarkable how successful Darwin was in making out the true facts with regard to the rocks he studied by the simple aid of a penknife and pocket-lens, supplemented by a few chemical tests and the constant use of the blowpipe. Since his day, the method of study of rocks by thin sections under the microscope has been devised, and has become a most ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... front door lock as he groped his way to the window curtains and pressed back into the semi-circular recess that led out onto a window balcony. As he did so he unlatched the heavily grilled balcony window, drew out his penknife and slit a peephole ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... very simple, for he took the thrush and the lories, inserted a sharp-pointed penknife just through the skin, and then with clever fingers turned the delicate skin back, taking care not to injure the feathers either by the moisture of the bird's flesh or by handling and roughening the plumage, the result being that ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... Christie stole in, hoping that Helen might rouse. She did not, and Christie was about to leave her, when, as she bent to smooth the tumbled coverlet, something dropped at her feet. Only a little pearl-handled penknife of Harry's; but her heart stood still with fear, for it was open, and, as she took it up, a red stain came ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... him up, told him to rest and then follow in my track, abandoning everything. The camels were lying half-dead with necks stretched out. Kasim alone was fit to accompany me farther. He took a spade and a pail and the paunch of the sheep. I had only my watch, compass, a penknife, a pen, and a scrap of paper, two small tins of lobster and chocolate, a small box, matches and ten cigarettes. But the food gave us little satisfaction, for when the mouth, palate, and throat are as dry as the outer skin it is ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... crack across some of the narrow parts. The sides of all the holes must be carved out clean to remove the rough saw marks. This can be done partly by gouges, or still better, the wood may be held up on its edge and the holes cut round with a sharp penknife where the grain allows it. Now turn the work over on its face and carve bevels round each of the holes. This reduces the apparent thickness of wood, and adds to the effect ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletot; and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife (he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... capacity for monotony seemed to engender it. He could sit in Forest Park the whole of a Sunday afternoon, poring over a chance railroad time-table picked up on the bench; paring his straight, clean finger nails with a penknife; observing the carriages go by; or sit beside the lake, watching the skiffs glide about at twenty-five cents the hour; and finally, hat brim down over his eyes, doze until twilight seeped damply ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... motionless, standing, thinking, his look ever fixed upon the card. A certain anger against this piece of paper was awakened in him, a hateful anger which was mingled with a strange sentiment of malice. It was stupid, this whole story! He took a penknife which lay open at his hand, and pricked the card through the middle of-the printed name, as if he were using a ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... both had lived and endured. Hermia had fled to Vallcy to the motherly breast of Mre Gugou, and there perhaps was weeping out her troubles. He took out the square of paper (he had clipped it with his penknife) which bore the address and examined it again. This and the bell were all he had had to start him off on his fateful pilgrimage. But they were enough. She could not have written him after her treatment of him in New York. She had thrown herself upon his mercy, given her message ambiguity ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... forgot, you mean. Don't drag me in the mud," said Sam, with owlish dignity. A small saw cut, cleaned up and widened with a penknife, proved the best; a notch one-fourth inch deep was quickly made in each arrow, and Si set about both glueing and lashing on the feathers, but using ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a steel-plated umbrella (carriage size), with a "non-conducting" handle. When open in a shower, where people are hurrying, let the framework bristle with sharp penknife points. Held firmly in front of you, you will find everyone get out of your way. In entering a crowded omnibus or railway carriage, by touching a knob, let the heat generated by the electric current instantly cause the whole to become ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... dollar with all their simpers. We pass to their noisy hatching- and training-ground, where all the processes of their creation from embryo to maturity are to be rehearsed for our edification. We shall here become learned in the biography of everything a machine can create, from an iron-clad to a penknife or a pocket-handkerchief. In the centre of the immense hall, fourteen hundred and two by three hundred and sixty feet and covering fourteen acres, the demiurges of this nest of Titans, an engine—which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... White Cross Street Library Books, which I have not forgot: but your books were not in a state to be got at then, and Mrs. H. is to let me know when she packs up. They will be sent by sea; and my little praecursor will come to you by the Whitehaven waggon accompanied with pens, penknife &c.—Mrs. Howell was as usual very civil; and asked with great earnestness, if it were likely you would come to Town in the winter. She has a friendly ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... "His watch, his penknife, his gold pencil, and his glasses are now in possession of his son Robert. Nearly all else than these few things have passed out of the family, as Mrs. Lincoln did not wish to retain them. But all were freely ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... taken from them, the mattresses riddled with fragments and soaked with blood. Obviously no living thing could have survived in that awful hail. When the shell came the soldiers were eating walnuts, and on the bed of one lay a walnut half opened and the little penknife he was using, and both were stained. We turned away sickened at the sight, and retraced the passage with the nuns. As we walked along, they pointed out to us marks we had not noticed before—red finger-marks ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... man was particularly severe in his animadversions on Kafers treading the sacred earth which leads to the Kaabe, and the youngsters echoed his insulting language. I found means, however, to show the old man a penknife which I carried in my pocket, and made him a present of it, before he could ask it of me; we then became as great friends as we had been enemies, and his behaviour induced a like change in the others towards ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... adverted to the hole bored with a gimlet in the entry door of Mr. Lincoln's box, and cut out with a penknife. The theory that the pistol-ball of Booth passed through this hole is exploded. And the stage carpenter may have to answer for this little orifice with all his neck. For when Booth leaped from the box he strode straight across the stage by the footlights, reaching the prompter's post, which is immediately ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... He came expecting to find the door open. He tried to get in with the blade of a very small penknife. He could not manage it. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cut open one end of the envelope with a small penknife, and drew out the folded sheet which it contained. As he did so, a small sheet of postage ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... easel just by the side door and was engaged in laboriously copying in pencil Veronese's "Christ in the House of Levi" (the original being a mile away, at the Accademia) from an old copper plate, whistling the while. Having no india-rubber he corrected his errors either with a penknife or a dirty thumb. Art was then more his mistress than Pecunia, for on this occasion he never left his work, although more than one Baedeker was flying ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... liberally furnished with James's powders and febrifuges; but for broken bones, and extracting pieces of pot-metal or copper ship-bolts from shattered limbs, there had been no provision whatever. A dull penknife or razor were substituted for lancets; and for probes there was nothing to be had but pieces of priming wire; the sufferings of those compelled to carry in their cankering wounds the corroding metal, were indescribably ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... Chinese Customs, had occasion to go to Formosa on business, he found it in an old rice hong (shop), and Patridge's name among the rest, spelled with two "r's" (Partridge), whereupon he could not resist the temptation of cutting off the list with his penknife and, on his return to Shanghai, triumphantly handing it to his ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... into the padding of this!" she said. "I can feel it. Can any one lend me pocket-scissors or a penknife?" ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... the letter, and watched her amusedly as she gazed at the first page. On receiving it back again, he took his penknife, carefully cut out the great man's signature, and offered it for ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... piece of ingenious workmanship they have never seen; nor could the most experienced ship carpenter do more justice to the various compartments, appendages, and riggings than has its mute architect, with but very indifferent apparatus—a penknife, a file, and a bradawl being the principal instruments employed in the work. It measures exactly six feet from the figure head to the helm, and is precisely the same extent in height from the top of the mainmast to the keel, the width being of proportional dimensions. The materials are all of ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... mast almost broke the thigh of a captain of infantry, who fell insensible. He was seized by the soldiers, who threw him into the sea. We saved him, and placed him on a barrel, whence he was taken by the rebels, who wished to put out his eyes with a penknife. Exasperated by so much brutality, we no longer restrained ourselves, but rushed in upon them, and charged them with fury. Sword in hand we traversed the line which the soldiers formed, and many paid with their lives the errors of their revolt. Various passengers, during these cruel moments, evinced ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... of a hardy kind. Again and yet again did he return to the charge, pleading, remonstrating, even threatening; holding out every inducement he could think of; even offering the fine penknife with three blades and an ivory handle, which had been given to him only yesterday by the Sitt Jane. He held this treasure up before his patient's eyes, opening the blades one by one to display the glory of it. But Iskender still sat on composedly, smiling into distance, ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... you mean," returned the clerk, whose knowledge of Raffles and his Relics was really most comprehensive on the whole. He moved some of the minor memorials and with his penknife raised the ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... o' life, Scent bottle, Penknife. Cheek cherry, Neck o' grace, Chin o' pluck— That's your face. Shoulder o' mutton, Breast o' fat, Vinegar-bottle, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... inflammation, swelling or congealed blood happens to be contracted in the womb under the film of these tumours, either before or after the birth, let the midwife lance it with a penknife or any suitable instrument, and squeeze out the matter, healing it with a pessary dipped ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... on the edge of the table, tapped his pipe against it, and loosened the contents scientifically with his penknife before ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... door shut, and Edmund went into his study. An hour later he also went out, and I was left alone once more. I went back into the drawing-room; the rose-leaves were fading on the floor; and on the table lay George Manners' penknife. It was a new one, that he had been showing to me, and had left behind him. I kissed it and put it in my pocket: then I knelt down by the chair, Nell, and wept till I prayed; and then prayed till ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the issue go, and made no reply. After he had used a penknife on the cigar-end to his satisfaction, he said:—"Exactly when ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... told her, it was not designed to carry her any where against her will: but, if it were, they should take care not to be frighted again by a penknife. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... would be more in harmony," says Mr. Kelly, seriously. He has extracted the bullet in question from the wall with the aid of a stout penknife, and is now regarding it mournfully as it lies in the palm of his hand. "Don't you think they take a very unfair advantage of you?" he says, mildly. "They come here and shoot at you; why don't you go to their cabins ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... pieces of lead did not appear to interest him very much, but he asked me to push the smaller piece from the foot of the coffin. He examined the lining, felt the padding, tried its thickness with the point of a penknife, and in doing so he slit ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... a bit of meat, wrapped in brown paper, upon the table, and with a penknife cut it into shreds. The milk he took from a bottle which had served for medicine, and poured it into the saucer on ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... a very smart young gentleman who wore his hat on his right whisker, and was lounging over the desk, killing flies with a ruler. Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, was balancing himself on two legs of an office stool, spearing a wafer-box with a penknife, which he dropped every now and then with great dexterity into the very centre of a small red wafer that was stuck outside. Both gentlemen had very open waistcoats and very rolling collars, and very small boots, and very big rings, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens |
