"Knuckle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about English wateringplaces? Brighton, Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. Will ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... will fit a plow handle better than a gun-stock, Thaine," his father assured him, looking down at the boy's square, sun-browned hand with a dimple in each knuckle. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... a tear out of his eye with a dirty knuckle, and departed abruptly, leaving the little teacher just about ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... imperceptibly at first, not quite—remaining just a trifle larger than before. He stared at them and at his battered knuckles, and, for the moment, caught a vision of the youthful excellence of those hands before the first knuckle had been smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... shall. I'm not going to knuckle under to Louis and his beastly Jews—with a chance like that. I don't care if the price is stiff. It's a little masterpiece, the sort of thing you don't get once in a hundred years. It'll send up the standard. That's of course why ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... unhappy suicide dangling from a beam. A farthing candle, stuck in a bottle neck, shed its feeble light upon the table, which, owing to the provident kindness of Mr. Wood, was much better furnished with eatables than might have been expected, and boasted a loaf, a knuckle of ham, a meat-pie, and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... taking daily at breakfast a decoction made from the leaves and tops of the Wood Betony. Culpeper wrote: "This is a precious herb well worth keeping in your house." Gerard tells that "Betony maketh a man have a good appetite to his meat, and is commended against ache of the knuckle bones" (sciatica). ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... wants any laws, she will let you know. I know the signs. When a Great One rises up in the midst of a Republic and puts her hands on her hips and says 'What are you going to do about it?' and there isn't anything to do about it, you have a dictator, and all that you can do is knuckle down and ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... fishhooks; gold chains, gas fittings, glass toys, or gun barrels; hairpins, harness, handcuffs, or hurdles; ironwork, isinglass, inkstands, or inculators; jewellery, javelins, jews' harps, or baby jumpers; kettles, kitchen ranges, knife boards, or knuckle dusters; lifting-jacks, leg irons, latches, or lanterns; magnets, mangles, medals, or matches; nails, needles, nickel, or nutcrackers; organ pipes, optics, oilcans, or ornaments; pins, pens, pickle ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... her eyes fixed where they had fallen. For there stood John March and Henry Fair in the first bright elation of their encounter busily exchanging their manly acknowledgments and explanations. Lost to herself she stayed, an arm bent high and a knuckle at her parted teeth, comparing the two men and noting the matchless bearing of her Southerner. In it she read again for the hundredth time all the energy and intrepidity which in her knowledge it stood for; his boyish openness and simplicity, his tender ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... under him. They was all hell-benders who had ridden the range alone and had their share of fights and killings, which there wasn't one of 'em that wouldn't have been good enough to go leader in any other crew, but they had to knuckle under to old Piotto. He was a great gunman and he was pretty good in scheming up ways of dodging the law and picking the best booty. He had these five men, and then he had his daughter, Joan. She was better'n two ordinary ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... to eat, Tender for old teeth, Gristle for young teeth, Big deer and fat deer, Lean meat and fat meat, Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone, Liver and heart. Food for the old men, Life for all men, For women and babes. Easement of hunger-pangs, Sorrow destroying, Laughter provoking, Joy invoking, In the smell of its smoking And its ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... their best kennels, to live under ditches and bushes, but to preserve good neighbourhood and peace; and finding likewise, that the AEtolian dogs might be of some use in the low offices of life, they passed a decree, that the natives should be entitled to the short ribs, tops of back, knuckle-bones, and guts of all the game, which they were obliged by their masters to run down. This condition was accepted, and what was a little singular, while the Molossian dogs kept a good understanding among themselves, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... but not in figure, my cook has made all this out of a hog! It would be simply impossible to meet up with a more valuable fellow: he'd make you a fish out of a sow's coynte, if that's what you wanted, a pigeon out of her lard, a turtle-dove out of her ham, and a hen out of a knuckle of pork: that's why I named him Daedalus, in a happy moment. I brought him a present of knives, from Rome, because he's so smart; they're made of Noric steel, too." He ordered them brought in immediately, and looked them ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... canst thou break my head? Since my head is made of iron; My body made of steel; My hands and feet of knuckle-bone. I challenge ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... named Palamedes, a sort of universal genius, who hit upon many other contrivances, among the rest, weights and measures. But this worthy lived in the times of the Trojan war, and yet Homer makes no mention of dice—the astragaloi named by the poet being merely knuckle-bones. Dice, however, are mentioned by Aristophanes in his comedies, and so it seems that the invention must be placed between the times of the two poets, that is, about 2300 years ago. At any rate the cube or die has been in use as an instrument of play, at least, during that ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... And I ran off up here to punch cows. But after a while I wrote home to mother and my sister. Since then they've tried to coax me to come home. This letter's from the old man himself. Gee!... Well, he says he's had to knuckle. That he's ready to forgive me. But I must come home and take charge of his ranch. Isn't that great?... Only I can't go. And I couldn't—I couldn't ever ride a horse again—if I ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... into mysteries, things changed but little through eons on the surface of the world, where men loved and hated, bred and slew, triumphed and failed, lorded and cringed as had been the way since the beginning, when the cave man that handled the heavier knuckle-bone ruled the roost. But to the unphilosophic eye of the majority of mankind things seemed to change greatly in a very little while; and it seemed, therefore, to the superficial, that many things had happened in France and in Paris during ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... occurrence. They were fixed into handles of wood or horn, and kept in place with some agglutinative substance, such as pitch, several of them still retaining traces of this primitive glue. We must also mention awls, pins of bone and ivory, and ossicles or knuckle bones, in every stage of manufacture, confirming the accounts of Greek historians, who tell us of the great antiquity of the game played with them. The Dardanians used wooden and bone implements and weapons almost exclusively. It is impossible to say whether ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... jest reach me my snuff-box, will 'ee? —'ere it be—in my back 'ind pocket—thankee! thankee!" Hereupon he knocked upon the lid with a bony knuckle. "I du be that full o' noos this marnin' that my innards be all of a quake, Peter, all of a quake!" he nodded, saying which, he sat ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... the hinge is the cylindrical part that connects the two leaves, Fig. 234. The "acorn" is the head of the "pintle" or pin that passes thru the knuckle. Sizes of butts are indicated in inches for length, and as "narrow," "middle," "broad" and "desk" for width. The pin may be either riveted into the knuckle as in box-hinges or removable as in door-butts. Sometimes, ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... wrote letters and gave up our identification discs and were served with persuader sticks or knuckle knives, and with ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... says. There are a lot of things in this life, I remembered, which woman is able to squirm out of. But here, Mistress Tabbie, was one you couldn't escape. Here was a situation that had to be faced. Here was a time I had to knuckle down, had to grin and bear it, had to go through with it to the bitter end. For other folks, whatever they may be able to do for you, aren't able to have ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... law must have a care where they go, and to whom they appeal, yet Ester's father was growing more desperate every moment. He went boldly to the door and gave a timid rap with his knuckle. That hand once bold enough to strike a king from his throne was weak and trembling on this night. At sound of the knock, the husband and father seemed to have suddenly changed. The lion may sport and play with his whelps in his lair, but when the intruder ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... FOR BOX WORK.—Fig. 227 is a section through a small box similar to a lady's work-box (the back of the box in the illustration is enlarged in thickness to clearly show the position of the hinge). In this case the knuckle of the hinge is let into the woodwork until it is flush with the back of the box, and the gauge would have to be set to the total width of the hinge. The back edges of the lid and the back edge of the lower portion of the box are planed ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... the front again, and I starts hammering at the window, with every knuckle on my hands, and I calls out, "I'm Miss Louisa Coleman, and I'm the owner of this house, and you can't deceive me,—I saw you come in, and you're in now, and if you don't come and speak to me this moment ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... feminine society which had superseded the legitimate drama. "There are three ingredients essential to the success of such an entertainment," Thessaly pronounced: "fat legs, thin legs, and legs." They witnessed a knuckle-fight in Whitechapel between a sailorman and a Jewish pugilist. The referee was a member of a famous sporting club, and the purse was put up by a young peer on leave from the bloody shambles before Ypres. "Our trans-Tiber ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... the Red Corpuscles.*—Blood for this purpose is easily obtained from the finger. With a handkerchief, wrap one of the fingers of the left hand from the knuckle down to the first joint. Bend this joint and give it a sharp prick with the point of a sterilized 'needle just above the root of the nail. Pressure applied to the under side of the finger will force plenty of blood through a very small opening. (To ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... Snatch-bow, about the warm weather in the south, he watched me in wonder and then stood up and said "Injun have no house he all melt. I no go there" Of course he said this in Eskimo. In his house was a few pieces of furniture. In the center was the knuckle bone of a macedon with a nice dish shaped top this was filled with oil, a string was laid in this; and one end lighted this was their only light. This lamp served also as a nurseing bottle for the babies. They had two round pieces of driftwood they used for chairs. In another hut I found they ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... sorr. Sure, an' I didn't mane no harrm," said my friend, apologising in the most handsome way for the unintentional insult; and, putting out a brawny hairy paw like that of Esau's, he gave a grip to my poor little mite of a hand that made each knuckle crack, as he introduced himself in rough and hearty sailor fashion. "Me name's Tim Rooney, as I tould you afore, Misther Gray- ham—sure, an' it's fond I am ov bacon, avic, an' ham, too, by the same token! I'd have ye to know, as ye're a foorst-class ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of a knuckle of veal or leg of beef, cut it in pieces the size of an egg, as also half a pound of lean ham; then rub a quarter of a pound of butter on the bottom of your pot, which should hold two gallons; then put in the meat with half a pint of water, three middle-sized onions, with two cloves in ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... harpoons, some with spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like the rapid clack of knuckle bones. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... close to me for the rest of the night, and we'll say no more about it. There's no great damage done—nothing but a sore knuckle." I was feeling now the return effects of my blow on the coolie's chin. I felt too much in fault myself to call my attendants very sharply to task. It was through me that Luella had come into danger, and I had to confess that I had failed ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... seemed centred on that pudgy hand, in its inevitable glove, that had fixed so firm a gripe on the back of the mahogany chair as to strain open one of the fingers of the tight, tawny kid-glove worn by Dr. Englehart. This had parted slightly just above the knuckle of the front-finger, and revealed the cotton stuffing within. Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed, which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this term as concerned the profession he affected at all, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... themselves with difficulty, they kindled a fire and cooked a breakfast of the boar's ham cured by them before leaving the coast. It was the second, and of course the last, already becoming rapidly reduced to a "knuckle;" for their journey was now ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... "Don't you knuckle down too much before her, and Simeon too. Abuse them for all you're worth. It's daytime now, and they won't dare do anything to you. If anything happens, tell them straight that, now, you're going to the governor immediately and are going to tell on them. Tell 'em, that they'll be ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... bouquet bridge calf calm catch castle caught chalk climb ditch dumb edge folks comb daughter debt depot forehead gnaw hatchet hedge hiccough hitch honest honor hustle island itch judge judgment knack knead kneel knew knife knit knuckle knock knot know knowledge lamb latch laugh limb listen match might muscle naughty night notch numb often palm pitcher pitch pledge ridge right rough scene scratch should sigh sketch snatch soften stitch ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... think I've threatened her with it? She just says that she'd rather die or go to prison than go back on her convictions and knuckle under to me. If she could only forget that she'd ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... you stay at home and read, and think these matters over, and I will go and vote for you,"—how would the boys like that? Everybody is willing to be above everybody else, and this thing of one man assuming that he is the superior of another, and asking that other to knuckle down to him, is not popular. You don't like it. And women don't like it any better than you do—and they ought not to like it, either. Women can have all the benefit of holding an opinion, but they shall not have the power of expressing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... charged with lightning, had passed over the spot on which they stood. Franklin was just beginning to despair of success, when his attention was caught by the bristling up of some loose fibres on the hempen cord; he immediately presented his knuckle to the key, and received an electric spark. Overcome with the emotion {42} inspired by this decisive evidence of the great discovery he had achieved, he heaved a deep sigh, and conscious of an immortal name, felt that he could have been content if that moment had been his last. The rain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... hand to his face as though to brush his tears away, and we then noticed for the first time—horror upon horror!—that his fingers had all been cut, or rather hacked out, at the knuckle-joints, the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... strange mischief and mischance; I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat; In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance, I am simply and symbolically meet; I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind; I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death; At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown, I shrill impudent triumph ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... would go on, "and I'll close my account. As it is, I think I will remove my patronage to a firm which will treat me civilly. Why, sir, I've never heard anything like it in all my experience." Upon which the man would knuckle under and go away forgiven, with a large ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... I'll come at it soon enough," went on Bacon, as he turned up another burr in a very awkward corner. In his nervous excitement the wrench slipped, banging his knuckle. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Egypt shrank dismayed. They made a feeble and altogether unsuccessful attempt to imitate Aaron's performance, and then drew back, declining to continue the contest. The lice settled them. "This," said they, "is the finger of God." But Pharaoh still refused to knuckle under. Even against the force of this supreme wonder his heart ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... four inches, for in the speed and fury of a charge they will always drive it in right up to the hilt, and while we retain this out-of-date weapon we should certainly put a guard on it not further than six inches from the point. I have used a hand-bayonet which sticks out from the fist like a knuckle-duster and is about six inches long. The shock of the blow is taken on the forearm which also has an iron plate running down it on which to receive the thrust of one's opponent. This is the natural weapon for the Anglo-Saxon, as the fist and arm is used exactly as in boxing. ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... Ramsey is a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of nearly the length of two lady's umbrellas and the bulk of one closely folded in its sheath. She stands with her elbow supported on the corner of the mantel, her temple resting on the knuckle of a thin, nervous hand, in an effect of thoughtful absent-mindedness. Miss Garnett, more or less Merovingian in a costume that lends itself somewhat reluctantly to a low, thick figure, is apparently poising for departure, as she stands before the chair from which she has risen ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... the slums of New Orleans, their education in villainy was naturally perfect. They had the vaguest ideas of meum and tuum; and small personal difficulties were usually settled by the convincing argument of a bowie-knife, or brass knuckle. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... game nothing had been heard save the sound of a knuckle on the table, the flip flip of the pasteboard, or the rasp of a heel on the floor. There was a set smile on Shon's face—a forgotten smile, for the rest of the face was stern and tragic. Pierre smoked cigarettes, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... welcome, for the Reverend Mr Cockran—in charge at the time—had a weakness for the old hypocrite, and entertained strong hopes of bringing about his reformation. For two days he stayed in the parsonage kitchen, smoking his pipe, revelling in the odds and ends, such as knuckle-bones, stray bits of fat and tripe, which fell to his lot, and proudly exhibiting himself in one of the minister's cast-off black coats, which contrasted rather oddly with a pair of ornamented blue leggings and a scarlet sash. When not ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... called her, brought to us! She got the name from always being hungry (bucketee), when she came, and she laughed merrily one day when called so inadvertently. We ourselves went out and gathered several pailsful from the rocks on the first portage. Blue-berries, or knuckle-berries as they are called in Ontario, grow much larger in the North-west than I ever saw them elsewhere, being sometimes as large as small Delaware grapes. The little bushes grow thickly in the crevices of the rocks, and are so completely covered with fruit that ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... could get on withaat em! It ud have to do if they wor deead; They may be sincere but aw daat em, If they're honest, they're wrang i' ther heead. They've all some pet doctrine, an wonder Why fowk wi ther plans disagree, They expect yo should all knuckle under, But aw wodn't for ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... have existed and perished. The megatherium, the icthyosaurus have paced the earth with seven-league steps and hidden the day with cloud vast wings. Where are they now? Fossils in museums, and so few and imperfect at that, that a knuckle bone or a tooth of one of them is prized beyond the lives of a thousand soldiers. These things lived and wanted to live; but for lack of brains they did not know how to carry out their purpose, and ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... took the boy's hand, his thumb pressing back of the second knuckle, his fingers on the palm. He twisted backward and upward gently. "There 's one that's better, though, and easier. See? Not that way," as the boy seized his hand. "Press here. That's right. Now you 've got it. You can make your brother eat ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... young Capons, Trusse and set them and fill their bellies with Marrow, put them into a Pipkin with a knuckle of Veale, a Neck of Mutton, and a Marrow bone, and some sweet bread of Veale; season your Broth with Cloves, Mace, and a little Salt, set it to the fire, and let it boyle gently till your Capons be enough, but boyle them ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... up before the sheriff. He rubs his eyes, and he looks about as if he had just been startled from some bad, ugly dream. He wonders, indeed, if he has seen John Logan at all. Again he rubs his eyes, and then, looking at his knuckle, says, in a deep, guttural fashion, to himself, "Jim-jams, by gol! I ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... drawback is the fact that these handcuffs do not fit all wrists, and often the officer is nonplussed by having a pair of handcuffs which are too small or too large; and when the latter is the case, and the prisoner gets the "bracelets" in his hands instead of on his wrists, he is then in possession of a knuckle-duster from which the bravest would not care to receive ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... conscience that I robbed my master for the best bone in the world," continued the pedlar, and as he said this he took up a little silver horn belonging to the lord of the castle, and, having tapped it with his knuckle to see whether the metal was pure, folded it up in cotton, and put it in his pack with the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... And now poor Gubbins had more to learn! It may seem very easy to turn a crank, to pump, to shoulder a box, to help carry a bale, or to push at a capstan bar, and this certainly is not skilled labour. Yet there is a way of doing each of these things in a painful, laborious, knuckle- cutting, shoulder-bruising, toe-smashing manner, and a ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... negative charge will escape through the body to the ground or "earth," as it is technically called, and the positive charge will remain on the plate. We can withdraw it by lifting the plate, and prove its existence by drawing a spark from it with the knuckle. The process can be repeated as long as the negative charge continues ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... Spurlock. "Ready, sir," added Prescott. "This fight," announced the referee, "is to be to a finish. The rounds will last two minutes each, with a minute's rest between. Queensbury rules will be followed as far as they can be made to apply. This being a bare-knuckle fight for a matter of principle, the combatants will ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... the priest for gorging so—obeyed the order of her mistress, and put the ham on the table. The good monk, without staying to ask "who goes there", fell upon it tooth and nail, and at the very first attack he carried off the knuckle, then the thick end, and so dismembered it that soon there was ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... larger mesh than the other. The matter treated is pumped into the body of the cylinder, the liquid passing through the filtering material to the outside, the solids being retained inside, and are got rid of by partially revolving the upper half to relieve it from the knuckle joint, and, after being raised, the lower half is turned over by machinery, and the solid matter is simply allowed to fall out into wagons or trucks run underneath for that purpose. Such, in brief, is the manner of using this filter press for chemical works' purposes. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... "so if you have a mind to tell it me while I satisfy the cravings of an unusually sharp appetite I'll consider you a most obliging fellow. Pass me the knuckle of ham—thanks—and the ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... operators at their panels. None was signaling an emergency to draw him away from this; give him an excuse to leave in the hope the problem would have solved itself by the time he could get back to it. He chewed on a knuckle and stared angrily at the operator who was sitting back, relaxed, looking ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... Straight, narrow, short shoulders are always accompanied by straight, short, upper arms, forming an obtuse angle, badly developed brisket and "keel" or chicken breast, and the upper arm being thrown forward by the weight of the body behind causes the legs to knuckle over at the "knees." Broad, sloping shoulders, on the other hand, insure soundness of the fore-legs and feet. LEGS AND FEET—Fore-legs very short and strong in bone, slightly bent inwards; seen in profile, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Wa'n't she goin' to turn you out o' your own daughter's home? Wa'n't that what I turned her out fer? I didn't turn her out, anyhow! I only told Orville this house wa'n't big enough fer his mother an' me, an' that neither o' us 'u'd knuckle down, so he'd best take his choice. You'd ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... pen, these fingers and the muscles of the arm near the elbow form the only points of rest or contact on desk or paper. The pen should point over the shoulder, and should be so held that it may pass the root of the nail on the second finger, and about opposite the knuckle of the hand. An unnatural or cramped position of the hand, like such a position of the body, is opposed to good writing, and after many years of observation and study, all teachers concur in the one position above described, as being the most natural, easy and graceful for the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... ruins of earlier cities, city upon city, and fourteen cities, down to a stratum where, still earlier, wandering herdsmen drove their flocks, and where, even preceding them, wild hunters chased their prey long after the cave-man and the man of the squatting-place cracked the knuckle-bones of wild animals and vanished from the earth. There is nothing terrible about it. With Richard Hovey, when he faced his death, we can say: "Behold! I have lived!" And with another and greater one, we can lay ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... Labdurg's treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, in either case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest and the Hulgun spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell these knuckle-heads anything like that! Muz-Azin protected the Chulduns, and Yat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was all there was to it. The Zurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly the families of the men who didn't make ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... times as if looking for something under her petticoats. She hesitated a second, looked at her neighbors and the straightened herself up quietly. Faces were pale and drawn. Loiseau said that he would pay one thousand francs for a knuckle of ham. His wife made a gesture as if to protest, then she became calm. She always suffered when she heard of money being squandered, and did not even understand jokes on that subject. "As a matter of fact, I don't feel well, ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... four pounds of veal (the knuckle or neck will do). Put over fire in one gallon of cold water, without salt. Cover tightly and simmer slowly, until the meat will slip from the bones, not allowing it to boil all the strength out, as the meat can be made into a nice dish for breakfast or luncheon, by reserving a cupful of ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... school, would be likely to lead to unpleasantness. A school prefect of Eckleton was supposed to be hedged about with so much dignity that he could quell turbulent inferiors with a glance. The idea of one of the august body lowering himself to the extent of emphasising his authority with the bare knuckle would ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... anxiety and no slight apprehension of danger, he held the line. Soon he observed the fibres of the hempen string to rise and separate themselves, as was the case of the hair on the head, when any one was placed on an insulating stool. He applied his knuckle to the key, and received an unmistakable spark. As the story is generally told, with occasionally slight contradictions, he applied his knuckle again and again to the key with a similar result. He charged a Leyden jar with ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... great company, that fellow behind "William the Drummer," splendidly attired, sitting full in the face of the public; and holding a pork-bone in his hand. Suppose the Saturday Review critic were to come suddenly on this picture? Ah! what a shock it would give that noble nature! Why is that knuckle of pork not painted out? at any rate, why is not a little fringe of lace painted round it? or a cut pink paper? or couldn't a smelling-bottle be painted in instead, with a crest and a gold top, or a cambric pocket-handkerchief in lieu of the horrid pig, with a pink coronet in the corner? or suppose ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... a fool, can vote and make you knuckle down and do as he tells you to. And don't you remember that time the 'lection run so clost they got up old bed-ridden Nate Haskins, whose brain had been softenin' for years, and his wife had to dress him ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... old gentleman; "I've had nothing to eat yesterday, nor to-day. They surely couldn't miss a bit from the knuckle!" ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... her on her knuckle-bones. Cri', how she lapped 'em up! We hosed 'em out with livin' lead. That was the second day. Me left eye I'd 'ave give for jest a bubble in a cup, Three fingers I'd 'ave parted for a bone I've flung away; But the butcher wasn't callin', 'n' the ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... may be regarded as being "the Back of the Front," to vary a classical expression of Punch. The Front is, indeed, to be visualised not as a straight line but as a fully opened fan, the periphery of which is the fire-trenches, the ribs the lines of communication, and the knob or knuckle is General Headquarters. When we extend our Front southwards and take over the French trenches we just expand our fan a little more. When we come to make a general advance all along the periphery, the whole fan will ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... time the shop-bell went and the widow 'ad to go out to serve a customer they said in w'ispers wot they thought of each other; and once when she came back rather sudden Ginger 'ad to explain to 'er that 'e was showing Peter Russet a scratch on his knuckle. ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... a knuckle against his teeth, darn him," he observed ruefully when he was in the saddle again. "Come on, Weary. It won't take but a minute to hand a punch or two to that bug-killer, and then I'll feel better. They've both got it coming—come ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the remains of a fire no doubt left by a party of Indian hunters, who had also spent a night there. With these they were enabled to boil their kettle, and make a mate of their favourite yerba tea; while the "knuckle" of mutton and some cakes of corn bread still left, needed no cooking. It is after all this was over, and they had been some time conversing on the many strange incidents which occurred to them throughout the day, that they became aware of the flood ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... favourite refuge from the excessive heat. Suetonius gives a pleasant gossiping picture of the old man's life in his short holidays there, his delight in idly listening to the prattle of his Moorish and Syrian slave-boys as they played knuckle-bones on the beach, his enjoyment of the cool breeze which swept through his villa even in summer or of the cool plash of water from the fountain in the peristyle, his curiosity about the big fossil bones dug up in the island which he sent to Rome to be placed in the galleries of his ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... show if you'd like to see it," said Harvey, just as enthusiastically, except that he slapped the arm of the chair and peeled his knuckle on a ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... was laid for the evening meal. She pointed to the heels of two loaves, a knuckle of ham, a piece of cheese, and some water in a glass jug. Oatmeal simmered on a reeking oil-stove in a corner ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... sat still, staring blankly before her. She sighed, rubbed a knuckle in a reddened ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... fist grasping its middle—to the level of his eyes, at arm's length. He got the cord accurately in the center of the pebble, and drew toward his nose. This effort was so successful that the stone went perfectly straight—and caught him fair on the thumb-knuckle. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took their punishment with the savage pluck of so many little Sioux. As the game began in the raw cold of the earliest spring, every boy had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin worn off the knuckle of his middle finger from resting it on the ground when he shot. You could use a knuckle-dabster of fur or cloth to rest your hand on, but is was considered effeminate, and in the excitement you were apt to forget ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... face and neck; she had fastened her apron a little low down in front, to be long-waisted, as was the fashion; the girlish contour of her thumb affected me tenderly, and the little wrinkles above the knuckle were full of kindliness. Her ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... diamond on her finger drew her gaze. She worked his ring over the knuckle, and dropped it on the dresser, where the face in the silver frame smiled up at her. She stared at the picture for one long minute fixedly, with unchanging expression, and suddenly she swept it from the dresser with a savage sweep of her hand, dashed it on the floor, and stamped it shapeless ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... must have all along been too small for the bony hand of the once famous Court physician. Even now it appeared embedded in the flabby skin and refused to slide over the knuckle. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... never fails to inebriate, the added incentive does not necessarily mean also added muscular development or more weight behind the punch. Ford, fighting as he had always fought, be he drunk or sober, came speedily to the point where he could inspect a skinned knuckle and afterwards gaze in peace ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... at times, and a way of using them that makes a fellow heady, like champagne, and a couple of dimples that will dodge into her cheeks just when a fellow is least prepared to resist them—why, what can a fellow do but knuckle under and say yes, especially when she lets her head tip to one side a little ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... beak-nosed boy, whose sleeves were much too short, and trousers-legs likewise, to hide Nature's abundant gift to him in the matter of bone and knuckle. He was freckled and wore a grin that was ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... "Sure." He quit rubbing his chin with a knuckle, looked at me, and said: "What I wanted to say is that there's no evidence that she was taken across a state line. Whoever sent that ransom note to the Donahue parents was trying to ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... upon their senses as a new and grand idea when Bladud and Dromas, at the urgent request of their friends, stepped into the arena and gave a specimen of the manner in which the art was practised in Hellas. Of course they did not use what we call knuckle-dusters, nor did they even double their fists, except when moving round each other, and as "gloves" were unknown, they struck out with the hands half open, for they had no wish to bleed each other's noses or black each ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... with these books when the Vicomte entered, after knocking at the door. He referred to this courteous precaution by a little gesture indicating the panel upon which his knuckle ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... said my uncle, "I think this will be a good place for you, by this trickling rill; you see the place is roughly in the shape of a ham, so you shall have the place of honour, my boy, by the knuckle-bone, while I and Ebo go round the fat sides and see if we can find the ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... work has made a type not only of clothes but of face. Their answers to the usual questions were all the same, and one felt in talking to them that their opinions were machine-made. Three points stood out—Germany is right and will win; England is wrong and will knuckle under; we hate England because we are alike in religion, custom, and opinion, and it is the war of kindred races. Everywhere one met the arguments and stories of unfairness and cruelty in fighting that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... they result from direct violence, such as a crush between two heavy objects, they are often multiple and compound. Indirect violence, acting in the long axis of the bone and increasing its natural curve, such as a blow on the knuckle in striking with the closed fist, usually produces an oblique fracture about the middle of the shaft, the proximal end of the distal fragment projecting towards the dorsum. Apart from this there is little deformity, as the adjacent metacarpals ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... hair on. I dare to say anything that comes up my darned back, you bet. I'm not going to knuckle down to ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the vial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... by the reason that these people have not the pleasure of paying for their portraits. What is done for nothing is seldom appreciated. Suzette, not wishing to hurt my feelings, soon wiped out her eyes with her largest knuckle, and, having composed her countenance, thanked me for having photographed her. She had had a rough life, but as she had known little else but hardship and privation, she was contented with what ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... four ugly scratches. "Confound the little brute!" he exclaimed, feeling as if an altar had been desecrated. He was reminded, however, of the observation this outrage had led him to make, and, for further assurance, he knocked on the wood with his knuckle. It sounded from that position commonplace enough, but his suspicion was strongly confirmed when, again standing beside the desk, he put his head beneath the lifted lid and gave ear while with an extended arm he tapped sharply in the ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... the barn, leavin' me shakin' with his jolt. He was game all right! He figured me out as the prodigal son, and wa'n't goin' to knuckle. He intended for me to do all the knee exercise. I drifted along up the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... a report on Stud Matters in India, 27th June 1874, writes: "I ask how it is possible that horses could be bred at a moderate cost in the Central Division, when everything was against success. I account for the narrow-chested, congenitally unfit and malformed stock, also for the creaking joints, knuckle over futtocks, elbows in, toes out, seedy toe, bad action, weedy frames, and other degeneracy: 1st, to a damp climate, altogether inimical to horses; 2nd, to the operations being intrusted to a race of people ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... you can have that in a jiffy—but the steak, Lord love you, the old ooman won't stand it at this time; but there's a cold round, mayhap a slice of that might do—or a knuckle of ham?" ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... look at his canvas on the sudden, actually moving their mouths, to laugh and speak and munch their crusts, all at once) the scene in the Lysis of the dice-players. There the boys are! in full dress, to take part in a religious ceremony. It is scarcely over; but they are already busy with the knuckle-bones, some just outside the door, others in a corner. Though Plato never tells one without due motive, yet he loves a story for its own sake, can make one of fact or fancy at a moment's notice, or re-tell other people's better: how those dear skinny grasshoppers ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... in the following manner:—A circle should be drawn about four feet in diameter, and an inner circle of about six inches being also marked out in its centre, into this each boy puts a marble. "Now then, boys, knuckle down at the offing, which is in any part of the outer circle. Now, whoever shoots a marble out of the ring is entitled to go on again: so mind your shots; a good shot may clear the ring. After the first shot, the players do not shoot from ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... Emperor has been at our hut several times. He's good enough to approve it." Her host answered calmly, laying a loaf of black bread, a fine seeded cheese, and a knuckle of ham on the table. He then glanced at his guest, expecting her to come forward; but she sat still on her throne of antlers, her small feet in their sensible mountain boots, daintily crossed under the short ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... he said, "is that when you was appinted capting there was no vote taken. You was stuck up by your own friends, an' that ain't fair, an' I, for one, refuse to knuckle under to 'ee. You may knock me down if you like, for I ain't your match by a long way, but you'll not prove wrong to be right ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... parry the blows of the antagonist, as it is in the "noble and manly" art of self-defence now. The exercise was violent and dangerous, and the combatants often lost their lives, as they do at the present day. The cestus, like our "brass-knuckle," was a thong of hide, loaded with lead, and bound over the hand. At first used to add weight to the blow, it was afterwards continued up the fore-arm, and formed also a weapon of defence. Mr. Morrissey, or any other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... was bound to see the thing through to the end. And see it through he did! why, I tell you that the men down in Froeschwiller were no longer human beings; they were ravening wolves devouring one another. For near two hours the gutters ran red with blood. All the same, however, we had to knuckle under in the end. And to think that after it was all over they should come and tell us that we had whipped the Bavarians over on our left! By the piper that played before Moses, if we had only had a hundred and twenty ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... transport any possible comforts for his men. Six months afterwards he was struck down when directing the fire of his men on the Russian gunners to keep down their fire and cover our attack on the Redan. By chance he heard us warned for guard, and at once went to his tent and returned with a ham knuckle. 'It is all I have,' he said, 'but those going on duty must have the first chance of some food on Christmas Day. Sit down on your rug and make the best of it.' He was in earnest, so we ate up his dinner and polished the ham bone; ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... seen at once that I do not grasp the club across the palm of either hand. The club being taken in the left hand first, the shaft passes from the knuckle joint of the first finger across the ball of the second. The left thumb lies straight down the shaft—that is to say, it is just to the left of the centre of the shaft. But the following are the significant ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... that, after disposing of a good portion of the dinner placed in his big dish at six o'clock that evening (in the little courtyard in which he had once held a tramp bailed up all night), he picked up the large, succulent, and still decently covered knuckle-bone designed for his dessert, and, carrying this in his mouth, set out for the cave on the Downs. He probably had some small twinges of misgiving, but endeavored to dismiss these by assuring himself that poor Desdemona was no doubt very ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... were furious with the stuck-up young man; and though they had hitherto gone through their duty without much fuss or grumbling, they were now filled with a thorough repugnance for the soldier's uniform and a perfect hatred for military life in which one had to knuckle under to idiots like that. You half killed yourself and what did you get by it? More kicks than halfpence, or perhaps you even get clapped ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... human figure, every proportion of a limb, every detail of size, shape, or relation in an organ, means something. Not a line upon any bone in the skeleton which was not made by the hand-grip or thumbprint of some muscle, tendon, or ligament; no bump or knuckle which is not a lever or hand-hold for the grip of some muscle; not a line or a curve or an opening in that Chinese puzzle, the skull, which was not made to protect the brain, to accommodate an eye, to transmit a blood-vessel, or to allow ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... mutinous from the start, half of them blacklegs of the vilest type who swore to get the upper hand of him. His mates, boatswain, and carpenter had broken open their chests and boxes and had removed a collection of slung-shots, knuckle-dusters, bowie-knives, and pistols. Off Rio Janeiro they had tried to kill the chief mate, and Captain Waterman had been compelled to jump in and stretch two of them dead with an iron belaying-pin. Off Cape Horn three sailors fell from aloft and were lost. This accounted ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... that island, on the lip of the fall and walled about with wild rapids, there could be no escape. The situation was not satisfactory from any point of view. But that it was clear against his principles to knuckle down, under any conditions, to beast, or man, or fate, the woodsman might have permitted himself to wish that, after all, his ice-cake had missed the island. As it was, however, he took another bite from his plug of "blackjack," and set ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... flickering sound, such as Eagles doe, swiftly pursuing their praie in the ayre. On either of his winges, as the Estrich hath a sharpe goade or pricke wherewith hee spurreth himselfe forwarde in his saile-assisted race, so this artificiall Estrich, on the imbent knuckle of the pinion of either wing, had embossed christall eies affixed, wherein wheele wise were circularly ingrafted sharpe pointed diamonds, as rayes from those eies deriued, that like the rowels of a ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... that Oates was feeling the cold and fatigue more than the others[318] and again he refers to the matter on January 20.[319] On January 19 Wilson wrote: "We get our hairy faces and mouths dreadfully iced up on the march, and often one's hands very cold indeed holding ski-sticks. Evans, who cut his knuckle some days ago at the last depot, has a lot of pus in it to-night." January 20: "Evans has got 4 or 5 of his finger-tips badly blistered by the cold. Titus also his nose and cheeks—al[so] Evans and Bowers." ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... gently pulling the basket through the window hole, when I heard one of the crew yawn and stretch himself in his sleep. So, determining to risk no more, I quietly pack'd the basket, slung it on my right arm, and with the ham grasp'd by the knuckle in my left, made my ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... minute he had both paws working overtime and such a knuckle twisting no mortal man ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... turned as I gripped him from behind. My hand on his mouth stifled his outcry. His black knife blade waved blindly. Then my clenched knuckle caught his temple, and dug with the twisting Santus blow. I was expert at it, and I found ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... ban't human nachur to knuckle down dumb, so I be gwaine to speak, an' you can mind or ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... dead in an hour," he said, "the fact of your being a dyspeptic need not trouble you any more than if you were an acrostic. Let me therefore suggest that you try a sausage or a knuckle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... stood, with hesitant knuckle, without her door. It was impossible, impossible. A wild thought of rushing in and killing her as she slept rose in my mind. And then, in a flash, the better solution came to me. All hands were asleep. Why ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... her own ideas on clothes. He turned to jewellery. On Lil's silken bosom reposed a diamond-and-platinum pin the size and general contour of a fish-knife. She had a dinner ring that crowded the second knuckle, and on her plump wrist sparkled an oblong so encrusted with diamonds that its utilitarian ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber |
