"Knock down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... As we knock down the barriers to growth, we must redouble our efforts for freer and fairer trade. We have already taken actions to counter unfair trading practices and to pry open closed foreign markets. We will continue to do so. We will also oppose ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... seen several boats launched from these yards. Great crowds would gather for this event. After the hull was completed in the docks the boat was ready to launch. The blocks that served as props were knocked down one at a time. One man would knock down each prop. There were several men employed in this work on the appointed day of the launching of the boat. The boat would be christened with a bottle of champagne on ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... style) in the second volume: "Now, gentlemen of the jury," says a brazen-faced barrister, "I throw myself upon your impartial judgment as husbands and fathers, and I confidently ask, Does the prisoner [the most murderous-looking ruffian un-hung] look like a man who would knock down and trample upon the wife of his bosom? Gentlemen, I ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... bombardment. Everything yielded to the threat, made by a man whose determined character left no doubt that it would be carried into execution. "Nothing shall be left undone that ought to be done," he wrote to Jervis, "even should it be necessary to knock down Bastia." From time to time interference was attempted, but the demand for immediate desistence, made, watch in hand, by the naval officer on the spot, enforced submission. "The firm tone held by Commodore Nelson," wrote Jervis to the Admiralty, "soon reduced these gentlemen to order, and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... know my name or my age or anything about myself. Under treatment I recovered my health, but not my memory. I have had several careers since I began this routine of life and death. I have been an archbishop three times. When I persuaded the authorities to knock down all our towns and rebuild them from the foundations, or move them, I went into the artillery, and became a general. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... shout and knock down things so glad they was free. Grandpa come back. Master Harris said, 'You can have land if you can get anything to work.' Grandpa took his bounty he got when he left the army and bought a pair of mules. He had to pay rent the third year but till then he got what they called giving ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... dropped his pistol, clutched his bare arm, and with the blood spouting up between his fingers he turned to flee. Two white men sprang out in from of him, and the Major shouted: "Don't kill him—he is to be hanged on the public square. I was trying to take him alive—and had to knock down two of his men. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... DING. To knock down. To ding it in one's ears; to reproach or tell one something one is not desirous of hearing. Also to throw away or hide: thus a highwayman who throws away or hides any thing with which he robbed, to ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... led to his extreme left flank, then held by Giles A. Smith's division (Seventeenth Corps), for the purpose of strengthening that flank; and that he had sent some intrenching-tools there, to erect some batteries from which he intended to knock down that foundery, and otherwise to damage the buildings inside of Atlanta. He said he could put all his pioneers to work, and do with them in the time indicated all I had proposed to do with General Dodge's two divisions. Of course I assented ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the cockswain, and mounting to the top of the rock, endeavoured with an oar, which he handled like a flail, to knock down every gull that came within reach. We all three fired at the same instant, and some dozen gulls made a summerset in the air, and with flapping wings and dangling legs, fell into the water. Those that were not killed outright, screeched piteously as they floated on ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... obey?" roared Ishmael. "Dogs and cowards, it is the King's word. Take her up or you shall die, every man of you, you know how. Knock down the old Evildoer with your sticks ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... Vauquer came down, just in time to see the cat knock down a plate that covered a bowl of milk, and begin ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... in connection with the manufacture of pig iron. It was the agency, above all others, most needful in the manufacture of iron and steel. The blast-furnace manager of that day was usually a rude bully, generally a foreigner, who in addition to his other acquirements was able to knock down a man now and then as a lesson to the other unruly spirits under him. He was supposed to diagnose the condition of the furnace by instinct, to possess some almost supernatural power of divination, like his congener in the country districts ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... be fun if I am sentenced to penal servitude for stealing your uncle's gig, and robbing his little nephew of L10. By the by, that choleric relation of yours meant to knock down somebody else when he struck at me. He asked, 'Are you the villain?' Pray who is the villain? he is evidently ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out to him. He had broken a pane of the greenhouse with a stone and.... But why pursue the painful theme? The last thing he had done was to explore the attic, where he was never allowed to go, and to knock down the ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... the milk a great many birds which feed upon it are captured by means of a broom-like bundle of runo. As the birds fly over the sementeras a boy sweeps his broom, the ka-lib', through the flock, and rarely fails to knock down a bird. The ka-lib' is about 7 feet long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and flattened and broadened to 14 or 15 inches in width at the outer end. What the ka-lib' really does for the boy is to give him an arm about 9 feet long and a long open hand ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... was a cad," he said, "to knock down an old woman that way and then not stop to see how badly she was hurt. I wish you could have won out to-day. Could you give a good ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... double-barrel shotgun along with him, since it stood in a corner; and he was evidently cooking a brace of fat quail which he must have managed to knock down on ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... said Mr. Kendal; 'he reeled against me, almost stunned, and was hardly himself for some moments. His nose bled violently. That fellow's fist might knock down ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all, I do not know that a boomerang would be of much service to us even if we could use it. There is only one thing that I can now think of that it would be good for. It would be a splendid to knock down chestnuts with! ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... for length," answered the Tanner. "My staff is long enough to knock down a calf; so look to thyself, fellow, I ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... Jack; it goes down grand," said Davy, after seasoning and eating one egg. Then to the boys, "Here you kids, take some eggs and roast 'em and salt 'em with ashes, and then take your sticks and try if you can knock down a few parrots or wattle birds for dinner. But don't you go far from the camp, and keep a sharp look-out for the blacks; for you can never trust 'em, and they might poke their spears ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... his life in the Newgate Calendar," said Wallop, who had not forgotten his knock down on the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... more than two attack me,' said I, 'I shan't so much mind. With this book I am sure I can knock down one, and I think I can find play for the other ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... thing led to another, and finally I got the whole story outer her. Old Bill had a cow that they called 'Old Jinnie.' She was always mischeevous, but last year she'd been wusser'n ever. She'd git out of the barn nights, and knock down fences, and tramp down flower gardens, and everybody said she wuz a pesky noosance. One night old Bill and his family wuz seated 'round the centre table in the sittin'-room. There wuz Mary, his wife; and George, his oldest boy, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... risings the state has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house—fire its contents—murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even ask you again for toll! Do this, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... much against my will. I was obliged to knock down a reverend shaveling and strip him. But the gown hath served ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... a circle corresponding with the outer circumference of the branches. Some are still farther afield, because in falling they strike the boughs and glance aside. A long slender pole leaning against the hedge was used to thrash the boughs within reach, and so to knock down any that remained. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Sidehill, for hillside. State-house: this seems an Americanism, whether invented or derived from the Dutch Stad-huys, I know not. Strike and string; from the game of ninepins; to make a strike is to knock down all the pins with one ball, hence it has come to mean fortunate, successful. Swampers: men who break out roads for lumberers. Tormented: euphemism for damned, as, 'not a tormented cent.' Virginia fence, to make a: to walk ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... said to one of his officers, "take your company and knock down or blow up all the houses on this side of that lane there. Mr. Wilkinson, you take number two company, and do the same with the lane to the right. The ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... saint! who doffed thy skin to make The Smithfield rabble leap from theirs with joy, We dedicate the pile—arise! awake! - Knock down the Muses, wit and sense destroy Clear our new stage from reason's dull alloy, Charm hobbling age, and tickle capering youth With cleaver, marrow-bone, and Tunbridge toy! While, vibrating in unbelieving tooth, {23} Harps twang in Drury's walls, and ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... your pardon, you will not go on board your yacht so soon as you expect. Take the oars out of the boat; my lads, two or three of you, and throw in a couple of our paddles for them to reach the shore with. The rest of you knock down the first man who offers to resist. You are not aware, perhaps, my lord, that you have attempted piracy on the ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... two weeks instead of seventy-two hours. At this he burst out violently that he would not set foot in England; that he never wanted to have anything to do with England or with the English: "Why, I am a marine!" he exclaimed, "and we marines would sooner knock down any English ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... most needs our services, whatever be the accidents which alienate ordinary sympathies. Now, suppose that the good Samaritan had himself fallen among thieves, what would have been his duty? His first duty, I should say, would have been, if possible, to knock down the thief; his second, to tie up his own wounds; and his third, to call in the police. We should not, perhaps, call him virtuous for such conduct; but we should clearly think him wrong for omitting it. Not to resist a thief is cowardly; not to attend to your own health is to incapacitate ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... sworn at, no matter what provocation he had given, and Lodloe not only objected but grew very angry. The thing which instantly suggested itself to him, and which to most people would seem the proper thing to do, was to knock down the man. But this knocking-down business is a matter which should be approached with great caution. Walter was a strong young fellow and had had some practice in boxing, but it was not impossible that, even with the backing of justifiable indignation, the conventional ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... Johnson had been labouring in the employment of the booksellers, and always, unlike some more querulous authors, declares that they were fair and liberal patrons—though it is true that he had to knock down one of them with a folio. Other writers of less fame can turn an honest penny by providing popular literature of the heavier kind. There is a demand for 'useful information.' There was John Campbell, for example, the 'richest author,' said Johnson, who ever ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... squabbling colony agents, who will require the interposition of your mace, at every instant, to keep the peace amongst them. It does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments beyond all the powers of ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... press, or person, diminished taxation, a juster representation, who ever thinks of them?)—ONE benefit they have gained, or nearly—abolition de la peine-de-mort pour delit politique: no more wicked guillotining for revolutions. A Frenchman must have his revolution—it is his nature to knock down omnibuses in the street, and across them to fire at troops of the line—it is a sin to balk it. Did not the King send off Revolutionary Prince Napoleon in a coach-and-four? Did not the jury, before the face of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel Vaudrey ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in a pretty dilemma. My first thought was to knock down the Dutchman, and run for it, but reflection checked the impulse. Stammering a confused congratulation to the bride and her mother, and meditating an escape at all hazards, I allowed Madame Sendel to hook herself on my arm, and lead me into the hotel in the wake of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... cakes of manure are used once a day for cooking, as is the practice also on the plain. In such houses the buffaloes sometimes break loose and fight furiously, and instances are not rare when they knock down the posts on which the roof rests, and thus bury all in one ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... friend—we won't have it any price.' 'En effet' says the marky, twiddling his little black mustaches in the chimney-glass, and making a lunge or two as he used to do at the fencing-school. (He was a wonder at the fencing-school, and I've seen him knock down the image fourteen times running, at Lepage's). 'Let us speak of affairs. Colonel, you understand that affairs of honor are best settled at once: perhaps it won't be inconvenient to you to arrange our little ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was primarily, and usually, a blow with something held in the hand, other acts in warfare which involved great danger to him who performed them were also reckoned coups by some tribes. Thus, for a horseman to ride over and knock down an enemy, who was on foot, was regarded among the Blackfeet as a coup, for the horseman might be shot at close quarters, or might receive a lance thrust. It was the same to ride one's horse violently against a mounted foe. An old Pawnee told me of a coup that he had counted by running ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... to knock down this handsome, insolent fellow, even if he is a brother. Oh, if he never had offered Violet ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Woodruff was the cause of Jim Irwin's sudden irruption into the educational field by her scoffing "Humph!" at the idea of a farm-hand's ever being able to marry, she also gave him the opportunity to knock down the driver of the big motor-car, and perceptibly elevate himself in the opinion of the neighborhood, while filling his own heart with ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... did you learn to scout the gownsmen, cudgel the townsmen, kiss their wives, frighten their daughters, and debauch their maids but I? You were a mere tyro when I took you in hand; you did not so much as know how to throw in a knock down blow!'—'Why you lying son ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... blades, so frequently to be encountered in the southern country, who, despising the humdrum monotony of regular life, are ready for adventure—lads of the turf, the muster-ground, the general affray—the men who can whip their weight in wild-cats—whose general rule it is to knock down and drag out. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... are not the best friend of the two; for I doubt, do you see, whether I should have had the fifty pounds but for you. You persuaded me to give up that silly drink they call sherry, and drink ale; and what was it but drinking ale which gave me courage to knock down that fellow Hunter—and knocking him down was, I verily believe, the turning point of my disorder. God don't love those who won't strike out for themselves; and as far as I can calculate with respect ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... cried the shy-men. "Knock down the signal! Knock down the signal! And a packet of Turkish delight is yours. Knock down ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... have already heard of a similar episode at the time of the dream. In connection with the ax he recalled that during that period of his life he once hurt his hand with an ax while chopping wood. This immediately led to his relations with his younger brother, whom he used to maltreat and knock down. In particular, he recalled an occasion when he struck his brother on the head with his boot until he bled, whereupon his mother remarked: "I fear he will kill him some day." While he was seemingly thinking of the subject of violence, a reminiscence from his ninth year suddenly occurred to him. ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... soldiers, was the officer who could run fastest, see furthest, and fire with truest aim from behind the smallest possible projection of a rock. In cases where it became absolutely necessary to enforce obedience to an order, the captain required to be both able and willing to knock down the first man who dared to show any signs of dissatisfaction with the butt of his pistol. Many excellent European generals were not competent to emulate the fame to be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... no doubt have already decided in his own mind whether Oliver Greenfield did rightly or wrongly in putting his hands into his pockets instead of using them to knock down Loman. It certainly did not seem to have done him much good at the time. He had lost the esteem of his comrades, he had lost the very temper he had been trying to keep— twenty times since the event—and no ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... altered also. Until now, they had collected in crowds, astonished at the sight of the vessels; but upon the cultivated shores of the Paraguay they courageously opposed the strangers' landing, and three Spaniards having tried to knock down the fruit from a palm-tree, a struggle took place, in which 300 natives lost their lives. This victory had disabled twenty-five Spaniards. It was too much for Cabot, who rapidly removed his wounded to the fort San Spirito and retired, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... share her feelings. It had not been pleasant for him to see Daisy ogled and admired by men he wanted to knock down, nor had he quite liked the escapade at Monte Carlo, for, aside from the fear lest the fraud should be discovered, there was always before him a dread of what his Uncle John and the Lady Jane would say, should the affair ever reach their ears, as it might, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... a corn—perhaps a drop of blood starts; but as we do not intend to put the weight upon the heels, we are not alarmed. Having cut all we can from the heels and still finding that the frog, when the shoe is laid on, can not touch the ground, we knock down the last two calks and draw the heel of the shoe thin; this must give us a bearing upon the frog and the sound part of the foot. We use the lightest shoe, truly fitted with the rasp, not burned on. The horse should then be worked regularly, ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... bucks jumped to their feet with the most awful yells I ever heard, and made a rush toward where I was standing. They was exactly in a line, and I let drive at that first buck, and blame me if that slug didn't go plum through three of 'em, and knock down the fourth. You can roast me alive if that ain't a fact! The fifth one got away, but I roped the wounded fellow, and was a-sittin' on him when the rest of the party got back to camp. Jim Healy was along, and he'll tell ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... them that the enemy could not employ their pikes or long swords. So the latter used their bodies in shoving oftener than weapons in fighting and struggled to overturn whoever they encountered and to knock down whoever withstood them. Many deprived even of the use of the short swords fought with hands and mouths instead, dragging down their adversaries, biting, tearing, since they far surpassed them in the size of their bodies. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... his majesty is in a passion, Tremble, ye rogues, and tremble all the nation! Suppose he takes it in his, royal head To strike your academic idol dead— Knock down your house, dissolve you in his ire, And strip you ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... taken completely by surprise. But he was a vigorous, athletic man, and his first impulse was to shake himself loose, to knock down two of his assailants next to him and make a run for it. His next glance, however, showed him the nature of the group of young men. They were not professional robbers, but young men about town who had been drinking late ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... great fist ready to smash and to strike. It should be ready to knock down what stands in its way," he cried, astonishing the crowd in the street and frightening into something like hysterics the two women who sat with him beside the dead woman ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... entertaining my lord, and riding by the side of Sir John. And though it may be very good fun for Robinson to fuddle himself at home as he does at College, and to be brought home by the policeman he has just been trying to knock down—think what fun it is for the poor old soul his mother!—the half-pay captain's widow, who has been pinching herself all her life long, in order that that jolly young fellow might have a ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was like a thousand other boys of fourteen, all legs, blunder, and bluster. Indeed the family called him the "Blunderbuss," and always expected to see him tumble over the chairs, bump against the tables, and knock down any small articles near him. He bragged a good deal about what he could do, but seldom did any thing to prove it, was not brave, and a little given to tale-telling. He was apt to bully the small boys, and flatter the big ones, and without being at all bad, was just ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and wickedness of the court, one ceases to wonder that many men of taste took to the highway as a means of recreation and livelihood. And there I had been attempting to turn my two frank rascals into the kind of sheep-headed rubbish whom you could knock down a great staircase, and for a guinea they would say no more. Unless I was the kicker, I think Paddy would have returned up the staircase after his assailant. Jem Bottles probably would have gone away nursing his wrath and ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... than that of two parent birds running along, with a numerous progeny of little ones around them. Though in a sense domesticated, they are often dangerous, for they kick forward and claw downward with great violence, and the person whom they knock down and begin to trample on has little chance of escape with his life. Fortunately, it is easy to drive them off with a stick or even an umbrella; and we were warned not to cross an ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... tributes paid to the tank's powers is that it "eats" trees—that is to say, it can cut its way through a wood—and that it can knock down a stone wall. As it has no teeth it cannot masticate timber. All that it accomplishes must be done by ramming or by lifting up its weight to crush an obstacle. A small tree or a weak wall yields ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... gardener of the time, who is proposing to our young hero some scheme for his estate; while the seated and periwigged figure who runs his fingers over the harpsichord has been suggested as that of the great composer Handel. But when we start forth to knock down the watch, "beat the rounds," intrigue with the fair, and generally keep up the character of a young blood or "macaroni," a little timely assistance is often welcome; and is here proffered (with hope of due remuneration) by the villainous-looking figure on the prodigal's left, whose recommendation ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... he cried to the drummer. "Tell me what I can do to please you. Shall we play at marbles, or balls, or knock down the golden ninepins? Or shall we have Punch and Judy in the court ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... spend the best part of your days exercising. Waste of time! Waste of time! A strong man never comes to anything. They're simple, mostly. It's the head that counts! How many of those ruffians did you knock down?" ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... lower or slacken down suddenly; expressed of a sail in a squall of wind, an extended hawser, &c. Douse the glim, your colours, &c., to knock down. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... seats. We will knock down the first man who moves. There's no danger!" Flint shouted. For an instant the crowd wavered. It would have taken only one more impulse to turn it into a mob. Nora Costello saw the danger, and seizing her tambourine she began on a ringing Army chorus. The audience fell in with ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... on the hill, fired into the temporary barricade of the English; but at this moment a sloop hove in sight, and bore down toward the shore. It had two or three small cannon on board with which it proceeded to knock down the stone house. The sloop was commanded by a resolute man, Captain Golding, who effected the embarkation of the company, taking off only two at a time in a canoe. During the embarkation the Indians who were armed with ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... most solid side of the mount, is the place for the keep. We use the biggest stones for that. The bottom storey of father's keep is partly cut right out of the rock, and the walls are twenty-five or thirty feet thick. Nobody can knock down that wall with a battering-ram! Here we'll make a great arched door, so that the knights can ride right in without dismounting when they're hard pressed by the enemy. Here's the drawbridge—" Roger hastily whittled off a piece of bark—"and this line I've scratched ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... has worked such good effects, as well let him remain under it for a while. Time enough to knock down the scaffolding when the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... at the Exchange, and went up and trod on his toe. Doubled his fist and knocked me down. Good!—got up again. Some trifling difficulty with Bag, my attorney. I want the damages at a thousand, but he says that for so simple a knock down we can't lay them at more than five hundred. Mem—must get rid of Bag—no ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... her to clean the house. Broomstaff was a chimney-sweeper. The Mopstaffs and Broomstaffs are naturally as civil people as ever went out of doors; but, alas! if they once get into ill hands, they knock down all before them. Pilgrimstaff ran away from his friends, and went strolling about the country; and Pipestaff was a wine-cooper. These two were the ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... Yankees had landed. They have got rather wild like; but I go out and give them some corn every evening. I expect, if we look about, we shall find some nests; indeed I know there are one or two of them sitting. So, if you will come out with me, we can soon knock down five or six of the creatures, and maybe get a score or two of eggs. As for vegetables, a horde of locusts couldn't have stripped the country cleaner than ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... "ye take every thing very canny; you're a philosopher, to be sure; but, I daresay, if the moon was to fall from the lift, and knock down the old kirk, ye would say no more ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... did not seem to want to go, however, and Mrs. Golden was getting a bit worried. She feared the monkey would leap about and knock down ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... stay cool and polite When your host and your hostess are staging a fight: It's hard to talk sweet to a dame with a frown Or smile at a man that you want to knock down. You sit like a dummy and look far away, But you just can't help hearing the harsh things they say. It ruins the dinner, I'm telling you now, When your host and your hostess get ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... for any logical reason, opposes such a proposal—on the ground, say, that Miss Anthony never mounted a horse in her life, or that a dozen leopards would be less useful than a gallows to hang the City Council, or that the Structural Iron Workers would spit all over the floor of Symphony Hall and knock down the busts of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms—this citizen is commonly denounced as an anarchist and a public enemy. It is not only erroneous to think thus; it has come to be immoral. And many other planes, high and low. For an American to question any of the articles of fundamental ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the Kendah are a very great people who live by themselves and will allow none to enter their land, which is bordered by deserts. Therefore no force that you could take with you and feed upon a road without water would be strong enough to knock down their gates like an elephant, and it seems better that you should try to creep through them like a wise snake, although they appear to be shut in your face. Perhaps also they will not be shut since did you not ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... house if it gets in her path, knock down trees, chew up barbed-wire, and climb down into ravines and out again, and go over a good-sized stream without a whimper," said Tom, as he steered ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... pursuit of them, further flight would be useless, halted and appeared to be consulting what to do. In another minute I recognised my father and Uncle Denis leading the party. Our friends dashed forward at the fellows. My father was just in time to knock down one of them who had presented his pistol at the black's head, and I fully expected that the four men would be killed on the spot. I saw Dio, however, holding up his hands to protect them, while he explained apparently what had happened. We now showed ourselves, and, hurrying ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... it, but it sooted me fust rate. When I got home, the more I thought about it the more I made up my mind I'd learn that dance. Wall I went out in the corn field whar none of the neighbors could see me, and I'll be durned if I didn't knock down about four akers of corn, but I never got that dance right. I wuz the talk of the whole community; mother didn't speak to me fer about a week, and Aunt Nancy Smith sed I wuz a burnin' shame and a disgrace to the village, but I notice Nancy ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... its own opinion) had a certain eccentric inclination towards the poetic perfection when it will be impossible to steal, because there will be nothing left worth stealing. Still everybody here stuck to his own rights, and would knock down anybody across them, though finding it very nice to talk as if others could have no such standing-point. Moreover, they had sufficient common-sense to begin with the right end foremost, and to take a tender interest in one another's ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... pestles, vats, casks, beds, everything that could serve as a weight and could knock down. Some watched at the embrasures with fisherman's nets, and when the Barbarian arrived he found himself caught in the meshes, and struggled like a fish. They demolished their own battlements; portions of ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... along a pass, with their white trousers, red coats, white cross-belts and brass plates, at about four hundred yards, and thought what a raking that rifle would give a body, of troops in such colors for a mark. A ball of that weight with an ounce of powder, would knock down six or eight men in a row. A dozen of such weapons well handled on board a ship would create an astonishing effect; but for most purposes the weight of the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... her Coney Skins; but what allowance are you to have now, Master, you should have handsome Lodgings in Pall-Mall Tutors to embellish you, dress out for Whites, keep a Chair by the Week, and an impudent Footman to knock down ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... dearly have liked to knock down that reptile Landsberg. But that would only have caused a scandal, which, for the dear woman's sake, must ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... there to Major Freeland, who kept a public house. He was formerly from Virginia, and was a horse-racer, cock-fighter, gambler, and withal an inveterate drunkard. There were ten or twelve servants in the house, and when he was present, it was cut and slash—knock down and drag out. In his fits of anger, he would take up a chair, and throw it at a servant; and in his more rational moments, when he wished to chastise one, he would tie them up in the smoke-house, and whip them; after which, ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... triumphant demonstration, where is the trace of concealment or disguise in that amiable but very inedible insect? Go to, Sir Critic, I will have none of you; I only use you for a metaphorical marionette to set up and knock down again, as Mr. Punch in the street show knocks down the policeman who comes to arrest him, and the grimy black personage of sulphurous antecedents who pops up with a fizz through the floor of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... he's a cut-throat, that is the reason he goes alone. Even the Touaricks are afraid of him; and when they brought him here he quarrelled with them several times. Besides, a few days ago he was going to knock down the toll-taker at the gate." After this display of personal daring, I shall never have a contemptible idea of a Negro. The free, independent, and enlightened gentleman slave-driver of Yankee Land, armed with that symbol of order ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... other well,—we are made for each other,—I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If I get drunk every day in my own room, that's vice, you can't touch me; if I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock down the watchman, that's a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one pound—perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold or flattery ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... little Jim turned his back on the door and the girls near him and made ready his fists. "The first boy that comes I'll knock down!" he cried. And the line ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... permitted to make a few more remarks. His honor bowing assent, the well-looking legal gentleman, in blandest accents, proceeded to say Jonathan must not lay a foundation for others he was first to knock down; for if a rule applied to great principles it must not be made subservient to small exigencies of an opposite character: Jonathan must bow to his own stumbling-blocks. It did, however, seem that this Commission had been viewed by certain parties as a sort of ola podra; before which deluded persons ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... particular. This sweet lady maneuvered on a carpet like Marlborough on the south of France. She was brimful of resources, and they all tended toward one sacred object, getting her own way. She could be imperious at a pinch and knock down opposition; but she liked far better to undermine it, dissolve it, or evade it. She was too much of a woman to run straight to her je-le-veux, so long as she could wind thitherward serpentinely and by detour. She could have said to Mr. Hardie, "You will take down Lucy to dinner," ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... these are—no! A few of them I would put into the acid bath, as I would a casting, to clean them before chiselling them down. They might be good for something then. You must begin by knocking down, boy, if you want to build up. You must knock down everything, raze the existing system to the ground, and upon the place where it stood shall rise the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... shied his castor into the ring, everybody could see there was going to be trouble. He spit on his hands, sparred a little, and suddenly landed a stunning blow right on the ivory, which staggered the piano, and caused an exclamation of agony. First knock down for Jack. He paused a moment and then began putting in blows right and left, in such a cruel manner that the spectators came near breaking into the ring. Whenever a key showed its head he mauled it. We never saw a piano stand so much punishment, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... descanting on the good qualities of his departed friend, and about to try those of the whiskey—a fourth evacuating that load with which he had already overloaded himself—a fifth, declaring he could carry a fare, hear mass, knock down a member of parliament, murder a peace officer, and after all receive a pension: and while the priest was making an assignation with a sprightly female sprig of Shelalah, another was jonteelly picking his pocket. I had seen enough, and having no desire to continue ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... you. He only wrote this down for me to read—when he began to feel that he would never see me again—the reasons why he had failed in everything, lost everything. When I pieced out the story, from the day you used your pike pole to knock down a man whose fighting hands were tied by a promise to a woman he loved, from then till the last cold-blooded maneuver by which you got this land of ours, I hated you, and I set out to pay you ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the other way when the conductor sees a passenger coming. He can run too fast, or let the car behind beat his, and so on, annoying the conductor continually. The only way the conductor can keep friends with him is to divide every night. . . . The conductors 'knock down' on an average about thirty-five or fifty cents per day. . . . I don't think the practice can be entirely stopped. We try all we can. Some will do it, and others think they have the same right. We can't stop it, but discharge a man mighty quick if he is detected." The Third Avenue line runs 200 ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... long time Rupert worked away with his furniture until he had quite exhausted himself; then feeling happier and better than he had done since he was shut up, he began to think of plans of escape. The easiest way would of course be to knock down and gag the gaoler, and to escape in the clothes; but this plan he put aside at once, as it was morally certain that he should be no nearer to his escape after reaching the courtyard of the prison, ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... mean when they say, 'You have put your foot into it.' You must remember never to put your foot into anything before trying it first with your trunk," the old elephant went on to say. "Now watch me knock down a still bigger tree." ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... there with a Knife, and a pound and half of Sugar, and with a stick stir it well together, and it will work afresh; when it hath done working, stop it close, and let it stand till it be clear, then bottle it up and put a Lump of Sugar into every Bottle, and then stop it close, and knock down the Corks, and turn the Bottles the Bottoms upwards, and it will be fit to drink in ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... years beyond the allotted age and have had so many attacks of illness within the last two years; but I am, as Bess Fitzherbert and poor dear Sophy used to say, like one of those pith puppets that you knock down in vain, they always start up the same as ever. I was particularly fortunate in my last attack of erysipelas in all the circumstances, just having reached Harriet and Louisa's comfortable home, and happy in having Harriet Butler coming to me the very day she heard I was ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... could be discharged. The men on the beach waded out through the surf (though it took them up to the armpits), and the men in the lugger passed the kegs and boxes to them. Waves which were unusually big would knock down the men in the water, burden and all, and then there would be laughter from all hands, and grumbles from the victim. I never saw men work harder. The freight was all flung out and landed and packed in half an hour. It passed out in a continual stream ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... Promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. I lodged, the first Week, at the House of one, who desired me to think my self at home, and to consider his House as my own. Accordingly, I the next Morning began to knock down one of the Walls of it, in order to let in the fresh Air, and had packed up some of the Houshold-Goods, of which I intended to have made thee a Present: But the false Varlet no sooner saw me falling to Work, but he sent Word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... after him.' Almost at that instant, Bob made his appearance; and the first people he met were his old and his young masters. They were terribly enraged at finding him there, and the eldest began cursing, and calling upon his son to 'Knock down the d-d black rascal'; at the same time, they both fell upon him like tigers, beating him with the heavy ends of their canes, bruising and mangling his head and face in the most awful manner, and causing the blood, which streamed from his wounds, to cover him like a slaughtered ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... for two days through the woods, living as we best could upon such animals as Pharaoh was able to knock down, and on the pears, which were all the more aggravating to our hunger because of their sharp spines. During those two days we did not come in contact with human beings, though we thrice saw parties of Indians and had to conceal ourselves from them. We followed no path, and if we chanced ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... in our power to knock down the guards and throw them overboard, but this would have been of no avail. If we had done so, and had effected our escape to Long Island, it would have been next to impossible for us to have proceeded ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... impression of being what country folk call a crusty person—curt and forbidding in manner—seems pretty well established. His friend Alcott says he was deficient in the human sentiments. Emerson, who, on the whole, loved and admired him, says: "Thoreau sometimes appears only as a gendarme, good to knock down a cockney with, but without that power to cheer and establish which makes the value of a friend." Again he says: "If I knew only Thoreau, I should think cooeperation of good men impossible. Must we always talk for victory, and never once ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... Madam Kummerfeld, a former actress who in her youth had as Juliet inspired the Leipsic student Goethe, is their teacher in the art of sewing as well as making a courtly bow—which latter accomplishment they have occasion to practise when one day in the park they almost knock down the corpulent Grand Duke by running against him, and are then treated by him to good things to eat. With his knowledge they slip into the theatre without tickets, and when they have witnessed a performance of Tasso ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... a moment in silence, a flush on her cheek and a pallor about her lips, which Tom Tubbs saw, secretly shaking his fist and thinking how he would like to knock down the man who could speak so to a wife as beautiful ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... thrifty wife; and he talked of cousin Swift in a maudlin way, though of course Mr. Esmond did not allude to this relationship. The doctor scowled, blushed, and was much confused, and said scarce a word during the whole of dinner. A very little stone will sometimes knock down these Goliaths of wit; and this one was often discomfited when met by a man of any spirit; he took his place sulkily, put water in his wine that the others drank plentifully, and scarce ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you," said he, "a piece of mechanism entirely new. At the first serious attempt upon your lock, an invisible plate will open of itself and vomit forth a pretty copper bullet of the weight of a mark—which will knock down the intruder, and not without a loud report. What do ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a soft word, they go down again as quick. Then, there's the village blacksmith. I call him 'The gentle giant.' He is a tremendous fellow in height, and size, and sinew; but such a kind, sweet-tempered chap. He could knock down an ox, yet he wouldn't harm a fly. I am his idol: I sauntered in to his smithy, and forged him one or two knives; and of course he had never seen the hammer used with that nicety; but instead of hating me, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... all his enemies—all the men, women and children," said the Captain, raising a fierce gleam of satisfaction in the old man's face at the mere suggestion, "and if he were to knock down all their huts, and burn up all their kayaks and oomiaks, the insult would still remain, because an insult can only be wiped out by one's enemy ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... by Innocent VIII. to prosecute the witch-trials in Germany were, Jacob Sprenger, so notorious for his work on demonology, entitled the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer to knock down Witches; Henry Institor, a learned jurisconsult; and the Bishop of Strasburgh. Bamberg, Treves, Cologne, Paderborn, and Wuerzburg, were the chief seats of the commissioners, who, during their lives alone, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... left entirely to himself and wandered about, looking for snowdrops under the trees, talking to himself, lost in a chain of ideas that included food and the sea and catapults and a sore finger and what school would be like and whether he could knock down the Dean's youngest, Ernest, whom he hated without ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... much more timid and not so successful. They settle on the branch and knock down a great many walnuts in their clumsy attempts to secure one. Even when the walnut has been obtained, the young rook is not sure of his prize: one of his older and stronger brethren is very likely to attack him and knock the walnut out of his bill. Then, by a dextrous swoop, ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... to the law for protection. The gentry are ready enough to attend grand juries, to obtain presentments for their own benefit, but they desert the quarter-sessions of the peace. The first act of a constable in arresting must not be to knock down the prisoner; and many, many reforms must be made, which only can be effected by a judicious and able Government on the spot. Ireland, in its present state, cannot be governed in England. If insubordination compels ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... make a dinner, yer honour, for every mother's son of 'em, counting the gur-r-rls, in the bargain! Such a power of bir-r-ds, would knock down 'praties, in a wonderful degree, and make even butthermilk chape and plenthiful. Will it be always such abundance with us, down at the Huts, yer honour? or is this sight only a delusion to fill us with hopes that's never to ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... "It was knock down and drag out from the start. The first hour of puttin' the men to fair perished our knuckles. I've got the smashed joints yet to show. Every sea-chest broke open, every sea-bag turned out, and whiskey bottles, knuckle-dusters, sling-shots, bowie-knives, an' guns ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... they might be able to step out into the woods or prairie, between times, as it were, and knock down a few head of game when the day's work was done, or had not begun. When he said as much, the two heads of the party laughed again, and even Charlie joined ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... considerably surprised. Rushed furiously at Buttons, arms flying everywhere, struck over Buttons's head. Buttons lightly made obeisance, and then fired a hundred-pounder on Beppo's left auricular, which had the effect of bringing him to the grass. First knock down ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... sympathy, he turned upon the peasants in almost savage wrath, and in his tract "Against the Murdering, Thieving Hordes of Peasants," he urged the princes to crush the insurrection. "In the case of an insurgent," he says, "every man is both judge and executioner. Therefore, whoever can should knock down, strangle, and stab such publicly or privately, and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, and devilish as an insurgent.... Such wonderful times are these that a prince can merit heaven better with bloodshed than ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... must be remembered that the Hessian who "down-town" is steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear before the "up-town" world as a Christian citizen and an example of domestic virtue. The type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and proper gentleman, prompt to knock down any one daring to asperse his veracity after five any evening and all day Sunday, but who considers himself free to engage in any dirty juggle or misrepresentation from 9 A.M. to 4.45 P.M. In office hours you run no risk in calling him a liar, for then he'll laugh at the joke and tell you business ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Expence. And to the End that this Place should be always disposed of according to Merit, I would have none preferred to it, who has not given convincing Proofs both of a sound Judgment and a strong Arm, and who could not, upon Occasion, either knock down an Ox, or write a Comment upon Horace's Art of Poetry. In short, I would have him a due Composition of Hercules and Apollo, and so rightly qualified for this important Office, that the Trunk-maker may not ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... prisoner is attempting to run away, or is rising upon an officer, the officers are held at liberty to shoot, knock down, or use whatever means may be needed in self-defense or in preventing their escape. Otherwise prison rule does not allow an officer to strike a man, but he must be punished by the solitary or ball and chain at the discretion of the warden, who found ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... in the pioneer days he had been many a time rocked to sleep in a sugar trough. The lights of the town, the few that he could see, looked red and angry. He remembered a newspaper account of the way-laying and robbing of a prominent citizen. It was so easy for a tramp to knock down an unsuspecting man. Tramp and robber were interchangeable terms with him, and often, on a cold night, when he had seen the wanderer's fire, kindled close to the railway track, he had wondered why ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... knock down a tree and cut a load of firewood with any Bushman; she was square and muscular, with arms like a navvy's; she had often worked shifts, below and on top, with her husband, when he'd be putting down a prospecting shaft without a mate, as he often had to do—because of her mainly. Old diggers ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... begun," he said angrily. "However, I can't stand here and knock down a man who will make no attempt to defend himself. I am through with you now. You ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... had prowled around there on many a dark night, had observed what went on within, and had wondered if there would never be any cessation of the work. He had tested the walls with his paws and wished that he were only strong enough to knock down the whole structure ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof |
