"Point-blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hearing of such a heavy loss, he almost went out of his mind. He calculated the various sums she had lost, and pointed out to her that in six months she had spent half a million of francs; that neither their Moscow nor Saratoff estates were in Paris; and, finally, refused point-blank to pay the debt. My grandmother gave him a box on the ear and slept by herself as a sign of her displeasure. The next day she sent for her husband, hoping that this domestic punishment had produced an effect upon ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... we might have expected. Mrs. Hepzibah refuses point-blank to sell her stock—won't talk about it. 'The idea of parting with it now, when it is actually worth more than it was when we bought it!'" he quoted, mimicking the thin-lipped, acidulous protest. "Later, in an ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... herself beyond retreating. He intended to wear this anxious face a long while. But his artificial snow had to melt, so real a sun shone full on it. The moment he looked full at Zoe, she repaid him with such a point-blank beam of glorious tenderness and gratitude as made him thrill with passion as well as triumph. He felt her whole heart was his, and from that hour his poverty would never be allowed to weigh with her. He cleared up, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the same reason, the gunners on the ships could not see the forts, the great steel calling-cards of the British Empire came falling out of nowhere as regularly and with as deadly precision as though they were being fired at point-blank range. ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The Lament." This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... district, the automobile was stopped by a wave of dead. It was for all the world like a wave tossed up by the sea. It was patent to us what had happened. As the mob charged past the corner, it had been swept, at right angles and point-blank range, by the machine-guns drawn up on the cross street. But disaster had come to the soldiers. A chance bomb must have exploded among them, for the mob, checked until its dead and dying formed the wave, had white-capped and flung ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... over in something like two seconds. Up stormed the crowd; the pistol-wielder at its head. Three shots were fired at point-blank range. By some miracle none of them harmed Lad; although one bullet scratched his foreleg on its way to the black ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... ward when I saw her yesterday that she has not told you of what, I fear, will give you much pain. I asked her point-blank whether she wished the matter kept from you, and her answer was, 'He had better know—only I'm sorry for him.' In sum it is this: Bellow has either got wind of our watching him, or someone must have put him up to it; he has anticipated us and brought a suit against ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... March 23 rejected by the States-General. Wiser counsels however prevented this point-blank refusal being sent to Paris, and it was hoped that a policy of delay might secure better terms. The negotiations went on slowly through March and April; and, as Blauw and Meyer had no powers as accredited plenipotentiaries, the Committee determined to send Rewbell and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... she disturbed him ten times a day with importunate visitors, and then every evening laid out for him a dress suit and light gloves, and dragged him from drawing-room to drawing-room. You will tell me he could have rebelled, could have replied point-blank: "No!" But don't you know that the very fact of our sedentary existences leaves us more than other men dependent on domestic influence? The atmosphere of the home envelopes us, and if some touch of the ideal does not lighten it, soon wearies and drags us down. Moreover, the artist ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... her suddenly, "if you don't intend telling me anything, you must say so distinctly, and then, of course, it shall be final. But I won't play at delicacy. I ask you point-blank for all ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... it by Scripture tried? No, sure; to that the rebel would not yield; Squadrons of texts he marshall'd in the field: That was but civil war, an equal set, 160 Where piles with piles[112], and eagles eagles met. With texts point-blank and plain he faced the foe. And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so? The good old bishops took a simpler way; Each ask'd but what he heard his father say, Or how he was instructed in his youth, And by tradition's force upheld ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... gallies are mounted each with five-and-twenty oars, and six guns, six-pounders, of a side, and a large piece of artillery amidships, pointing ahead, which (so far as I am able to judge) can never be used point-blank, without demolishing the head or prow of the galley. The accommodation on board for the officers is wretched. There is a paltry cabin in the poop for the commander; but all the other officers lie below the slaves, in a dungeon, where they have neither light, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... and dragging up to the mountain-crib the artillery of a ghostly face, and training it point-blank at Second ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... toward Blakely's quarters at the north end. The doctor fairly brushed them from his path and Major Plume had no easy task persuading the tearful, pallid groups of army wives and daughters to retire to the neighboring quarters. Janet Wren alone refused point-blank. She would not go without first seeing her brother. It was she who took the arm of the awed, bewildered, shame-and conscience-stricken man and led him, with bowed and humbled head, the adjutant aiding on the other side, back to the door ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... at a remark which seemed to be suggested by nothing, assented with a modest air, and, shaking his head and his wig, began to talk to some one else. But M. de Gesvres had not commenced without a purpose. He went on, addressed M. de Villeroy point-blank, admiring their mutual good fortune, but when he came to speak of the father of each, "Let us go no further," said he, "for what did our fathers spring from? From tradesmen; even tradesmen they were themselves. Yours was the son of a dealer in fresh fish at the markets, and mine of a pedlar, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... language of corresponding directness and energy. This method had certainly an advantage when combined with unmistakable sincerity. There could be no sort of doubt that he meant precisely what he said, or that he was obeying the dictates of one of the warmest of hearts. But point-blank language of this kind seems to acquire a certain impropriety in print. I must ask my readers, therefore, to take it for granted that no mother could have received more genuine assurances of the love of a son; and that his other domestic ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... point-blank. I determined then to change mine, and sent word of my intention to the Countess." He flung himself into a chair. "Her reply was to send back to me her marriage contract and her wedding-ring, and to beg to ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... and less alone, smiled at him as tenderly as ever. And then there came a day when he left me full of courage, and going to her house he asked her to marry him. He met her alone by chance, and before asking her mother he spoke to the girl herself. She said no, point-blank. She said 'Nothing would induce her to.' He was so astonished that he didn't stay a second longer in the house. He didn't even come to me, but went back into the country, and then ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... moment's hesitation, George dropped from the fence to his assistance. He drew his revolver, and, just as a hideous great black wretch rushed at him, he fired point-blank. Down fell the man across the fallen officer, and then, as if by magic, half-a-dozen wild-looking ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... Sylvia all that had happened in those ten minutes while the grey morning grew rosy. This sense of compulsion was deaf to all reasoning, however plausible. He knew perfectly well that unless he told Sylvia who it was whom he had shot at point-blank range, as he leaped the last wire entanglement, no one else ever could. Hermann was buried now in the same grave as others who had fallen that morning: his name would be given out as missing from the Bavarian corps to which he belonged, and in time, after the war was over, she would ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... shot!" cried Sam, who now had his pistol out, and as the head of the snake came up over a tree root, the youngest Rover fired point-blank. His aim was true, and the head of the snake went down, and the body whirled this way and that in its ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... were proposing to undertake. He went so far as to put clearly before them aspects of the case which they might have overlooked and to read them legal extracts of a discouraging nature. They were unmoved, and the sindaco, still dissatisfied, asked Berto point-blank whether he really wished, under the circumstances, to take Giuseppina to be his wife. Berto replied in the affirmative. Concealing his surprise, the sindaco turned to Giuseppina and asked her whether she ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... sprang the ladies' man, swept the ladies' men. "Battery, trot, walk. Forward into battery! Action front!" It was at that word that Kincaid's horse went down; but while the pieces trotted round and unlimbered and the Federal guns vomited their fire point-blank and blue skirmishers crackled and the gray line crackled back, and while lead and iron whined and whistled, and chips, sand and splinters flew, and a dozen boys dropped, the steady voice of Bartleson gave directions to each piece by number, for "solid shot," or "case" or "double ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... terror, for she knew not what was there in the quiet, now sequestered room. Burton had told them on their arrival after a long drive across country that patrons of the inn invariably asked which room it was that had been the scene of the tragedy, and, on finding out, refused point-blank to occupy it. In consequence, he had been obliged to transform it into a sort of store and ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... I'm so glad! You have been so slippery about Altruria, you know, that I expected nothing but a point-blank refusal. Of course, I knew you would be kind about it. Oh, I can hardly believe my senses! You can't think what a dear you are." I knew she had got that word from some English people who had been in the hotel; and she was working it rather wildly, but ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... mass of men packed like sheep in a kraal, their fierce eyes shewing white as ivory in the sunlight, their cruel spears quivering in their hands, when the signal was given and every gun, some loaded with slugs and some with bullets, was discharged point-blank ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... into the faces of the men. In this manner I was less under the spell of the mesmerism of the snake, and could to some extent think and act. I wheeled around while I still held control of my faculties, and, perceiving a slight movement of the snake's coils, I fired point-blank at the head, letting go the entire chamber of soft-nose bullets. Instantly the other men woke up from their trance and in their turn fired, emptying their Winchesters into the huge head, which by this time was raised ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... vulgar for the true Savoy tradition, and that in five years she would have gone off to nothing. But the optimists carried the argument. Sundry men who had seen Meshach in the second row of the stalls expressed a keen desire to ask the old bachelor point-blank what he thought of his nephew's daughter; but Meshach did not happen ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Major Rich, one of his subalterns, and his Hindu gun-carrier. One of the file fell at the first volley, two more broke through the line, and the remaining six or seven, led by a fierce old fellow, from whose long tusks the foam dripped, turned up the line and charged point-blank on the next gunner, who fired and missed, but succeeded in keeping them between the line and the jungle. The fourth gun brought down the second pig and wounded the boar in the shoulder. Frantic with rage and pain, the old fellow tore up the ground and grass with his tusks and then, ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... honour, Kenelm, you ask very odd questions. But you cannot learn too early this fact, that irony is to the high-bred what Billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank: he implies it in the politest terms he can invent. Lord Hautfort denies my right of free warren over a trout-stream that runs through his lands. I don't care a rush about the trout-stream, but there ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the best of my ability, answering with some vague generalities, but indicating sufficiently that it was not agreeable to be more explicit. He pressed me, however, to tell him candidly and explicitly whether he had succeeded, and how far. I then told him frankly that he had failed point-blank in every case. "Ah," said he, "you are skeptical." "No, sir," said I, "skepticism implies doubt, and I have no longer any doubts on the subject. My skepticism ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... he had taken her to her last resting-place. But Olivier begged him to go, and promised that he would faithfully watch over her in his stead: he induced him to leave the house: and, to make sure of his not going back on his decision, went with him to the station. Christophe refused point-blank to go without having a sight of the great river, by which he had spent his childhood, the mighty echo of which was preserved for ever within his soul as in a sea-shell. Though it was dangerous for him to be seen in the town, yet for his whim he disregarded it. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... on its approaches, a total trench line of about 150 yards, the Bavarians threw during an hour about 400 5.9's, not to mention smaller shells, while two field guns galloped into Gommecourt Park and unlimbering in full view fired obliquely at the wire from point-blank range. They were harassed and eventually forced to retire by the action of Lieut. Coombes, of the Bucks, on our left, who gallantly got a machine gun into the open and took them in the flank. Our own guns were not available at the time, as they ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... his taste very catholic—and he continually regretted Sullivan's championship of Schumann's music. But one day Sullivan, suspecting the academician didn't know what he was talking about, asked him point-blank if he had ever heard any of the music he so strongly condemned. Potter admitted that he hadn't. Whereupon Sullivan said, "Then play some of Schumann with me, Mr. Potter," and, having done so, Potter "blindly worshipped" ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... refusing thus point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church who still wished for reform. Nor was any ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... aside. M'ling, with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck aside. Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run. I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, into its ugly face. I saw its features vanish in a flash: its face was driven in. Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him, fell headlong beside him and pulled him sprawling upon itself ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... half-closed, looking in the direction from which the shot must have come. The bushes not ten yards away were parted quietly; and a head was thrust out. With a swift motion Dermot swung his rifle round until the muzzle pointed over his toes and, holding the weapon in one hand like a pistol, fired point-blank at the assailant who had crept up quietly behind him. Shot through the head the man pitched forward on his face, almost touching the soldier's feet. Dermot saw that the corpse was that of a low-caste Hindu, clad only in a dirty cotton koorta and dhoti. ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... of the guns from the middle of the court drowned his words, and there was another roar, but the effect was little. The guns were discharged point-blank at the storming party climbing on the ruins; but they were scattered like skirmishers, and the gun-fire did not check them in the least. To Roy it only seemed that they dashed in more furiously, swarming, by the light of the blazing ruins, like bees; and before the guns could be reloaded, the Cavaliers ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... point-blank, Ulyth was obliged to relate what she had overheard; and Miss Bowes, determined to get at the root of the business, cross-questioned her closely, until she had dragged from her reluctant pupil the account of the occurrence in the garden and the conversation ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... Stephen's anger was aroused, for he had a rather unruly temper; and so, smarting under the disappointment of not receiving his liberty, and feeling that the book for Lady Anne was one cause of this, he had spoken angrily and disrespectfully to the Abbot, and refused point-blank ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders are done point-blank. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... failed even more disastrously than the first, the O.C. having made a most unpleasant fuss on the discovery of two large boxes of mustard and cress "cluttering up," as he called it, the gun-mountings on one of the armored cars, and, when the section moved suddenly in the dead of night, refusing point-blank to allow any available space to be loaded up with Mary's budding garden. Mary's plaintive inquiry as to what he was to do with the boxes was met by the brutal order to "chuck the lot overboard," and the counter-inquiry ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection! This is the sword of Damascus, I fought with in Flanders;[11] this breastplate, 25 Well I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish; Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.[12] Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses." 30 Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing: "Truly the breath of the Lord ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... Gibney replied. "I'll set my fuse at zero an' at point-blank range I'll just rake everything off that schooner's decks. Guess I'll get half a dozen cartridges set an' ready for the big scene. Up with you, Admiral Scraggs, an' hold the fuse ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... darts and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were: first, the Constable's command, some twenty-five ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... point, even women managed to restrain their curiosity: and he would have been either a very bold or a very insensitive man who would have ventured to continue questioning him any further. So, though many people hazarded guesses as to where he had come from, nobody ever asked him the point-blank question: Who are you, if you please, and what ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... short, shrill cry, strangely high and wild, and this came from one of the Indians. It was answered by hoarse shouts. Then the leader of the trio, the Mexican who packed a gun, pulled it and fired point-blank. He missed once—and again. At the third shot the Papago shrieked and tumbled off his burro to fall in a heap. The other Indian swayed, as if the taking away of the support lent by his comrade had brought collapse, and with the fourth shot ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... juncture Paul's sister interposed. He was wrong, she declared, to proceed in such a point-blank manner. In cases like these, it was only wile which conquered. He must resume his incognito, and try, this time, the effect of a feminine disguise. She picked out and copied the feeblest of his songs or sonnets, and sent it to ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... repeated, 'but then Varia is mine! mine!' ... Yet that 'but'—alas, that but!—and then, too, the words, 'Varia is mine!' aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture, but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph.... If Varia had refused me point-blank, I should have been burning with furious passion; but having received her consent, I was like a man who has just said to a guest, 'Make yourself at home,' and sees the guest actually beginning to settle into his ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... correct. Mrs. Burke refused point-blank to allow her helpless retainer to be touched. He could remain where he was, she said, and she hoped the snakes and the lizards and the mosquitoes and all the other fearsome things she could mention would come and devour him—but the police were ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... Upton had no sympathy with any such view as that. She had been so near to victory that she was not going to surrender now without one more charge. She tried a little sounding of Bliss herself, and finally asked him point-blank if he would take dinner with herself and Upton and Molly and make it up, and he declined absolutely; and it was just as well, for when Molly heard of it she asserted that she had no doubt it would have been a pleasant dinner, but that nothing could have induced her to ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... together and travelled ten miles farther, when they met another man, to whom Moscione said, "What is your name, my brave fellow? Where were you born? And what can you do in the world?" And the man answered, "My name is Shoot-straight; I am from Castle Aimwell; and I can shoot with a crossbow so point-blank as to hit a crab-apple in ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... one of the masked riders directly in front of the Terror, and the villain turned in his saddle, aimed a revolver point-blank at Jack, and was just upon the point of firing when the ram ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... at this point-blank shot, uttered in a voice so loud as to attract the attention of those in immediate proximity, I made a random reply, and took the occasion to ask if I could see him in his study at the ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... have said adieu to that mole-hill of Gay, Emile de Girardin and Company. I seized the first opportunity, and it was so favorable that I broke off, point-blank. A disagreeable affair came near following; but my susceptibility as man of the pen was calmed by one of my college friends, ex-captain in the ex-Royal Guard, who advised me. It all ended with a piquant speech ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... severely, "I have not asked Miss Wade what she is going to do. If you inquire of her point-blank, as you have inquired of me, I dare say she will tell you. For myself, I am just a globe-trotter, amusing myself. I only want to have a look round ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... our hero once more set his face point-blank to his adventure. Keeping a sharp eye on the enemy's height, he begun making his way down the gulley into the valley—screening his movements, as best he might, where the gulley was too shallow to conceal him, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... part, did not very much care what impression he produced. He never did on such occasions, and just now he was rendered doubly indifferent by the fact that he was wishing himself somewhere else. True, there was a certain novelty in being asked point-blank questions about his tastes. Boston people knew what he liked, and generally only asked him about what he did. Perhaps, if he had met Josephine by daylight, instead of in the dim shadows of Miss Schenectady's front drawing-room, he might have ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... neat; severe, chaste, pure, Saxon; commonplace, matter-of- fact, natural, prosaic. dry, unvaried, monotonous &c 575. Adv. in plain terms, in plain words, in plain English, in plain common parlance; point-blank. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... buildings of the British legation, and were taking cover in the buildings. A hole being made in the legation wall, Captain Halliday followed by his men crept through, and at once came upon the enemy, and before he was able to use his revolver received a serious wound from a rifle at point-blank range, the bullet breaking his shoulder and entering the lung; notwithstanding, he shot three of the enemy and walked back unaided to the hospital. For this gallant action Captain Halliday was awarded the V.C. Captain Strouts then ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... could spring only from a quiet conscience or from a heart perfectly attuned to villainy. So unconscious was his poise that one often doubted the evidence of memory, and found one's self going back over the record, only to fetch up point-blank against the incontestable fact that he had stolen his ship and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... like murder," continued the innkeeper. "Your hand would tremble so that you would miss me at point-blank. There goes the last of the sun. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... emotion that it offered. He made up his mind at length to take a certain step and abide by the result, and, having made up his mind, he determined to take the step at once. Luckily enough the next morning was one of Foinet's days, and he resolved to ask him point-blank whether it was worth his while to go on with the study of art. He had never forgotten the master's brutal advice to Fanny Price. It had been sound. Philip could never get Fanny entirely out of his head. The studio seemed strange without her, and now and then the gesture of one ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the cruel question at him point-blank, without reflection, and now stood looking at her lover with wide open frightened eyes, like one who in self-defence has dealt a blow without measuring his strength, and fears ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... cloud of steam poured out. It was six feet from the gun muzzle before it condensed enough to be visible. Then a huge white cloud developed; but the metal pellets went on with deadly force. Half an inch in diameter, they carried seven hundred yards at extreme elevation. Point-blank range was seventy-five yards. They would kill at three hundred, and stun or disable beyond that. At a hundred yards they would tear through ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Mrs. Goddard, somewhat startled at the force of the sweeping compliment. To be told point-blank, even by an enthusiastic youth of one and twenty, that one is the ideal woman, must be either ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... He fired at point-blank range and flashed over the boat as its front end exploded. Santos, firing from the rear, hit it again as ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... narration. As has been remarked, he was sitting at one end of the vestry-table, Power at the other, the green cloth stretching between them. On the edge of the table adjoining Mr. Power a shining nozzle of metal was quietly resting, like a dog's nose. It was directed point-blank ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... have done if Joseph had come in, as he expected he would, nor what he should, or could do now that he was in complete possession. If he had been able to face Joseph, he would have demanded information, point-blank, about the shadow on the blind; he even had some misty notion about enforcing it, if need be. But—he was now helpless. He could do no good; he could not tell Polke or anybody else what Walford had reported. And if he was to be left there all night—which seemed likely—he had ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... poured onward beneath the houses to the right. Among the whisperers it was related how the Emperor—who with the greatest difficulty had been prevailed on to leave Carignan the night before about eleven o'clock—when entreated to push on to Mezieres had refused point-blank to abandon the post of danger and take a step that would prove so demoralizing to the troops. Others asserted that he was no longer in the city, that he had fled, leaving behind him a dummy emperor, one of his officers dressed in his uniform, a man whose ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... left me in no doubt on this point. When I was ushered into his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received me standing and said point-blank: "Your orders are to stay here until ten o'clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Count von Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I have received certain ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... Trantridge, a place forty miles from here, and made it his business to expostulate with a lax young cynic he met with somewhere about there—son of some landowner up that way—and who has a mother afflicted with blindness. My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... But without asking him point-blank just what his life had been, and why he had never been to school, Ruth did not see how she was to learn more than the white-haired ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... together in the sundown, chatting upon the European unrest after the war, the new loan, and other matters, when, of a sudden, a black-mustached man in a dark grey overcoat and a round fur cap sprang from the bushes at a lonely spot, and, raising a big service revolver, fired point-blank at ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... girl kept constantly coming in and out, and looking point-blank at them, especially at Denys; and at last in leaning over him to remove a dish, dropped a word in his ear; and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... batter, who all gave it, as their Opinions, that there could not more than three Ships possibly anchor at the upper End of the Harbour; and if they were laid but in a Foot Water more than they drew, they would not be in a Point-Blank-Shot, and consequently could do no material Execution; however, to convince the General, that Ships could be of no manner of Service to him, the Admiral caused the Galicia (one of the Spanish Ships) to be fitted proper ...
— An Account of the expedition to Carthagena, with explanatory notes and observations • Sir Charles Knowles
... themselves, and me, into a deliberate stare. Every now and then the spokes-boy of the party—he was the oldest, evidently, but his face was smaller and whiter, and his eyes were more like little black beads than those of either of his brethren—would fire off a point-blank pistol-shot of a question; when this was answered or evaded, they resumed their steady stare. I was lapsing rapidly into a helpless imbecility under the horrible fascination, when their mother summoned me to supper; they vanished then, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... answered. "The Census Inspector and I have to go to 'Frisco to straighten out a Chinese tangle over the census there. The Chinese refused point-blank to have anything to do with the census, and there was a ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the pavement, and would sink into it again and reappear at some other spot the instant you left him behind. The expression of his eye was perfectly respectful, but terribly fixed, holding your own as by fascination, never once winking, never wavering from its point-blank gaze right into your face, till you were completely beyond the range of his battery of one immense rifled cannon. This was his mode of soliciting alms; and he reminded me of the old beggar who appealed so touchingly to the charitable sympathies of Gil Blas, taking aim at ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... air of archness dropped under this point-blank rejoinder. She flushed, and looked at her father. That unimaginative person started toward her as though she had called to him for help, and then, ashamed of his inexplicable impulse, turned away confusedly and disappeared ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... regarded what he calls "the Catholic reaction" over Europe, and in the fact that undoubtedly Calvin's system and influence was the great force which resisted both what was bad and false in it, and also what was good, true, generous, humane. Calvinism opposed the "Catholic reaction" point-blank, and that was enough to win sympathy for it, even from ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... risen, and almost suddenly the Ariadne seemed to come into the field of battle. Dyck Calhoun could see the struggle going on. The two sets of enemy ships had come to close quarters, and some were locked in deadly conflict. Other ships, still apart, fired at point-blank range, and all the horrors of slaughter were in full swing. From the square blue flag at the mizzen top gallant masthead of one of the British ships engaged, Dyck saw that the admiral's own craft was in some peril. The ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have a right to all he leaves behind him, if he goes off in my debt. Indeed, I would put him in prison,-but what should I get by that? he could not earn anything there to pay me: so I considered about it some time, and then I determined to ask him, point-blank, for my money out of hand. And so I did; but he told me he'd pay me next week: however, I gave him to understand, that though I was no Scotchman, yet, I did not like to be over-reached any more than he: so he then gave me a ring, which, to my ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... midst of all this hubbub, and so by some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master maker of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he covered the bosom of that shadowy figure point-blank, as he thought, with his pistol, and instantly pulled ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... join. He patronised an Independent meeting-house in Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the Rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, directed point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there. Honest Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these discourses, as he always took his nap ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in waggons, and was anxious to get among the cattle again; but with the trunks so near, the house growing rapidly, the days of sewing waiting, I refused point-blank to leave the homestead ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... his opportunity one moonlight night, not far from the castle, and peppered Kirby with shot from a fowling-piece at, some say, five paces' distance, if not point-blank. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I am? Tell me, point-blank, most self-tormenting of men, can I help you in practice, even though I choose to leave you ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... suddenly to June that she was wasting her time; even were she to put a question point-blank, she would never get ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... but she was red from both kinds of woman's feelin's then an' don't you forget it. But laws, she says switches is child's play to what another man wrote her about his garters. Not her garters but his garters, mind you, Mrs. Lathrop. Would you believe that that other man had the face to ask her point-blank if, while she was in town, she'd be so kind as to give five minutes to comin' an' lookin' at his garters!—at his garters! He said they hooked onto his shoulders an' he just wanted a chance to tell her how comfortable they was. Well, she says the idea of any man's garters bein' of any interest ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... in General Trochu, the Military Governor of Paris, and asked him if he could guarantee order. He replied in the affirmative. Some hours later a group of deputies came to the empress and counselled her to sign, not an abdication, but a momentary renunciation of her powers as regent. Eugenie refused point-blank. ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... caused him to plant a hoof full on the breast of one of our Louisianians stretched dead on his back as though he had lain there for an hour. Another man, pale, dazed, unhurt, stood on the ground, unaware that he was under point-blank fire, holding by the bits his beautiful horse, that pawed the earth majestically and at every second or third breath blew from his flapping nostrils a cloud of scarlet spray. They blocked up half the road. As we swerved round them the horse of the company's first lieutenant slid ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... until the Turks were pushing their boats into the water, then the Maxims attached to the battery suddenly spoke, and the guns opened at point-blank range at the men and boats crowded under the steep bank opposite them. Immediately a violent fire broke out on both sides ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... exactness of the parade-ground he settled down on one knee and leveled the rifle. At that range the Lee-Metford bullet travels practically point-blank. Usually it is deficient in "stopping" power, but he had provided against this little drawback by notching all the cartridges in the six rifles after the effective manner devised by an expert named Thomas Atkins ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... yelled the senator's son, and fired point-blank at the wolf. He hit only one ear, and in a twinkling the wolf was on his breast, trying his best ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... moment Steinmetz had him by the collar; his face was gray, his heavy eyes ablaze. If any thing will rouse a man, it is being fired at point-blank at a range of four yards with ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... that the wretched woman was coming by the five-fourteen, and that she should go with the car to meet her, and added that I had better come, too, I refused point-blank. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... say I have," answered Hank Selby. "Why, the time those Indians charged our cave, and Joe and I, and Munson and his crowd were getting ready to fire point-blank at them, there you stood, with bullets whizzing near you more than once, grinding away at the handle of your moving picture camera as hard as you could. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... speedily subdued by the discovery that he must bide in the poorhouse the Jews had built there till the elders had examined him. And there he had herded all day long with the sick and cripples and a lewd rabble, till evening brought the elders and his doom—a point-blank refusal to allow him to enter ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... assault. In the first place, it is impossible to take Vicksburg in the front without too great a loss of life and material, for the reason that the river is only about half a mile wide, and our forces would be in point-blank range of their guns, not only from their water-batteries which line the shore, but from the batteries that crown the hills, while the enemy would be protected from the range ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Godby louder than ever, "who's for an honest life, a free pardon and a share in Black Bartlemy's Treasure—or shall it be a broadside? Here be every gun full charged wi' musket-balls—and 'tis point-blank ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... walk to Englebourn, Harry, in answer to Tom's inquiries, explained that in his absence the stable-man, his acquaintance, had come up and begun to talk. The keeper had joined in and accused him point-blank of being the man who had thrown him into the furze bush. The story of the keeper's discomfiture on that occasion being well known, a laugh had been raised in which Harry had joined. This brought on a challenge to try a fall then and there, which Harry had accepted, notwithstanding ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... sneered at the champion, and many refused point-blank to consider any proposition to discard the advertisements. Indeed, some were proud of them, and believed it a mark of distinction to have their fences and sheds announce an eye-remedy or several varieties ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... amusing that he grew earnest, and the gentle laugh would cease and the pretty lips would come gravely together. Whenever he saw this he would fall back upon his trifling again. He had the soldier's fault of point-blank compliment, but with it an open sincerity of manner which relieved his flattery of any offensiveness. He had practised it in several capitals with some success. A dozen times this evening, a neat compliment came to his lips and stopped there. He could ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... pistol, and fired point-blank at the detective. Furneaux ducked, and seized a small stone, being otherwise quite unarmed. He threw it with unerring aim, and, as was determined subsequently, struck the hand holding the weapon. Possibly, almost by a miracle, the blow caused a faulty pressure, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... smattering of experience of prison affairs, ever is so reckless as to impart any facts to the persons in question. If he accuses any guard or other official of cruelty, the entire force of prison keepers can and will be at need marshaled to deny point-blank that any such thing occurred, or, if any did, it was because the accused official was at the time quelling a dangerous revolt, and deemed his own life in peril. If this evidence be insufficient, it is a pathetic truth ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... by a body of Jaegers, who appeared on a hill opposite. Foolishly they disclosed their position by opening rifle fire. In a few minutes the Jaegers went, and to our utter discomfiture a couple of field-guns appeared and fired point-blank at 750 yards. Luckily the range was not very exact, and only a few were wounded—those who retired directly backwards instead of transversely ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... would find indispensable. Fabre has told us, in a moving page (4/20), with what a total lack of comprehension of "poverty in a black coat" the great scientist gazed at his poor home. Preoccupied by another problem, that of the amelioration of wines by means of heat, Pasteur asked him point-blank— him, the humble proletarian of the university caste, who drank only the cheapest wine of the country—to show him his cellar. "My cellar! Why not my vaults, my dusty bottles, labelled according to age and vintage! But ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... understood the beauty of righteousness, and that I held a strong hand—a straight flush, as it were. I was well aware that the metaphor was somewhat mixed; but it expressed my sentiments and relieved my feelings, and so I fired it at her point-blank. She snorted and pawed and bellowed, and swore at me in cow-language, but I didn't care for that. So I shook the old, battered milk-pail in her face, and told her I was born in Connecticut, and did business on spot-cash principle; and that she would ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... an hour when through the mist they saw an Indian cautiously riding in. He was reconnoitering the wallow. Their hearts sank. They kept quiet until he was within point-blank range—they could see his red blanket, ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... I concluded that he himself had long been favourable to my suit, and that any obstacle which might exist lay with Edmee. But so much did I stand in awe of Edmee's sensitive pride and her unspeakable goodness that I dared not ask her point-blank to decide my fate. M. de la Marche I knew had left France, and all thought of an engagement on his part with Edmee was at an end. In a proud struggle to conceal the poverty of his estate, all his fortune had gone, and he had not been long ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... deal, but his finger was still on the trigger and Wilbur fired again. A moment later, the Ranger came running into the clearing. But before he reached the boy's side the cat had fallen limply to the ground. The second shot had gone clear through her skull, and, being fired at point-blank distance, had almost ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... scenes of roaring farce. When Herod learned of the escape of the Wise Men, he would rage violently about the stage and even among {25} the spectators. Noah's wife, in the Chester play of The Deluge, refuses point-blank to go into the Ark, and has to be put in by main force. The Second Shepherds' Play of the Towneley cycle contains an episode of sheep stealing which is a complete and perfect little farce. Nor were the scenes of pathos ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... I have been hesitating whether to tell my father point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and have Henarez sent about his business. But in spite of all my brave resolutions, I feel that the horrible sensation which comes over me when I see that man has become ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... followed his visitor's to the floor, where Monsieur de Sainfoy's letter lay; that letter which seemed to belie his bull-dog boasting. Something he wanted in life had been refused him point-blank; in ceremonious terms, but with uncompromising plainness. The Comte de Sainfoy did not even trouble himself to find reasons for declining the offer of marriage that General Ratoneau had done Mademoiselle de Sainfoy the ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... that moment twenty miles away, busily engaged in chastising Glory, that had refused point-blank to cross a certain washout. His mind being wholly absorbed in the argument, he was not susceptible to telepathic messages from the Meeker school-house—which ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... cried wildly. "I remember now, I did it. It all comes back to me at last. I fired at him, just so. I aimed the loaded pistol point-blank at his heart, I can hear the din in my ears. I can see the flash at the muzzle. And then I flung down the pistol—like this—at my feet: and darkness came on; and I forgot everything. Why, Dr. Marten knew that much! I remember now, he told me he'd formed ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... as a real shock when people began to ask him point-blank whether he was engaged to Jan, and if so, what they were going to do about Tancred's children. Rightly or wrongly, he discerned in the question some veiled reflection upon Jan, some implied slur upon her conduct. He was consequently ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... been worse than what I did say. Remember that he asked me the question point-blank, and that no reply would have been equal to an affirmation. I should have confessed that his ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... last desperate effort, I cried, "Even suppose that I grant your request, even suppose I agree not to tell Sylvia the truth—still the day will come when you will hear from her the point-blank question: 'Is my child blind because of this disease?' And what will you ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... glance from the lady interrupted in her pleasure. This was all his substance, pittance and enjoyment during a whole month, since on the brink of his joy always came the said husband, and he always arrived wisely between a point-blank refusal and those little sweet caresses with which women always season their refusals—little things which reanimate love and render it all the stronger. And when the sculptor, out of patience, commenced, immediately upon his arrival, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... "the name of an American Indian is a sacred thing, not to be divulged by the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior of any tribe to give his name, and the question will be met with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he cannot understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches, the warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend can tell the name, receiving a reciprocation of the courtesy from the other." This general statement ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... banished, still communicated with his friends in the capital. What more likely then, than that the attempt on Conde's life was made by Masarins? And if so, who more likely to lead it than the penniless youth who had refused point-blank to join any of the other parties? Mazarin, it would be asserted, must have left me in ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... was called, and swore point-blank that he heard Ralph go out of the house soon after he went to bed, and that he heard him return at two in the morning. This testimony was given without hesitation, and made a great impression against Ralph in the minds of the justices. ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston |
