"Rap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... happy place, even for these young heathen who were enjoying their bodies too much to care particularly about their souls. And when the superintendent stood up to rap the school to order for the close of the session, and line out one of Watts's sober hymns, there was a pleasant flutter of getting ready, and the smart young man of the neighborhood took his tuning-fork from his vest pocket to hit against his ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... person and make ye merry, thou and she, until the sun shall rise and thou art bound to wend palace- wards.'" "'Tis well," quoth she and seated him and designed to take seat beside him when behold, came a rap at the door and he cried, "Who is that?" and she replied, "Allah only is Omniscient, but haply 'tis my husband." So he was startled and afeard, and when she whispered to him, "Up and enter yon closet," he did her bidding and found a facing him therein the Pieman and the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... another rap on the door, and Mrs. Rawson exclaimed, "Put up your sewing, girls. We've business of another sort to attend ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true, we may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct, as Poor Richard says: However, remember this, They that won't be counseled, can't be helped, as Poor Richard says: and farther, That if you will not hear Reason, she'll surely rap your Knuckles. ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... better than he anticipated. The Pelican and the Curlew were at Diablo by now. He should hear from them any minute. While he was waiting there was much that he could do. He took up his personal bank-book and began to balance it. A low rap at ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... permanency of the Union was not beginning to be shaken—whereupon the homely President told a little story: "When I was a young man in Illinois," said he, "I boarded for a time with a deacon of the Presbyterian church. One night I was roused from my sleep by a rap at the door, and I heard the deacon's voice exclaiming, 'Arise, Abraham! the day of judgment has come!' I sprang from my bed and rushed to the window, and saw the stars falling in great showers; but looking back of them in the heavens I saw the grand old constellations, with which ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... that the shutting of the door was now clearly audible, and there followed the distinct sound of some one moving in the main office. Then the door in the passageway swung open and footsteps pattered, coming nearer. The light firm steps drew nearer, halted; and there came a small rap ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... another voice, and the second head produced a hand and arm which proceeded calmly to rap the knuckles of the one who dangled. The latter let go. Finding himself uninjured by the three-foot fall, he looked up wrathfully at his late assailant. That youth was in the act of swinging his own legs over. The first-comer, with ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... words they overlie, that one comes at last to groan and change color at the very sight of a package, and to dread the postman's knock as if it were that of the other visitor whose naked knuckles rap at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... she would demand a higher price than he had offered. Well, he must pay it somehow. Heron would lend him the money—but no, there were reasons why O'Reilly didn't wish to accept favours from Heron, often as they had been pressed upon him. As he slipped into his coat, he heard the expected rap at his sitting-room door, and hurried to open it. A page-boy, acting as guide, had run ahead of the lady, ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... there was a sharp rap on the table, and a voice was heard, saying, "The meeting will please ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... up an' see if ole marse was well, how maybe he didn' feel like gettin' up an' might want to take his breakfas' in bed. But Lor! I nebber participated sich a sarious 'tack as dis. Well, den, John he went an' rapped soft like. But he didn't get no answer. Den he rap little louder. But still no answer. Den John he got scared, awful scared. Las' John he plucks up courage, an' unlocks de do', slow an' saf', an' goes in on tiptoe to de bedside, an'—an'—an'—dis yer is wot he seen. He t'ought his ole marse ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... it, and I shall append no credit to the tale until I do know. He is headstrong, but he answers to a rap." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of tears behind them, which she could not or would not shed? I sat in pain the whole day until evening, and the more because she seemed rather to avoid me. But at night, when we had parted, and all was quiet in the dormitories, a very faint rap came at the door of my cell. I bade the applicant enter in ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, you know—turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... there we are equal; each claims yon interesting lad, and there again we are on a par. But, my lord—and here we come to the inequality, and what I consider the unfairness of the thing—you have thirty thousand francs, and I, my lord, have not a rap. You mark me! not a rap, my lord! My lord, put yourself in my position; consider what must be my feelings, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reached that point where his word would have most effect, Steve Gilbert said, while opening the hearth to rap out the ashes of his pipe, "Sam's wife heerd that he was kind o' thinkin' some of goin' into business here, if things suited ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... and fifty, but that's very little. She says they have a semi-detached house almost on the road, and hardly a bit of garden. And the wall to next-door is so thin they hear everything. When her baby cries—they rap. And people stand against the railings and talk.... Can't we wait? ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... passage outside his room, doing all those things which women do who wish to rout a man out of bed without moving Uncle James an inch. Footsteps might patter outside his door; voices might call one to the other; knuckles might rap the panels; relays of shaving-water might be dumped on his wash-stand; but devil a bit would Uncle James budge, till finally the enemy, giving in, would bring him his breakfast in bed. Then, after a leisurely cigar, he would at last rise and, having dressed himself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... irritation flashed over me. "Don't stare at me like that. You'll have it yourself to-morrow," I shouted. "The whole of the blessed city will have it." A loud rap at the door interrupted me. I jumped up, darted across the room and threw myself under the bed. "Don't let anyone in," I whispered. The rap was repeated. Sarakoff's ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... button your under and upper coat completely, and never attempt to get at it until the door is opened, and then let it be nothing under a five-shilling piece. Never ask any one to speak to the conductor for you, but hit or poke him with your umbrella or stick, or rap his hand as it rests on the door. He puts it there on purpose. Always stop the wrong omnibus, and ask if the Paddington goes to Walworth, and the Kennington to Whitechapel: you are not obliged to read all the rigmarole they paint on the outside. Finally, consider an omnibus as a carriage, a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... home an' I'll see this bucko to th' station. Here, you!"—to Warburton, who was still dumb with astonishment at the extraordinary denouement to his innocent joke. "Git on that horse, an' lively, too, or I'll rap ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... money, pitched the purse away, so that it could not be easily got again; and, one by one, I swallowed the coins, and just as I was getting the sixpence down my throat the 'bobby' had a hold of me by the collar. Of course he was too late. I hadn't a rap in my pockets, but it was very near a 'legging' for me. I had another narrow escape not long before I got this bit. I knew a gentleman's house where they laid out the breakfast dishes on the table for an hour before they took breakfast. During this hour the room was left untenanted, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... concurred, giving Tom a rap on the shoulder. "And now you know, you won't tell? You won't tell that I've gone to New York?" ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... polished disc of metal went to and fro, and said 'tick, tick.' But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his mother's spinning wheel, that stood just underneath it. That was the boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not touch it, for if he meddled with it he got a rap on the knuckles. For hours together, when his mother was spinning, he would sit quietly by her side, watching the murmuring spindle and the revolving wheel, and as he sat he thought of many things. Oh, if he might only turn the wheel himself! Father and mother were asleep; he looked ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... up. Have a smoke. Pay me the five Friday, or pay it to my foreman when he puts you on the cattle-boat. I don't care a rap which. You're all right. ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... many years ago. It is that sort of thing "Kappa" must invert if he wants a change in our public schools. You may arrange and rearrange curricula, abolish Greek, substitute "science"—it will not matter a rap. Even those model canoes of yours, "Kappa," will be wasted if you still insist upon model schoolmasters. So long as we require our schoolmasters to be politic, conforming, undisturbing men, setting up Polonius ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... rammed down my throat all along. What you're thinking of now. You're not thinking of me; you're thinking of yourself, and how respectable you are, and how I've dished you. You don't want me to take my wife back because you care a rap about me and my children. It's because you're afraid. That's what it is, you're afraid. You're afraid of the rotten scandal; you're afraid of what people'll say; you're afraid of not looking respectable any more. You know what my wife's ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... door, mammy," she said, "I thought I heard a rap." Then at sight of Elsie, the magazine was hastily tossed aside, and with a cry of joy, "Oh, you darling! I thought I'd never see you again," she sprang forward, caught her friend in a close embrace, and ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... there alone, and said "Come in" in answer to her rap at the door. The members of the Sixth kept much on their dignity, so it was rather a formidable undertaking even for a Fifth Form girl to interrupt the head of the school. Margaret looked ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... seat at one of the tables, and gave a thundering rap to summon the waiter. All the cafe had been startled by the advent of the large foreigner. And evidently a rich man, for he was an Englishman, as they thought. So up came the waiter with a very low bow, and a very dirty ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... at Exeter Hall, while engaged in the same cause, Brougham got a severe rap on the knuckles from Mr. Handley—one of those rebuffs to which, with all his talents, he exposes himself, from his tricks and his violence, and, above all, his want of truth. Brougham made a speech, in which he belaboured ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to. Though not so tall as a west of London footman, he was as shapely; and he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of money in the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely. The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stared at the breathless suddenness of the suggestion, she continued with her easy laugh: "You don't know them and they don't know you; but that don't make a rap of difference. They've taken the Van Alstyne place at Roslyn, and I've got CARTE BLANCHE to bring my friends down there—the more the merrier. They do things awfully well, and there's to be rather ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... humor or prejudice in his curious definitions. In defining "oats," for example, as a grain given in England to horses and in Scotland to the people, he indulges his prejudice against the Scotch, whom he never understood, just as, in his definition of "pension," he takes occasion to rap the writers who had flattered their patrons since the days of Elizabeth; though he afterwards accepted a comfortable pension for himself. With characteristic honesty he refused to alter his definition in subsequent ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... virtuous remark escaped me on the last page, and I almost feel like asking the Grand-duchess's pardon, for, whatever I am, I'm no hypocrite. Melita is said to have a lover; I have an admirer. Up to now I don't care a rap for him, but ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... her: that is his civic establishment in Medical-School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him. Not to the reign of Brotherhood and Perfect Felicity; yet surely on the way towards that?—Hark, a rap again! A musical woman's-voice, refusing to be rejected: it is the Citoyenne who would do France a service. Marat, recognising from within, cries, Admit her. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... eleven. Tell Mustapha to be at the wall where you departed from my house, at that hour, and to rap upon the large stone with the handle of his knife, giving the signal ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... was going on round the table was soon interrupted by a loud rap upon the door, made by a heavy staff, such as the Count's followers usually carried when they went on messages. Randolphe was not fond of receiving visits from the Count's people, and he now desired Robin to go to the door, and see what was wanted. The message ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... terrible iron, and ran out a hundred fathoms of line; but it was soon overhauled and killed. All this time the dam kept close to the side of its calf, and not until a harpoon was plunged into her own side would she move away. Two boats were after her. With a single rap of her tail she cut one of the boats in two, and then darted off. But in a short time she turned and came back. Her feelings of anxiety had returned, no doubt, after the first sting of pain was over, and she died at last close to the side ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... the least forewarning, there came a smart rap on the door. The sound smote the company of whispering, laughing girls into a company of frightened, trembling culprits. They hardly dared breathe, and when the commanding rap came for a second time neither Ruth nor Helen had strength enough in their ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... Hitherto, to tell you the truth, I have been a little frightened at the bare idea. One has so many object lessons! I know a man who was married a week or so ago. He was immensely fond of the girl, but I can swear she doesn't care for him a rap. Yet I imagine she succeeded in satisfying him that she was—well, over head and ears in love! So she was with ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... shuffling slowly off down the passage. In a little while he returns to Smith's door, evidently not satisfied in his mind. Rap, rap, rap! ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... stander by, lay it theron, saying, that you meane to cast all those three Balls into your mouth at once: and holding a knife as a penne in your hand, when he is laying vpon the poynt of your knife, you may easily with the haft rap him on the fingers, for the other matter will ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... us to our journey's end," said Jacques in a whisper; "the sight of them gives me fresh courage. I care not a rap of the fingers ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... what he meant than if he had addressed him in Hindoo, and he gave the matter little or no further thought. He was in his room poring over his books the second day after the interview, when there came a rap ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... old gentleman, not willing to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether the bank-president was or was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... his head off," Doctor Masters was contending. "The police had to rap him with their clubs in the ambulance. He was violent. He wanted his dog. It can't be done. It's too raw. You can't steal his dog this way. He'll make a howl in ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... blood warmed his body. He became uncomfortably aware of the presence of his head and face, however. He could hear stealthy movements beyond the door, and knew they were barricading it with furniture. Long before daylight a hurried removal of the barricade awoke him. Then he heard a rap at the door, and the ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the clattering and rasping of orders and commands repeatedly woke us up. Then again, at frequent intervals, the sentry would enter. Seeing me asleep he would either give me a prod with his bayonet or a smart rap with the butt-end of his rifle to wake me up, the idea no doubt being to impress upon me the serious nature of my position and to inflict upon ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... What does this mean?" The doctor looked in amazement at Miss Blair as she opened the door to his rap, the same evening that Moore gave his dinner to her brother. Traces of tears were to be seen; indeed, more tears seemed ready to fall, despite ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... slave immigration had transported the South to the verge of disunion. California, fought over by the two foes, was in the act of withdrawing herself from the field of contention to a position of independent Statehood. It was her rap for admission into the Union as a free State which precipitated upon the country the last of the compromises between freedom and slavery. It sounded the opening of the final act of Southern ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... for every man to follow his own ideas, don't you think, Mr. Revercomb?" he replied, advocating in his resentment a principle which he would have been the first to rap soundly had it been advanced by one of his parishioners. "I mean, of course, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... care a rap about that,' he said. 'I shall not need to talk to her except to tell her what I will have for dinner, and if she is deaf she won't want to be away gossiping. Does she ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... and his department. The publicity, he was convinced, resulted from discrimination on the part of "the Negro and liberal press" (p. 324) against the Army's policy in favor of the Navy and Air Force. He was particularly incensed at the way the junior services had escaped the "rap"—his word—on racial matters. He ascribed it in large part, he told the Secretary of Defense in September 1948, to the "unfortunate" National Defense Conference, the gathering of black spokesmen held under ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... with us, because it is imperfect, and unconsciously we tell the best account of things, but I fancy I was wondering on this text when there came at my door the sharp rap of bony, hurried knuckles. "Enter!" I said, and in marched the corporal of the guard. His hand went easily to the salute. He had a ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... snore, and Daniel was horrified to see Gran'ther Wattles lean over and gently tickle the Captain's nose with the squirrel-tail. The Captain woke with a start and sneezed so violently that the boy next Daniel all but tittered outright. Gran'ther Wattles immediately gave him a smart rap on the head with the knob end of his stick, so it is no wonder that after that Daniel sat with his eyes nearly crossed in his effort to keep them fixed on the minister, though his thoughts were far away ranging Massachusetts Bay with the ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... court-martial, but most of the detail was made up of infantrymen and staff-officers from Crook's head-quarters, and, by ——! they didn't seem to think it any sin for a soldier to threaten to cut his captain's heart out, and Crook himself gave me a sort of a rap in his remarks on the case, and—well, they just let O'Grady off scot-free between them, gave him some little fine, and did more harm than good. He's just as surly and insolent now when I speak to him as he was that night when drunk. Here, I'll show you." And with that Captain Buxton ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... comment upon his words, there was the sound of a faint rap at the door. Then it opened, and through the dense blue haze of the room they saw some shadowed forms softly indistinct save where the light from the ceiling outside shone down upon a group of coiffured heads. A noise of mingled coughing and ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Individual shook off her fears, and ascended rapidly. Being somewhat unfamiliar with the etiquette of shoemaker's shop, she hesitated whether to knock or plunge at once into the middle of things, but decided to err on the safe side, and gave a very moderate and conservative rap. Silence. A louder knock. The door rattled. Louder still. The whole building shook. Knuckles filed a caveat. Applied the heel of the dilapidated boot in her hand. Suffocated with a cloud of dust thence ensuing. Contemplated the nature of things for a while. Heard a voice. A man ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... a peremptory rap on the door, startled the girl back to a realisation of the flight of time. The sun had set, and a grey light filled the room. Without a passing thought of the tears upon her face, she lowered the bolt and ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying south—clatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone. A dim group of people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... Black Bart and Dan glided to the door and peered into the night—then Barry went back, step by step, until his back was once more to the wall. Not until that instant did the others hear. It was a step which approached behind the house; a loud rap ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... pocket aw hav'nt a rap, Nor a crust, nor a handful o' mail; An unless we can get it o'th' strap, We mun pine, or mun beg, or ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... A rap-a-tap-tap on the knocker sounded sharply and then, before either Judith or Elinor could move, the door was flung open and Patricia, followed by Bruce and Mrs. Spicer, ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... loved the sea were early on deck for exercise and fresh air. These early risers were well repaid, as the steamer was passing through a great school of porpoises that sometimes venture long distances from the British Islands. Alfonso ran to rap at Lucille's door and she hurried on deck to enjoy the sight. Hundreds of acres of the ocean were alive with porpoises or sea hogs as sailors often ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... pause which ensued; "I agree with you that one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse his portion of the common lot; but the effects of even a rebuff may last so long that one has no heart to put out his hand a second time—for a second rap over the knuckles. Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and how what is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful for in most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you doubtful whether you were ever really intended ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... part, that she would have drawn back again, if it had been possible; but the usher led her forward, and Robin Hood and the foresters having bent the knee before her, the hobby-horse began to curvet anew among the spectators, and tread on their toes, the fool to rap their knuckles with his bauble, the piper to play, the taborer to beat his tambourine, and the morris-dancers to toss their kerchiefs over their heads. Thus the pageant being put in motion, the rush-cart ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was talking about my sister, Margaret. I can still see her weaving the cloth—Boom!... Boom!—and she hear that all the day and get mighty tired. Sometimes she drop her head and go to sleep. The Mistress get her then sure. Rap her on the head with almost anything handy, but she hit pretty easy, just trying to scare ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... "mistress" had touched him, also, to anxiety, and he motioned the herder to repeat his statement. He then straightened himself to almost the erectness of the younger man, and begun at once to gather his rushes and rap them carefully in a moistened cloth. With an expressive gesture toward his cabin, he suggested that Samson was free to enter it and provide such entertainment for himself as he chose, or could find. And so well did the herder know the shepherd that he fully understood this ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... dropped on the carpet from her frock and her shoes, as she advanced towards the place in which I was sitting. Arrived in front of me, she peered quaintly up at my face, through the obscurity of the room; lifted her doll by the legs; hit me a smart rap with the head of it on my knee; ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... warmed the cockles of his heart Gourlay ceased to care a rap for the sniggerers. Drink deadened his nervous perception of the critics on his right and left, and set him free to follow his idea undisturbed. It was an idea he had long cherished—being one of the few that ever occurred to him. He rarely made ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... what could have been wrong with her health. She had a beautiful colour, and a deuce of a lot of fair hair. She didn't care a rap for wind, or rain, or spray, or sun, or green seas, or anything. She was a blue-eyed, jolly girl of the very best sort, but the way she cheeked my big brother used to frighten me. I always expected it to end in an awful row. However, nothing decisive happened till after ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... I hear that other chap Congratulate himself because He gave "some time"—I'd like to rap Him once across his selfish paws! (Because I have met him— ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... A reverberating rap immediately behind her, caused Peggy to turn with a start and throw open the door, whereupon the figure on the step entered without waiting for an invitation. It was Jerry Morton, but a Jerry startlingly unlike his every-day self. Even the fact that he was dripping with rain could not ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... playing in the adjoining yard admitted, after some coaxing, that she knew where Alice could be found. Pointing down the street, she said: "See dat house wid de sheet hangin' out in front. Dat's whar Aunt Alice lives now." A few moments later a rap on the door of the house designated was answered by ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... bring down his stick with furious whack upon the youngster's scalp; his blow was unfailingly parried. It was soon evident to the man that the boy was playing with him, and when twice or thrice he received a rap on his shoulder, his arm, his knuckles even, his fury got quite beyond his control, and he struck out blindly and viciously, forcing the lad backwards towards the edge ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... it in, cram it in— Children's heads are hollow; Rap it in, tap it in— Bang it in, slam it in Ancient archaeology, Aryan philology, Prosody, zoology, Physics, climatology, Calculus and mathematics, Rhetoric and hydrostatics. Stuff the school children, fill up the heads of them, Send them all lesson-full home to the beds of them; When ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly greased with the best watch-maker's oil—selected a ball perfectly round and true—laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Rebecca lifted her knuckles to rap; but old Antony's not over clean clout was pushed each time between Sister Mary Rebecca's ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... said decidedly. "If it was a ghost it wouldn't rap: it would come through the keyhole." Liddy looked at the keyhole. "But it sounds very much as though some one is trying ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to take the protection that the wagon offered. He stood his ground, stick held firmly in both hands, awaiting a chance to rap the boy or the goat ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... creeper shaded the front porch of Mary's five-room frame house, where a rap on the front door brought the response: "Here I am, honey! Come right on through the house to the back porch." The aged mulatto woman was hanging out clothes on a line suspended between two peach trees. To the inquiry for Mary, she answered: "Yes, Honey, this is Mary. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... the house, and banishing at once the occurrence from her mind, she did not give it a second thought. At night, however, while she was waiting to go to bed, she suddenly heard a sound like a rap at the door. A band of men boisterously cried out: "We are messengers, deputed by the worthy magistrate of this district, and come to summon one of you to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... an Irishman, which made me feel that these gaudy colours I have burst into are not so famous as I supposed; and on the eighth day I find myself insulted in twenty-seven places by an angry mosquito, whom in the small hours of the morning I had occasion to rap over the knuckles and turn out of my billet. And I've got a nasty cold, and nobody loves me or cleans my buttons, and if I want to go anywhere there are no more motor cars and they make me pay a penny for the tram, and my wife doesn't think I'm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... Vincent shook with rage. "It isn't true!" she cried. "The Blessed Virgin doesn't care a rap about me. She doesn't tell the truth! Why did she deceive me? I should never have gone to Lourdes if I hadn't heard that voice in a church. My little girl would still be alive, and perhaps the doctors would ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... scarce in that;" for it is true, "we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct," as Poor Richard says. However, remember this: "they that won't be counseled can't be helped," as Poor Richard says; and further, that "if you will not hear reason she'll surely rap your knuckles." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... had lived whose house had been one of her stations of the under-ground, or unseen railroad. They reached the house, and leaving her party huddled together in the middle of the street, in a pouring rain, Harriet went to the door, and gave the peculiar rap which was her customary signal to her friends. There was not the usual ready response, and she was obliged to repeat the signal several times. At length a window was raised, and the head of a white man appeared, with the gruff ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... "and that's for you to judge, general. It was the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour after Judy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle at the Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of Stonewall Jackson's—But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, with things ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... latter slid into the water, Bullen held him by the scalp-lock, while Donald severed the thong that bound his wrists. In his rage, the Indian attempted to seize the gunwale of the canoe and pull it under; but, anticipating this, Donald struck him a rap on the head with the back of the knife that caused ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... here directly," Zo proceeded. "You look out! She'd rap your knuckles—only you're too big. If it wasn't raining, I'd run away." Carmina assumed an air of severity, and entered a serious protest adapted to her young friend's intelligence. She might as well have spoken in a foreign language. Zo had another reason to give, besides ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... his seeing me. Couldn't you rap him up at his own door, and hold him in talk a minute, while I looked on from the carriage or whatever vehicle we can get to carry us there? The least glimpse of his face would ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... there was little more of the Dismal Swamp left, and when I reached over to the opposite end of the kid, I received a rap on the knuckles from a spoon, and was told that I must help myself from my own side, for that was the rule. But my side was scraped clean, so I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... was awaked by hearing the sound of footsteps moving along the passage, and soon afterwards there was a rap at the door. I jumped out of bed, and asked who it was. It was the butler, who entered the room ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the court seemed to have halted by tacit consent, in anticipation of a quick verdict. The suspense did not last long. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when there was a rap on the door, the officer opened it, and the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... a girls' school. It starts without warning, generally on a hot afternoon, among the elder pupils. A girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then she throws up her head and cries, "Honk, honk, honk," like a wild goose, and tears mix with the laughter. If the mistress be wise, she will rap out something severe at this point to check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and send for a drink of water, the chances are largely in favour of another girl laughing at the afflicted one and herself ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... It's beginning all over again. Rain by the bucketfuls against the window-panes. Something in the chimney is trying to imitate that far-away rumbling. Everything's falling to pieces ... and She gave me a rap ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... threatened an attack on the Batlaping and the mission premises. The dreaded Mantatees were also reported to be in the neighbourhood. One night when Mary Moffat was alone with her little ones and the two Bushmen children, Mr. Hamilton and the assistants being away at the new station, a loud rap came at the door, and inquiring who was there, Mothibi himself replied. He brought word that ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... book and brief note of kind words. One Saturday morning she sat quite alone in her small room; the week had been specially painful, and, wearied in soul, the girl laid her head down on her folded arms, and thought of her home in the far South. A loud rap startled her from this painful reverie, and ere she could utter the stereotyped "come in," Louisa ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... who got me out of my scrape said we must. He says we have got to make Thompson's farm as quickly as possible and stay there until the storm blows over," insisted Lieutenant Wingate. "Of course, I don't give a rap for myself, but I have a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... lately I saw in my newspaper an announcement that enraged me. It was made in the driest, most casual way, as though nobody would care a rap; and this did but whet the wrath I had in knowing that Adam Street, Adelphi, was to be undone. The Tivoli Music Hall, about to be demolished and built anew, was to have a frontage of thirty feet, if you please, in Adam Street. Why? Because the London County Council, with its ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... cardinal one, because until we grasp it not only does historical Christianity remain unintelligible to us, but those who do not care a rap about historical Christianity may be led into the mistake of supposing that if we discard revenge, and treat murderers exactly as God treated Cain: that is, exempt them from punishment by putting a brand on them as unworthy to be sacrificed, and let them face the world as best ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... of feet outside the door, a clinking of glass and crockery, and a jarring sort of blow, as if some one were trying to rap on the panel with the edge of a heavy-laden waiter. Bartley threw the door open and found the landlord there, red and smiling, with the ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... nearly two hours before he came; but when he did come, we saluted him with a rap on the head, that made him hold his tongue; and then we set to, and gave him such a tremendous drubbing, that we left him insensible; but he was soon taken away by some watchmen, and we heard that he was doing well; but he was dreadfully beaten; indeed, it would take him some weeks before he could ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... you know about it! Nobody cares a rap for connections nowadays, even if old Frank were a connection to do ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... produced less however, even though they felt more. A super-cat artist would have valued the pictures he drew for their effects on himself; he wouldn't have cared a rap whether anyone else saw them or not. He would not have bothered, usually, to give any form to his conceptions. Simply to have had the sensation would have for him been enough. But since simians love to be noticed, it does not content them to have a conception; they must wrestle with it until ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... doesn't care a rap about this kind of thing. He has changed so in the last seven years. Seven years ago he took nothing seriously. Why, he set off on an expedition to the South Pole—just to show off. Oh, in those days he was ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... Another rap at the door announced more dogs, and as the man opened it to get out with his singed possum, a genus who evidently "killed for Keyser," rushed in with a pair of the ugliest-looking—savage—snub-nosed, slaughter-house pups, "the fancy" ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... time between? "Here, Betty, let me take my drops; And feel my pulse, I know it stops; This head of mine, lord, how it swims! And such a pain in all my limbs!" "Dear madam, try to take a nap"— But now they hear a footman's rap: "Go, run, and light the ladies up: It must be one before we sup." The table, cards, and counters, set, And all the gamester ladies met, Her spleen and fits recover'd quite, Our madam can sit up all night; "Whoever comes, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... the stairway a footstep was heard And a rap-a-tap loud at the door, And the flickering hope that had been long deferred Blazed up like a beacon once more; And there entered a man with a cynical smile That was fringed with a stubble of red, Who remarked, as he tilted a sorry old tile To the ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... that there came very early one morning, before the break of day, a wounded man assisted by a woman. The woman gave a peculiar rap at the door. There was a quick scurry inside, as of ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... assembled in a wide circle around the fireplace. The mistress of the house, sustained in her part by the sympathizing glances of the old merchant, submitted with wonderful courage to the minute questioning and stupid, or frivolous, comments of her visitors. At every rap upon her door, every footfall echoing in the street, she hid her emotions by starting topics relating to the interests of the town, and she raised such a lively discussion on the quality of ciders, which was ably seconded by the old merchant, that the company almost forgot ...
— The Recruit • Honore de Balzac
... Judge, purple with anger, stalked majestically away from his tormentor without arriving at any adequate reply, and Jimmy was left alone. In the gray, cold dawn of four o'clock the next morning, as Jim followed the porter out, he paused behind just long enough to rap loudly on the Judge's stateroom door and to explain, "Baltimore. I'm leaving you ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... window he could see the surrounding park-like avenues of oaks and the level white high road, now and then clouded with the dust of passing teams. But his eyes were persistently fixed upon a small copy of the American Constitution before him. Suddenly there was a quick rap on his door, and before he could reply to it ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... harm you do me," rejoined the Amazon. "What! you still hesitate! Will that rouse you, coward?" And she gave him a smart rap ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... altered tone, and the expression of her face seemed to soften. But before she could make answer there was a rap at the door. It opened, and Brutus ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... up and giving Micho a rap on the nose]. You have what is lacking there. Measure again. Now you've got what is lacking. I will tear your soul out of your body if you measure so that in seven arschin[44] it comes out ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... rap sounded on the front door—a brisk, imperative rap which brooked no delay. Pixie darted forward, imagining a surprise visit from the doctor, and found herself confronted by a man in black, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... very noteworthy fact: from the point of view of a London manager the scenery and appointments were contemptible, and this apparently did not matter a rap. An audience, five-sixths of it British, was enthralled by these players, although the scenery and the furniture of the indoor sets had no pretension to magnificence, were sometimes almost ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... familiar knock sounded through the flat; it was a heavy rap followed by half-a-dozen light ones, like a reverberating echo, the last stroke scarcely audible. Reardon laid down his book, but kept his pipe in his mouth, and went to the door. A tall, thin man stood there, with a slouch hat and long grey overcoat. He shook hands silently, hung his ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... rapid spelling, by rapping impatiently on the latter with the point—the point being lifted off the board at such times half an inch or so, and the board remaining planted on its two hind legs. I have seen the front leg of the board rap a dozen or so times on a letter that had been omitted; and sometimes the board would get so violent that it had to be quieted—just as the hand in automatic writing has to be quieted. Then, again, the board ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... A sharp rap sounded upon the door, and at once a soldier entered. He advanced to the centre of the room, stopped, clicked his heels together, saluted, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody |
