"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... room was just opened, and in the crack I saw the face of Zinaida, pale and pensive, her hair flung carelessly back; she stared at me with big chilly eyes, and softly closed ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... whether the beautiful woman, who had visited the house two nights before, had changed his master's face so. He noticed, too, that Geoffrey was smartly dressed, and that he had tied his neck-tie with great care, and had put on a coat from one of the crack New York tailors, so that when the old servitor disappeared to polish his master's boots he said ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... will now come into play. Pass the ends of the cords through the hole in its centre and rest the edge of the board on the top pair of sticks, taking care that it is the tip of the grain of the wood instead of its side, as otherwise it would be likely to crack from the pressure that is about to be brought upon it. Have ready a stout peg of hard wood, and laying it over the hole in the board, and between the strings, proceed to tie the latter as tightly as possible ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... was scairt, an' bellered louder than afore, so the Pooka, wid his hoof, give him a crack on the back that knocked the ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... opening the door, the sonorous mumble sounding through the deal panels misled me. Believing the Spiker family at prayers, I stood reverently without until the service seemed to last too long to be one of devotion. Then I opened a crack and peeked in. Seeing a lone man at the distant end of the room, I entered. Elmer's back was toward me and my presence was unnoticed. His eyes were ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... by that narrow breach in the walls so cunningly concealed by the undergrowth and closed by the rudely made door of planks nailed together. Above, in the stone roof of the chamber, there was a wide crack running obliquely, and through which any sound could be heard ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Petersburg climate was responsible for this. As for his official rank—with us Russians the rank comes first—he was what is called a perpetual titular councillor, over which, as is well known, some writers make merry and crack their jokes, obeying the praiseworthy custom of attacking those who ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... twice they brathed, and still The dew of their great labor, and the blood Of their strong bodies, flowing, drain'd their force. But either's force was match'd till Yniol's cry "Remember that great insult done the Queen," Increased Geraint's, who heaved his blade aloft, And crack'd the helmet thro', and bit the bone And fell'd him, and set foot upon his breast And said, "Thy name?" To whom the fallen man Made answer, groaning, "Edyrn, son of Nudd! Ashamed am I that I should tell it them. My pride is broken: men have seen ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... spoil of continents; but soon, how soon, to be laid low! Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you shall perhaps be startled by the detonation of the judgment gun—not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon, but deep-mouthed and unctuously solemn. Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the flames break forth. Ay," he cried, stretching forth his hand, "ay, that will be a day of retribution. Then shall the pallid constable flee side ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... satisfy him, and as he seemed to be one of those quarrelsome fellows that are the bane of every community, I took him suddenly by the throat and the shoulder, and bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I heard it crack, and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had seen what had befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from slipping to the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his head nodded ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky and hunt up his wife, that he'd run off and left some time prev'ous. As the date gits clost for him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He'd skerce crack a smile. The night before the stage was comin' to git him, he was settin' in a 'dobe with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of his chair, with his hands in ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... gentleness, receives the advice with scorn and contempt, and Oceanus retires. But the courage which he lacks his daughters possess to the full; they remain by Prometheus to the end, and share his fate, literally in the crack of doom. But before the end, the strange half human figure of Io, victim of the lust of Zeus and the jealousy of Hera, comes wandering by, and tells Prometheus of her wrongs. He, by his divine power, recounts to her not only ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... the jog-trot is resumed, and the whole band sweeps on over hill and plain. To halt and change horses is only the work of two minutes —out comes one horse, the other is standing close by and never stirs while the hot harness is being put upon him; in he goes into the rough shafts, and, with a crack of the half-breed's whip across his flanks, away ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... asked the girl somewhat stiffly, for she had a suspicion of what was coming. A little negro girl in the back kitchen named Buttercup also had a suspicion of what was coming, and stationed herself with intense delight behind the door, through a crack in which she could ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... confidence in the killing power of the gun in my hand, and at the crack of the rifle the huge brute settled forward with hardly a quiver not ten feet from the kids upon which he was about to spring. A second shot was not necessary but was fired as a matter of precaution as the tiger had fallen behind rank grass, and the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... nineties I made the discovery that tri-nitro-cellulose, when combined with pyro-nitro-cellulose, could be much more readily gelatinated and made an excellent smokeless powder, while powder made from pure nitro-cellulose would warp and crack all to pieces in drying. The present German powder is made from such a compound of tri-nitro-cellulose and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... by sheer weight of numbers to the head of the companion-way, using my weapon with some wildness, for all was passing before me in confusion. I had received a hard crack on the head and scarcely knew what I was doing, but was merely sustained in my resistance by a sense of continuity, inherited, as it were, from the earlier part of the struggle. Somehow I found myself ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... are peering through the crack of the folding door, their backs to the audience. The pretty, slender MAID is on a chair. The elderly BUTLER dignifiedly stands on the floor. The plump, overfed little HOUSEMAID is kneeling so as to see beneath ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... commissioners, or the public; the art of breaking a man's ribs, or breast-bone, or both, without bruising him externally. The convicts at Toulon arrive at a similar result by another branch of the art: they stuff the skin of a conger eel with powdered stone; then give the obnoxious person a sly crack with it; and a rib backbone is broken with no contusion to mark the external violence used. But Mr. Cooper and his fellows do their work with the knee-joint: it is round, and leaves no bruise. They subdue the patient by walking up and down him on their ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... more." He ceased in breathless suspense and stared fearfully at a line of mounted Indians moving in single file over the ridge to become lost to view in the intervening blackness. A faint rattling of gravel and the peculiar crack of unshod hoof on stone gave ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... fingers into the crack through which I peered, I found that I could swing round some half a dozen stones, which were mortared together, so as to form a revolving door. It worked with difficulty, as though no one had passed through by that way for many years; but it worked for me, after a little ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; a' were as good crack a fusty Nut ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... is new the walls are apt to settle a little making the plaster crack, and it is far better in such a case to allow the walls to remain white for a year. If the effect of plain white plaster strikes one as too cold one of the many water tints may be used as this will not interfere with any later scheme. In houses that have been built for a number of years the ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... at least, ask me as a favour to retain the name I have temporarily adopted—a name in my family, sir. A Losely married a Hammond, I forget when—generations ago—you'll see it in the Baronetage. My grandfather, Sir Julian, was not a crack lawyer, but he was a baronet of as good birth as any in the country; and my father, sir"—(Jasper's voice trembled) "my father," he repeated, fiercely striking his clenched hand on the table, "was a gentleman every inch of his body; and I'll pitch any man out ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... begrudged pittance for the upkeep of his stable, and that meant the end of his polo playing. But he was not made of the stuff that yields before the twelfth hour. His mallet whirled in the air, there was a crack like a pistol shot, and the ball flew over the amazed goalkeeper's head ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Tom Morse was a crack shot and did the hunting for the party. The evening before the train reached Whoop-Up, he walked out from camp to try for an antelope, since they were short of fresh meat. He climbed a small butte overlooking the stream. His keen eyes swept the panorama and came to rest on a sight ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... fourth day at his work Jurgis saw a man stumble while running in front of a car, and have his foot mashed off, and before he had been there three weeks he was witness of a yet more dreadful accident. There was a row of brick furnaces, shining white through every crack with the molten steel inside. Some of these were bulging dangerously, yet men worked before them, wearing blue glasses when they opened and shut the doors. One morning as Jurgis was passing, a furnace blew out, spraying two men with a shower of liquid fire. As they lay screaming and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... solicitude. For 'Arry represented a very large section of Demos, alike in his natural characteristics and in the circumstances of his position; 'Arry, being 'Arry, was on the threshold of emancipation, and without the smallest likelihood that the event would change his nature. Hence the nut to crack: Given 'Arry, by what rapid process of discipline can he be prepared for a state in which the 'Arrian characteristics will surely prove ruinous not only to himself but to all with whom he ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... lay in a heap upon the floor of a grey chamber. A small fire smoldered in the corner, the smoke disappearing in a crack. In another corner was a bed of faded hemlock boughs and two blankets. Cooking utensils and clothes lay about, with boxes ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... which glows in the presence of death and on the edge of the grave. The living have such a tremendous advantage over the dead, that they can neither help feeling it nor avoid a display of the feeling. When the lion is buried the dogs crack jokes at the funeral. They do it in a subdued manner, no doubt, and with a sense of proprieties, but nevertheless they do it. Their immense superiority is never so apparent as at ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... crack it some day," remarked Edna, "and then what would you do, miles from a hooker as you are? I was telling you, Miss Lacey, that I have a mother with only one foible,—she doesn't like our island. You will see what heresy it is when you come over there. So Miss Martha has taken ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... had passed a few minutes before we arrived, but, knowing it stopped for breakfast at Griffin's Corners, four or five miles beyond, I hastened on afoot, running most of the way, and arrived in sight of it just as the driver had let off the first crack from his whip to start his reluctant horses. My shouting was quickly passed to him by the onlookers, he pulled up, and I won the race quite ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... All at once the crack of a rifle sounded on the still night air. It was followed by another shot, and another, until four distinct reports had ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly, Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai, Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back, And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... straight in the direction where some of my comrades ought to be. I expected every moment to hear shots and see one or two of the animals fall; but away they ambled southward, quite unchecked. At last, far to the south, crack went a rifle. I could see by the smoke that it was at too long a range; so in high dudgeon I shouldered my rifle and lounged in the direction of the shot. It was pleasant to see such a good result ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... a faint rasping sound, then a sharp crack, and the rustle of two half-nutshells through the leaves. One of them struck the side of the hazel-stump and bounded off like an elastic ball. Before the dormouse had collected his wits, a fine kernel ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... Have not the men of Tryon given their all? I tell you, the army shall eat, but the bread they munch is made from blood-wet grain; and for every loaf they bake a life has been offered. Where is the New Yorker who has not faced what you are facing? At the crack of the ambushed rifle our people drop at the plow, and their dying eyes look upon wife and children falling under knife and hatchet. It must be so if the army is to eat and liberty live in this country we dare call ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... who had just reseated himself, turned his chair round at that question with such vivacity that Mrs. Mivers heard it crack. Her chairs were not meant for such usage. A shade fell over her rosy countenance as ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Delphos, thence to Megaris, Aulis, Athens, Argos, Lacedaemon, Megalopolis, &c. He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage, as who doth not that shall attempt the like, though his travel be ad jactationem magis quam ad usum reipub. (as [3197]one well observes) to crack, gaze, see fine sights and fashions, spend time, rather than for his own or public good? (as it is to many gallants that travel out their best days, together with their means, manners, honesty, religion) yet it availeth howsoever. For peregrination ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... in his basket as soon as the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste that he leaped out and scampered under the remotest chiffonnier, as the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of doom. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... a scanty education, but his fine faculties and unwearied diligence supplied every defect; was an insatiable and universal reader; meant for the Church, took to poetry and philosophy, became an author, putting forth the strangest books with the strangest titles; considered for a time a strange, crack-brained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon; was recognised at last as a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration; his writings procured him friends and fame, and at length a wife and a settled pension; settled in Baireuth, where he lived thenceforth diligent and celebrated ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... gittin' mad 'bout it. Thet blamed quarter ye giv me rolled down a crack in the stoop, an' got lost. Sure. Got lost ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... thunder followed close upon the sharp crack of the revolvers; the robber's pistol fell with a loud thump upon the floor and he turned and fled along the veranda, this time moving with more haste than caution. They ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... gentlemen; that is all I have to ask at present. It is a very difficult nut we have to crack, Mr. Ferguson," he went on, when he and the first lieutenant were alone. "To attack six strongly armed prahus with the boats of this ship would be a serious enterprise indeed, and its success would be very doubtful, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... trees crack in the keen morning blast, And see how the rapids are cover'd with steam; Thaw your axes, my lads, the sun rises fast, And gilds the pine tops with his bright ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... structure visibly stretches and yields and sinks in the pebbles, yet it does not come down. The stoutest of all sits actually over the lame legs, reading his paper quite oblivious of the odd angle his plump person makes, quite unconscious of the threatened crack—crash! It does not happen. A sort of magnetism sticks it together; it is in the air; it makes things go right that ought to go wrong. Awfully naughty place; no sort of idea of rightness here. Humming and strumming, and singing and smoking, splashing, and sparkling; a buzz of ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... Then with a crack of whips we started, and it was with satisfaction that I heard the trampling of hoofs bite into the sod and the bright steel edges rip through the matted roots. Soft earth and tangled grasses filled the iron scoop behind, the air vibrated with the strident ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... band, affording more blare than music, proclaimed the time had come for a start, and the crack of Mayor Jones' revolver gave the signal for a race through ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... flash was very great, and the crack was as loud as a pistol; yet my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire entered, as big ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the first thing I advise him to do, is to eat a hearty meal, and as I dare say he has not a jingle[H] in his pocket, I advise him to stay here and dine; and you may stay along with him, if you please." "I cant—I'm engaged," said the other. "Then if you dont, the d——l a crust shall he crack here." Upon which, turning to me, he said, "see what you can do with him, boy—if you cant keep him along with you, you dont get a toothful in this house." I looked foolishly at my friend, who ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... the Clarences had not interrupted the intimacy between Colonel Colquhoun and the Guthrie Brimstons. How could it? Mrs. Guthrie Brimston was as amusing as ever, and Colonel Colquhoun remained in command of a crack regiment, and was a handsome man, well set-up and soldier like into the bargain. It was Evadne who had caused all the annoyance, and consequently there was really no excuse for a rupture—especially as Evadne met the Guthrie Brimstons ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... from my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover, as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely could not keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing else prevented, an earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before I need rise to speak. Yet here was the Mayor getting on inexorably,—and, indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... that the American savage pays attention to every sound that strikes upon his ear when the leaves, softly shaken by the evening breeze, seem to sigh through the air, or when the tempest, bursting forth with fury, shakes the gigantic trees that crack like reeds. "The chirping of the birds, the cry of the wild beasts, in a word, all those sweet, grave, or imposing voices that animate the wilderness, are so many musical lessons, which he easily remembers." In illustration of this, the missionary describes the singing of a Chippewa chief, and ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... tellin' us that it wasn't you, durn you! Oh, say!" He uttered a whoop that must have startled the horses in front of the building. Then he sobered down, speaking in a low, regretful voice: "You durn tenderfoot! Here I've been waitin' for years to get a crack at that big four-flusher, an' here you come, a-fannin' along from your little old East an' get ahead of me!" He stifled a cackle of mirth. "An' so you're lookin' for action? Lordy! If you don't call what you done to Dunlavey an' Yuma action this country's ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... The Turkish snipers were still busy, and the sharp crack of cordite echoed from scores of different hiding-places along the hills. He and his companions had about one hundred and fifty yards to go before reaching the trench held by their battalions, and the light was ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... and less exclusive regions, however, which I shared with other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his noble son—the last, alas! of the Mohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard under the green-wood tree: where Quentin Durward, happy squire of dames, rode midnightly ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... whittle boats and little rakes and hoes and decorate sticks with patterns cut upon the bark. He was clever with his knife and made diligent use of it. He would also stand for hours on the top of a monolith—he thought it was a gate-post—and try to crack his cattle-whip like a pistol-shot. He had to climb to a height to get the lash ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the noise of farewells rises shrill. White handkerchiefs are agitated in the brown light of the shed. Ropes crack in pulleys as the gang-planks ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... As he dropped to the steps and rolled quickly to one side Tebron heard the low vibration of a disintegrator beam pass over his shoulder and the crack of the wall behind him as it struck. And then the guards were on the warrior in ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... how he had been induced to go out and try for the football team at the university. His fellows knew him as a fair gymnast and a crack tennis player. He was muscular, well-built, and fast on his feet, almost perfectly put together for a halfback. On the second day of practice he had shirked a hard tackle, though it happened that nobody suspected the truth but himself. Next morning ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... instinct is his disposition to "do murder." This may account for his love of "sport," or it may only be an hereditary trait derived from the period when he had not yet concerned himself with agriculture, but slew wild beasts and used his implements of stone to crack their bones and get the marrow out. The instinct to slay birds, beasts and fishes is certainly strong within us, whatever be its remote origin, and it is very little affected by what we are pleased to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... the house. Would he be disappointed? He had preserved her letters of the old school-days. She had burnt his. But she had not burnt the letters of Mr. Morsfield; and she cared nothing for that man. Assuredly she merited the stigma branding women as crack-brained. Yet she was not one of the fools; she could govern a household, and she liked work, she had the capacity for devotedness. So, therefore, she was a woman perverted by her position, and she shook her bonds ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... road through the wood, stumbling along in the darkness over the shell-pitted track. Weird noises occasionally floated through the trees; the faint "crack" of a rifle, or the rumble of limber wheels. A distant light flickered momentarily in the air, cutting out in bold relief the ruins of the shattered chateau on our left. On we went through this scene of dark and humid desolation, ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... gift of beauty doesn't confer immunity from fatigue, accident, old age. This loveliness must fade and crack and wrinkle, these full organ tones must shrivel to a shrill pipe; and I—I! shall one day be a tottering old woman, bent, ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... ground. He sat down beside a stunted, leaning fir and watched his boat go. It was soon done. A bigger sea than most tore the battered hull loose, lifted it high, let it drop. The crack of breaking timbers cut through the boom of the surf. The next sea swept the rock clear, and the broken, twisted hull floated awash. Caught in the tidal eddy it began its slow journey to join the vast accumulation of ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... stove-pipe wouldn't go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had "rubbed 'em out." I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful Repose" ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... stopped at the door of the bank that morning and had seen me inside. He had heard Maguire and I in dispute and had heard further my threat to crack Maguire over the head with the very ruler with which ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Crack! crack! Two reports rang out in quick succession and by the flash of the first shot Pawnee ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... their stings, the cunning economists fixed it immovably, by cementing merely the edge of the orifice of the shell to the glass with resin, (propolis), and thus it became a prisoner for life." Now the instinct that prompts the gathering of propolis in August, and filling every crack, flaw, or inequality about the hive, would cement the edges of the snail-shell to the glass, and a small stone, block of wood, chip, or any substance that they are unable to remove, would be fastened with it in the same manner. The edges or bottom of ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... his toe into a crack and braced his elbows, he peered up the snowy slope to the cliffs above. All was bathed in a glorious moonlight, but not a creature stirred. He watched for fully five minutes with no result. When about to drop to the snow again, he ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him. The point was not what I was wanting to know about. I was wanting, very much, to have a 'bit crack' with him, as they call it here. Lassie, he asked me to lunch with him the next day, and he talked to me as if I was his long-lost brother. In fact, he seems to think that everybody is! He came off the rostrum completely. Even when ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... revolver in the air, and in another moment there was an echo of many shots, the sharp crack of the forty-fives mingling with the thunder of hoofs, the yells, and ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... Presently his voice came from its depths, appealing in hollow tones to the sky. "He asks me—thees friend of my soul, thees brother of my life, thees Pancho that I lofe—what it was? He would that I should tell him why I am game in the legs, why I shake in the hand, crack in the voice, and am generally wipe out! And yet he, my pardner—thees Francisco—know that I have seen the mees from Boston! That I have gaze into the eye, touch the hand, and for the instant possess the picture that hand have drawn! It was a sublime picture, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... still rest with Mr Webster to decide whether to make an example of him or not Pledge departed, and the bookseller turned to dust his shop out for the day. In this occupation he had not proceeded far, when his brush, penetrating into a crack in his counter, caused something within to rattle. Being a tidy man, and not favouring dust or dirt of any sort, even out of sight, he proceeded to probe the hole in order to clear away the obstruction, when, to his amazement and consternation, he discovered, snugly lying ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... in answer to the subdued crack with which the door at length yielded came the noise of the insertion of a key into the lock of the front door. Mr. Morgan started violently, thrust his torch into a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... they had searched the place thoroughly, and all the little chambers, too, when Walter's torch revealed to him a crack in the wall at the far end of the cavity, and almost as high as his head. He soon called the others to come and examine ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... millions and Sam's hold upon the press of the country was almost unbelievably strong. Morrison rapidly developed unusual daring and audacity in using this instrument and making it serve Sam's ends. He suppressed facts, created illusions, and used the newspapers as a whip to crack at the heels of congressmen, senators, and legislators, of the various states, when such matters as appropriation ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... in the tree top, snug under a knotty limb, he spied a little ball of gray fur. Grasping a branch of underbush, he shook it vigorously. The thrashing sound worried the gray squirrel, for he slipped from his retreat and stuck his nose over the limb. CRACK! With a scratching and tearing of bark the squirrel loosened his hold and then fell; alighting with a thump. As the hunter picked up his quarry a streak of sunshine glinting through the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... could not see them yet. They knew that the boys had divided into sides and were playing old-fashioned hockey, "shinny-on-your-own-side" as it was locally called. Above the rumbling of the train they heard the crack of the shinny-stick against the wooden block, and the "z-z-z-zip!" of the missile as it scaled ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... sorrow have nearly consumed their strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave whip; the scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains; that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... soil by its lightness and the ease with which a mass of it drops apart. By the word lightness one does not mean colour or weight, but looseness. A clay soil may be told by its stickiness; its power to form lumps or masses; its tendency to crack and bake under the hot sun. Such a soil is called heavy. Humus soil is made up largely of decayed animal and vegetable matter. Its presence is told ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... cold glittering steel Their deadly purpose and their hate reveal. The click of pistols and the crack of guns Proclaim war's daughters dangerous as her sons. She who would wield the soldier's sword and lance Must be prepared to take the soldier's chance. She who would shoot must serve as target, too; The battle-frenzied ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... which have been flowering in pots through the winter are now approaching their period of rest, and they must not be neglected if they are to make a satisfactory display next season. Water should be gradually diminished until the foliage dies off, and then the corms will require shade, or they will crack. Dry treatment generally results in an attack of thrips, and each root must be painted with some good insecticide to destroy the pest. Cyclamen should never be allowed to become actually dust-dry; but if the pots can be plunged in a shaded moist pit, watering ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... sounded so low that she could scarcely hear them; at others they were so loud that she could almost distinguish the words uttered by the unseen. Was it merely a phenomenon caused by the wind blowing through some crack in ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... right,-you knew it well,- And copy Finnian's Psalter through, Against his will as well you knew. And then to think a common bird Should feel such shame, that when he heard The breathing spy outside your door, And felt your sainthood was no more, Should through the crack attack the spy, And in a rage pluck out his eye, As if that saintly Irish crane Would hide from all your Saintship's stain. I grieve to think that you did add Sin unto sin; it is too bad. For Finnian could not you persuade To yield the ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... down to a meal in the kitchen, Dan and me, and he kept them all in crack. For the mistress he promised to gather bog-bean when the time came, and she was in her very element; and there sat Dan McBride with Gude kens what evil in his head, his eyes smiling at the old dame and listening how she cured a young lass of a stomach complaint ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... plenty more fish near; and with a will, little disconcerted, we gave way after them. One was seen at some distance from a floe, in which there was a crack. Now it is known that a whale generally rises close to the nearest floe; and if there is a crack in it, that part is selected instead of the outer edge. We got up to it before the fish appeared; our oars were out of the water; our harpooner standing up and watching eagerly every sign of the approach ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... aria. But, as for all your warbling Delias, Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias, He owned he thought them much surpast By that redoubted Hyaloclast[7] Who still contrived by dint of throttle, Where'er he went to crack a bottle. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... stream-anchor in the launch, and to send a kedge to haul out by, in the jolly-boat. Marble answered with the usual "ay, ay, sir!" but before he sent us into the boats, he ventured to suggest that the ship had bilged already. He had heard timbers crack, about which he thought there could be no mistake. The pumps were sounded, and the ship had seven feet water in her hold. This had made in about ten minutes. Still the captain would not give up. He ordered us to commence throwing the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... this admission of the little raccoon to his Family, MacPhairrson met with an accident. Coming down the long, sloping platform of the mill, the point of one of his crutches caught in a crack, and he plunged headlong, striking his head on a link of heavy "snaking" chain. He was picked up unconscious and carried to the nearest cabin. For several days his stupor was unbroken, and the doctor ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... twain leaped forward and broke the barrier, and mid the crack of pistol-shots and shouts of rage, they cleared the saloon. Once outside, Ned ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... course not! How can a man with a crack in his brain be serious? how can a muddlehead reason? But I 'm not jesting, either; I can no more make ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... inventor from having his ideas tested must to that extent retard the progress of industrial improvement. Thousands of men, who imagine that they possess the inventive talent in a highly developed degree, are either crack-brained enthusiasts or else utterly unpractical men whose services would never be worth anything at all in the work of attacking difficult mechanical problems. It is in the task of discriminating between this class and the true inventors that many industrial organizers ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... Faribault and one of our Indians killed one of them. He brought a great knife that he had done the killing with and gave it to my father all uncleaned as it was. He said it was "seechy" knife, meaning bad. As they were still fighting, my father took it just as it was and stuck it up in a crack above our front door in our one room. Then he sent to Morristown for Mr. Morris to straighten out the fight. He had lived among the Indians for a long time and knew their language. He brought them to time. Later they came and wanted the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Crack, who was a beautiful little terrier was another of the early shown ones by whom the breed has lost nothing, and two other terriers whose names are much revered by lovers of the breed are Cholmondeley Briar and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the others only heard the rustle of the willows and the swishing sound of driven snow; then a faint patter caught their ears, and a crack followed like the snapping of ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... sharp crack of rifles. They saw the dust spurting up. Doctor Spechaug heard himself howling as he became aware of peculiar stings in his body. Queer, painless, deeply penetrating sensations that made themselves felt all over his body—as ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... to choose between the two. The man who has no defect or crack in his character—no tinge of even the minor immoralities—no fantastic humour carrying him sometimes off his feet—no preposterous hobby—such a man, walking straight along the surface of this world in the arc of a circle, is a very dangerous character, no doubt; of such all children, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... rice-plants at the same time, and hauling his little craft through them, in the way that sailors call "hand over hand." This expedient most probably saved his life. While bending over the gunwale, he heard the crack of the rifles, and the whizzing of two bullets that appeared to pass just behind him. By this time the whole of the canoe was within ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... course, was dissolved, and a new election took place. The Whigs lost thereby much of their power, but still were a majority in the House, and the new Tory government found that the Irish difficulties were a very hard nut to crack. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... and it is there that the Homeric poems say was one of his most ancient sanctuaries. Thence, doubtless, issued the twenty famous oracles at the epoch of the colonisation. At Delphi the priestess was seated on a tripod over a crack in the rock, from which exhaled mephitic vapours that rendered her delirious, and her incoherent exclamations were reduced into hexameters by the attendant priests. But there was also at Delos the Manteion, the prophetic grotto. This has of late years been ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Is the learned poet's good; Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... turned out very well, Reuben. Aside from putting the first crack in Mavis Greenfield's defenses, it shook up Dr. Al to the point where he decided to collect as much as he could tonight, cash the checks, and clear out. So he set himself up for the pinch. We probably gained as much as three or four ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz
... more except to warn Luke of a bad piece of road about two miles on. Sure enough, in its very middle—crack!—we broke down. "De kingbolt done gone clean in two!" said Luke, and ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... said the old man. "You kin now. Ev'y nut you crac' now goin' cos' you a yell when you git 'long 'bout fawty an' fifty. You crack nuts now an' ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... found himself the guest of Sir Henry. He had returned from an afternoon's shooting, and had finished dressing when there was a knock at the door and the footman entered. He was a large cleanly-built man, as is proper to a class who are chosen with a keener eye to physique than any crack regiment. The American supposed that the man had entered to perform some menial service, but to his surprise he softly closed ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fulminans, which is prepared by the same means, this air adheres to the gold in such a peculiar manner, that, in a moderate degree of heat, the whole of it recovers its elasticity in the same instant of time; and thus, by the violent shock which it gives to the air around, produces the loud crack or fulmination of this powder. Those who will imagine the explosion of such a minute portion of fixed air, as can reside in the aurum fulminans, to be insufficient for the excessive loudness ...
— Experiments upon magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other Alcaline Substances • Joseph Black
... that age of genius, turned on them their own weapons, and annihilated them into silence when they found themselves paid in their own base coin. He rebounded their popular ribaldry on themselves, with such replies as "Pap with a hatchet, or a fig for my godson; or, crack me this nut. To be sold, at the sign of the Crab-tree Cudgel, in Thwack-coat lane."[81] Not less biting was his "Almond for a Parrot, or an Alms for Martin." Nash first silenced Martin Mar-prelate, and the government afterwards hanged him; Nash might be vain of the greater honour. A ridiculer ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... it run rapidly along the rollers. They had descended into the third compartment; they had arrived at the stone which walled the outlet. Porthos seized this gigantic stone at its base, applied his robust shoulder, and gave a heave which made the wall crack. A cloud of dust fell from the vault, with the ashes of ten thousand generations of sea birds, whose nests stuck like cement to the rock. At the third shock the stone gave way, and oscillated for ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... machinery part," whispered Lubin. "One of these big thundering engines would crack my poor head ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... one of the straight, dusty, unlovely roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer, and very warm. His cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in metal and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled round his quivering loins. The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every wayside house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment for a draught from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... real along the beach the two saddle mules and the four pack mules of Don Senor Johnny Armstrong stood, patiently awaiting the crack of the whip of the arriero, Luis. That would be the signal for the start on another long journey into the mountains. The pack mules were loaded with a varied assortment of hardware and cutlery. These articles Don Johnny traded to the interior Indians for the gold dust ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... child came slowly out from the hall—whence she had been watching the scene through the crack behind ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... carry while I killed; loaded him with squirrels, neck, shoulders, breast, back, and loins, till as he moved he tottered and swayed like a squirrel pyramid; about sundown challenged him to what he had not yet had, some crack shooting, which in that light requires young eyesight, and barked the squirrel for him four times; later still snuffed the candle for him, having brought one along for the purpose; and then, with my step fresh, led him ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... more, shocked than myself, and says 'people seem to have lost their recollection strangely' when they engraved such a 'blackamoor.' Pray don't seal (at least to me) with such a caricature of the human numskull altogether; and if you don't break the seal-cutter's head, at least crack his libel (or likeness, if it should ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... ungovernable glee instantly arose within him. Seizing the handle of the heavy hunting-whip, which still hung from his right wrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought it down on his charger's flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing the animal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up its heels, in a way that ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... hands on deck!" brought the sleeping watch from the bunks below, and the carpenter, steward, and sailmaker from the steerage. The foresail ripped from its bolt ropes with a deafening crack, and tore to ribbons in the gale. As the ship lay into the wind, I could hear the captain's voice louder than the very storm, "Meet her!—Meet her!—Ease her off!" But the reply of the man at the wheel was lost in the rush ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... That same day the crack shots and sportsmen of Calcutta went down to the usually peaceful islet and engaged in all the wild work of a regular hunt, and at eve the two leopards were seen, by interested observers in the Wellington, being conveyed away in triumph ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... that intervened while Cornelia, startled at his abrupt movement, remained motionless in front of him, the piece of branch which his hand held parted with a sharp crack. It broke ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... breaking of his centre; but, when half-disciplined troops are to be handled, concentrative movements must surely be safer than extensive ones. It would be well to remember that, among all the trained battalions of Europe, our own crack regiments are supposed to be the only ones that can be thoroughly relied on ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... all who fain Would keep the grain, And cast the husk away— That it may feed The living seed, And serve it with decay— I offer this dim story Whose clouds crack ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... The pater is the Duke of Ruthby, seventh in the line, and twenty-first Earl of Avondale; but he's a crack-up jolly old chap, I assure you. Not all our titled people are of the kind you see most of over here in ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... floated level with the water. Immediately the bough bobbed under, but he was prepared for that, and after a brief rest, he set the girl's hair between his teeth once more, and with both hands free began to work from bough to bough. One that he clutched gave an ominous crack. It began to sag in a dangerous way, and at the fork where it joined a larger branch a white slit appeared and began to grow wider. He watched it growing, his eyes quite steady, his mind alert for the emergency that ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... children and there was no one to turn to after his death. Arrie tells of her Master's illness, how she was the housemaid and was called upon to fan him and how she would get so tired and sleepy she would nod a little, the fan dropping from hands into his face. He would take it up and "crack my haid with the handle to wake me up. I wuz allus so sorry when I done that, but I ...
— 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
... too cramped to stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... iron-shuttered. Above, one or two shutters swung half open, but I could not climb the smooth wall. Yet I did not despair; I was not without experience of shutters. I selected one closed not quite tight, leaving a crack for my knife-blade. I found the hook inside, got my dagger under it, and at length drove it up. The shutter ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... galore. A print of their masther Is often in plasther O' Paris, put over the door of a tap; A fine chubby fellow, Ripe, rosy, and mellow, Like a peach that is ready to drop in your lap. Hurrah! for brave Bacchus, A bottle to crack us, He's a friend of the people, like ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Gods at all, and the heart of the money-lender was uneasy on account of expectation. Therefore at noon of the third day the money-lender went into the temple to spy upon the councils of the Gods, and to learn in what manner that gift might arrive. Even as he was making his prayers, a crack between the stones of the floor gaped, and, closing, caught him by the heel. Then he heard the Gods walking in the temple in the darkness of the columns, and Shiv called to his son Ganesh, saying "Son, what hast thou done in regard ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... complete repository of Dibdin's choice old ballads and fok'sl chaunts. "Tom Bowling," "Lovely Nan," "Poor Jack," and "Lash'd to the helm," with "Cease, rude Boreas," and "Rule Britannia," are amongst his favourite pieces, but the "Bay of Biscay" is his crack performance: with this he always commenced, when he wanted to enlist the sympathies of his auditors,—mingling with the song ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... black except those that have lost the ivory—and those are green. It has also five pedals, disposed as a harp underneath; but none of them make any impression on the sound, except the middle one, which rings a bell. The sound-board has a crack in it somewhere, Nino says, and two of the notes are dumb since the great German maestro came home with my boy one night, and insisted on playing an accompaniment after supper. We had stewed chickens and a flask of Cesanese, I remember, and I knew something would happen to the piano. But ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... have no longing either to rise or to shine. I don't desire to be a colonel, nor an admiral, nor a member of Parliament, nor an alderman; I do not yearn for the fame of a wit, or a poet, or a philosopher, or a diner-out, or a crack shot at a rifle-match or a battue. Decidedly, I am the one looker-on, the one bystander, and have no more concern with the active world than a stone has. It is a horrible phantasmal crotchet of Goethe, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
