"Kneed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fierce wind continually blowing. Smoke curled up from the chimneys to perish against the sunny sky. Cattle left in the open crowded in the lee of the straw-stacks, their rough flanks crawling, and in the folds the ewes, yet frail from their travail, stood stung and still, mothering their weak-kneed lambs. Beside the thud of the horse's hoofs toward town there was no sound on the road save a little, dry cracking of the frost. The doctor, as he started in his carriage for Davie's house, drew his robes closely ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... friend Harry Foker, who came prancing down Arlington Street behind an enormous cab-horse. He had white kid gloves and white reins, and nature had by this time decorated him with a considerable tuft on the chin. A very small cab-boy, vice Stoopid retired, swung on behind Foker's vehicle; knock-kneed and in the tightest leather breeches. Foker looked at the dusty coach, and the smoking horses of the 'Alacrity' by which he had made journeys in former times. "What, Foker!" cried out Pendennis—"Hullo! Pen, my boy!" said the other, and he waved his whip by way of amity and salute to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carry themselves gracefully, and dress remarkably well—no small praise in these days of pinching, deforming, and demoralizing French fashions; but it is strange how many men—young men especially—one sees at Milan, bent, stunted, and weak-kneed. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... the law thinks it can force me to be one of your weak-kneed sentimentalists who let ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a mistake and take the consequences. The other,—the woolly-brained young person,—having absolutely no ear for music or time, silently but vigorously worked her jaws through the chorus, and affably ambled about, under everybody's feet, through the dance, displaying all the stiff-kneed grace of a young, ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... pronounced. "Oh, mamma! am I the only knock-kneed son-of-a-gun in this crowd?" he murmured, and turned disconsolately away. His spine was creepy cold with stage fright; he listened to the sounds beyond the ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... an old man. To cuff Jonas; said of one who is knock-kneed, or who beats his sides to keep himself warm in frosty weather; called ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the hard things Chesterton says about them. Thus he remarks in passing that the modern novel is 'devoted to the bewilderment of a weak young clerk who cannot decide which woman he wants to marry or which new religion he believes in; we still give this knock-kneed cad ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... b'lligerent an' allers makin' war medicine; while the little three-year-old, who inhabits about my camp in the Caliente, he addresses as 'Prince Hal.' The fool of a white steer that's worshippin' about 'Falstaff' gets named 'Pistol,' although thar's mighty little about the weak-kneed humbug to remind you of anythin' as vehement as a gun. Falstaff, Pistol, Hotspur an' Prince Hal; them's the titles this dramatist confers ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... swivel with a blank charge. We'll give these weak-kneed parly-voos one more call to duty. Of course not a frog-eater of them all will come. But I said that a gun should be the signal. Possibly they didn't hear the first one, the damned, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... his barbaric smock of dingy undyed black wool, his three-stranded necklace of raw turquoises broad on his bosom, the fox-tails of his fox-skin cap trailing by his ears; saw facing him Almo, bare-kneed, his hunting-boots of soft leather like chamois-skin coming half way up to his calves, his leek-green tunic covering him only to mid-thigh, his head bare, his right hand waving an ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... shame, There is no place for you, Weak-kneed and craven-breasted, Amongst this English crew! Bluff hearts that cannot learn to yield, But as the waves run high, And they can almost touch the night, Behind it see the sky. While now on Him who long has bless'd To bless her as of yore, Once more we cry for ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... bigger? Has he got legs, and heads, and—and things like that?" "We'll see. When I stand on this chair I'm as big as a giant," but it was all of no avail, and only after Teddy had seen a huge, knock-kneed being in a penny show did he understand what a giant could be like. Then he asked for giant stories ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... weak-kneed men, sir," the sentry ejaculated, "wouldn't wait until morning to make his get-away. We found him climbing out. Said it would be dangerous in broad daylight. He was in a terrible funk. We had no orders to stop anyone who wanted to leave, so we just jeered him, and let him go. My comrade leaned ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... a wretched knock-kneed skunk, only I don't want to be fulsome. I hate flattering ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Bustards are the Little, or Field, and the thick-kneed, Stone-curlew, or Norfolk Plover. There are also some fine species in India, where they are generally in pairs, but sometimes in families of four and five: as they do not fly high, they are sometimes pursued on horseback, and fired ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... corner street-lamp, they struck up the best-intentioned, noisiest noise I ever heard. The tuba raced lumberingly after the galloping cornet, that ran neck-and-neck with the wheezing clarinet; and the drums beat up behind, pounding like the hoofs of stiff-kneed horses ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... The weak-kneed Swede was about to eagerly clutch this element of strength, but he suddenly jerked his hand away and cast a look of horror ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... laugh me out of countenance, and yet ten to one he would in the end deprive me of the credit of keeping my promise, by taking its performance upon himself. That I might be my own master, therefore, I chose as my valet the most tractable fellow at my disposal, one Nicolas, a lank, knock-kneed jack of about my own age, who had hitherto made himself of the least possible use, with the best possible intentions, between the dining-hall and the kitchen. And yet he was clever enough among horses, or anywhere outdoors. My mother, though she wondered at my choice and trembled ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... restless waiting, they emerged, stiff-kneed and perspiring, into the blazing sunshine that filled the little street. Once outside, they opened their lungs to the warm air in an attempt to banish the tainted atmosphere of the interior; but the original motive of expansion ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... 'See here, my sweet Signor barber, my excellent Signor surgeon, my honoured Annibal Caracci, my beloved Guido Reni, be off to the devil, and don't ever show yourself here again, if you don't want your legs broken.' Therewith the cranky, knock-kneed old fool laid hold of me with no less an intention than to kick me out of the room, and hurl me down the stairs. But that, you know, was past everything. With ungovernable fury I seized the old fellow and tripped him up, so that his legs stuck uppermost in the air; and there ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... stepped forward to confront the Bonneys, mentally thanking Gail. Up until she'd slapped me, I'd been weak-kneed and dry-mouthed with what I had to do. Now I was just plain angry, and I found that I was thinking a lot more clearly. Jack-High Bonney's wounded left shoulder, I knew, wouldn't keep him from using his gun hand, but his ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... unselfishness, and, above all, the sweet, beautiful philosophy of life that must lie back, to render her so uncomplainingly the slave of the self-willed woman, yet without the indifferent cynicism of Gerald, the sullen, yet real, partisanship of Kendrick, or the general's week-kneed acquiescence. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... him and I don't blame you, seein' as he can roll faster nor any hoss o' yours can gallip. But if he don't win,' I says, 'I'll give you fi' pun to buy yourself some manners with, fi' pun for your missus to get her a better 'usband, and fi' pun for that bald-faced, ewe-knecked, calf-kneed son of a laughin' jack-ass who calls you dad.' That's all that happened' Boy. That's not bettin', is it? That's fair give-and-take. Quite a different thing entirely. Ask ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... in the Heavy Thickets, over beyond the Wide Grasslands," he said; "it was a very nice place, with a good school, kept by a stiff-kneed rabbit named Whack—J. Hickory Whack—which seemed to fit him. I was the only child in our family that year, and I suppose I was spoiled. I remember my folks let me run and play a good deal, instead of making me study my lessons, so that Hickory ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of his office. If a theft is reported, the inspector of the nearest police-station, or thanna as it is called, sends one of his myrmidons, or, if the chance of bribes be good, he may attend himself. On arrival, ambling on his broken-kneed, wall-eyed pony, he seats himself in the verandah of the chief man of the village, who forthwith, with much inward trepidation, makes his appearance. The policeman assumes the air of a haughty conqueror receiving homage from a conquered ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... January ult. from the City of Charleston; he is about 42 years of age, of a black complexion, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, a little knock-kneed, had on when he went away an iron on one leg, and another ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... above the sea, under favorable conditions is quite a sightly place. And we took the homeward path, feeling that the view was worth a dozen times its cost. Forty minutes afterward we arrived at the bottom in the condition of the weak-kneed and trembling saints ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... pastry by degrees on high doth rise ... The wheel at home counts in an holiday, Since while the mistress worketh it may play. A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts, Forsake at home their pastry crust and tarts, To kneed the dirt, the samplers down they hurl, Their undulating silks they closely furl. The pick-axe one as a commandress holds, While t'other at her awk'ness gently scolds. One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why Can't ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... disdainfully, "but if that red-haired, knock-kneed, overfed beau of yours ever sets foot on this place again, he comes in a hearse! And what goes for him, goes for all! Go on and tell, but you'll have the loneliest summer you've ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... of you! Have you never seen a convict before? A convict of Collin's stamp, whom you see before you, is a man less weak-kneed than others; he lifts up his voice against the colossal fraud of the Social Contract, as Jean Jacques did, whose pupil he is proud to declare himself. In short, I stand here single-handed against a Government and a whole subsidized machinery of tribunals and police, and I ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... road, under the shade of a giant elm, he had brought the car to a halt and with his arms crossed upon the wheel sat motionless, following with frowning eyes the retreating figure of Jimmie. But the narrow-chested and knock-kneed boy staggering over the sun-baked asphalt no longer concerned him. It was not Jimmie, but the code preached by Jimmie, and not only preached but before his eyes put into practice, that interested ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... Dunwody is pretty much his own party, although the Bentonites call him a 'soft Democrat.' Hardly soft he seems, when he gets in action at the state capital of Missouri yonder. Certainly Dunwody is for war and tumult. None of this late weak-kneed compromise for him! To have his own way—that is Dunwody's creed of life. I thank God he is not going with us now. He might want his own way with you, from the fashion of his glances. Did you see? My word!" ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... glance; but as for the better sort, one's beauty's all bother! Why, Sir, when we see some of the most fortunatest men among she-creturs—what poor little minnikens they be! One's a dwarf—another knock-kneed—a third squints—and a fourth might be shown for a hape! Neither, Sir, is it your soft, insinivating, die-away youths, as seem at first so seductive; they do very well for lovers, your honour; but then ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... reply; he felt rather sorry for the weak-kneed little youngster perched up on that form, and wondered if Mr Trimble would expect him (Jeffreys) to adopt his method of "taking it out" of his ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... the War. The war that spelled death and destruction to millions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo Hertz, and transformed him, over night, from a baggy-kneed old bachelor whose business was a failure to a prosperous manufacturer whose only trouble was the shortage in hides for the making of his product—leather! The armies of Europe called for it. Harnesses! More harnesses! Straps! Millions of straps! ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you say so," ventured Bobolink. "Because here's three votes that will be cast for sticking it out; and if I know anything about Jud and Nuthin and Bluff, together with several more, the majority will want to stick. But I mean to give them a hint that we think that way. Several weak-kneed brothers are always ready to vote the way the leaders do. When the scout master takes snuff they start to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... lines, his small waist and broad shoulders, the swing of his walk. Instead, he walked with the bent-kneed swing of the French infantryman, that tireless but awkward marching step which renders the French ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was without any beauty, even without the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all; nothing more nor less; in short, he was uglily ugly. He was not humpbacked, nor knock-kneed, nor pot-bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and his arms were neither too long nor too short, and yet, there was an utter lack of uniformity about him, not only in painters' eyes, but also in everybody's, for nobody could meet him in the street without ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... effected my first introduction to the actual Socialist party. My article was printed and I was asked for others. I made the acquaintance of the editor, who, I must confess, spite of my enthusiasm, soon struck me as a rather weak-kneed and altogether unadmirable character. He thought it necessary to get himself up to look like an artist, though he had not the soul of a counter-jumper, and the result was long hair, a velvet coat, a red tie, bumptious bearing, and an altogether scatter-brained and fly-away ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... a salute to the colors, and marches back stiff-kneed to tell his crowd how he'd read the ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... bothering him so much. It's these friends of Cross's. I don't blame him. Some sheriffs are mighty weak-kneed about such things." ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... countryside. Not at all like that slouching Luke Britton, who, when she once walked with him all the way from Broxton to Hayslope, had only broken silence to remark that the grey goose had begun to lay. And as for Mr. Craig, the gardener, he was a sensible man enough, to be sure, but he was knock-kneed, and had a queer sort of sing-song in his talk; moreover, on the most charitable supposition, he must be far ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... are weak-minded and weak-kneed," answered Harold Bird, in disgust. "But you stood in with those rascals and ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... in the street once more, feeling weak-kneed and light-headed. She leaned on Glass-Eye's arm; she had a pain in her side from the emotion. She felt inclined to enter a cafe, to get drunk on champagne, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... York Herald of December 20, 1860, there was the following item: "Governor-elect Andrew, of Massachusetts, and George L. Stearns have gone to Washington together, and it is said that the object of their visit is to brace up weak-kneed Republicans." This was one object of their journey, but they also went to survey the ground and see what was the true state of affairs at the Capital. Stearns wrote from Washington to the Bird Club: "The watchword here is 'Keep ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... every street corner and from every unionist mouth that everything belonged of right to those who worked and that the idle rich were thieves and robbers. She smiled grimly to watch Mrs. Macanany and viragoes like her pouring oil on the flames and drumming the weak-kneed up and screaming against "blacklegging" as a thing accurst. And when she understood that the fight was over, while apparently it was waxing thicker, she had waited to see what the end would be, longing for something ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... bit the end of the timber, and towed it to the boom pile. Another man stepped on the log with Darrell. They stood facing each other, bent-kneed, alert. Suddenly with one accord they commenced to birl the log from left to right. The pace grew hot. Like squirrels treading a cage their feet twinkled. Then it became apparent that Darrell's opponent was gradually being forced from the top of the log. He could not keep up. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... dumb victims of the inhuman ferocity they in no way tried to check, and they effectively taught the receptive Irish millions that a British Government could be coerced into giving what was demanded provided a sufficient number of crimes created a holocaust large enough to intimidate the weak-kneed at St. Stephen's. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... state, his favorite remedy is to return to his old vagabond habits, and go roaming away by himself nobody knows where. He went through the form this morning (knowing I had no riding habit) of offering to hire a little broken-kneed brute of a pony for me, in case I wished to accompany him! I preferred remaining at home. I will have a handsome horse and a handsome habit, or I won't ride at all. He went away, without attempting to persuade me to change my mind. I wouldn't have ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... a few steps of a noiseless high-kicking dance when there was a tap at the door, and he collapsed into an attitude of weak-kneed humility. Dom ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... is to let the knees bend continuously; this gives a "flabbyness" to the whole personal expression, that always seems an outward exponent of a "weak-kneed" character. The knees, to obviate this, should be stiffened when walking. In the other extreme, most women stiffen the ankle-joint unduly, thus giving a straight up and down cramped walk, which is accompanied by coming down ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... fellow-men as I have had, my boy. For that has been the keynote of my unhappy life. God, how I hated them all, and how I do yet!... Not least Weyland, with his ostentatious virtue, his holier-than-thou kindness, his self-righteous magnanimity tossed even to me ... the broken-kneed idol whom others passed with averted face, and there was none so ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... doing this, I found the tide begin to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on the shore, upon the sand, swim away. As for my breeches, which were only linen, and open- kneed, I swam on board in them and my stockings. However, this set me on rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took no more than I wanted for present use, for I had others things which my eye was more upon - as, first, tools to work with on shore. And it was after long searching that I found ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... that he will never marry, experience has shown that his resolve is often subject to reconsideration. But with unmarrying women the case is different, and unmarried for the most part they remain, for man is often so weak-kneed a creature in matters of the heart, that he refrains from pursuing where an unsympathetic attitude discourages pursuit. It may be that some of these women, also, would wish to reconsider their verdict, but ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... about them," broke out Buck, who had managed, with the assistance of Whitey and Oscar, to get the weak-kneed Clem Shooks in the shallow water; "they're on the ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... my way. You'd make a poor showing, kicking drive levers with a broken leg." Geoffrey nodded toward The Barbarian's right shin. "It's been that way since before you picked me up, hasn't it? I saw it wobble when you kneed that man-at-arms." ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... puts the thumb of each hand into the armhole of his waistcoat, and moves along stiffly, with a knock-kneed gait. His talk was chiefly of hotels, and such matters as a man, always travelling, without any purpose of observation for mental improvement, would be interested in. He spoke of his life as ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Bible, and felt that if the gospel did not save the world nothing ever would; consequently, they spoke in blood-red earnestness and made the place quake with their enthusiasm. There came afterward a weak-kneed stock of ministers who thought that part of the Bible was true, if they were not very much mistaken, and that, on the whole, religion was a good thing for most people, certainly if they had weak constitutions, and that man could be easily saved if we could get the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... because of the menace of approaching age which stares back from the depth of frightened eyes. Her dress, however, suggested that she could not bring herself to believe she was yet out of the hunt, but was still trying to follow it breathlessly on the back of that broken-kneed and sorry steed, late middle-age. There was something ridiculous in the girlish attire intended to convince her fellow creatures that her day was not over; something terrible in the low blouse, short skirt, silk stockings, gauze, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... deserves a passing notice. The waggon consisted of an oblong shallow wooden tray on four wheels; on this were placed three boards resting on high unsteady props, and the machine was destitute of springs. The ponies were thin, shaggy, broken-kneed beings, under fourteen hands high, with harness of a most meagre description, and its cohesive qualities seemed very small, if I might judge from the frequency with which the driver alighted to repair its parts with pieces ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... limbs supported with thongs and makeshifts of every description; and where their pride had rebelled against such ingratitude, they were smothered beneath the limbs of fallen trees, which had been felled on the spot to serve as substitutes. His flumes were knock-kneed and bow-legged, and in places they had no legs at all. Their sides were warped and bulged with the alternate damp and drouth, heat and cold. The lumber was bleached white, and porous with decay. ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... rather afraid, at one time, that he was going to spoil it all by making love to me, after the manner of young Bud Dyruff, from the Cowen Ranch, who, because I waded bare-kneed into a warm little slough-end when the horses were having their noonday meal, assumed that I could be persuaded to wade with equal celerity into indiscriminate affection. That rudimentary and ingenuous youth, in fact, became more and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... toasts, he was thinking of the Princess Visconti. This great lady, finding herself unable to enthral Bonaparte, had given herself to his Chief of the Staff, whom she loved with a fire of wantonness and a refined sensuality which left their mark on the weak-kneed Berthier for the rest ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... she would ride, and after plaguing Amyas for one in vain (for he did not want to break her pretty neck), she proposed confidentially to Yeo to steal one, and foiled in that, went to the vicar and offered to barter all her finery for his broken-kneed pony. But the vicar was too honest to drive so good a bargain, and the matter ended, in Amyas buying her a jennet, which she learned in a fortnight to ride ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and men laid down their lives for England within a dozen miles of Westminster, almost twelve hours after a weak-kneed, panic-stricken Cabinet had passed its word to the ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... always wake in the afternoon As the band waltzed in on "the lion tune," And there, from the time that she'd go in, Till she'd back out of the cage agin, He'd stand, shaky and limber-kneed— 'Specially when she come to "feed The beast raw meat with her naked hand"— And all that business, ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... they did not forgive. So when the Tondo "discoverer" of the Katipunan fancied he saw opportunity for promotion in fanning their flame of wrath, they claimed their victims, and neither the panic-stricken populace nor the weak-kneed ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... to ground mealies of maize—just the same mixture of grit and sticky dough as the peasants in Pindus starve upon. Even this—enough in itself to inflame any English stomach—is reduced to 1/2 lb. a day. As I stood at the gate this afternoon taking my first breath of air, I watched the weak-kneed, lantern-jawed soldiers going round from house to house begging in vain for anything to eat. Yet they say the health of the camp as a whole has improved. This they attribute ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... enough, for one thing," said Pembroke, deciding to play along with her for the moment. "You're too tense. Also you're a bit knock-kneed, not that it matters. Is that what you wanted ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle
... horse!" Alas! he showed Not like the one Mazeppa rode; Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, The wreck of what was once a steed, Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; Yet not without his knowing points. The sexton laughing in his sleeve, As if 't were all a make-believe, Led forth the ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... transpiring in the palace, Cap'n Bill and the Pinkies had encamped before the principal gate of the City and a tent had been pitched for Trot and Button-Bright and Rosalie. The army had been very fearful and weak-kneed when it first entered the Blue Country, but perceiving that the Boolooroo and his people were afraid of them and had locked themselves up in the City, the Pinkies grew bolder and longed to make ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... any approbation he didn't himself arouse, even if it was manifested when he was not on the stage. He distended his part out of all reasonable semblance, and to the practical annihilation of the plot, by the injection into it of musty vaudeville specialties of his, which he assured the weak-kneed management were knock-outs. And his clowning and mugging made it impossible to play a legitimate scene with him, with ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... do hope the boy isn't weak-kneed," she said. "I just happened to be passing the west window ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... the first thing in the morning.... Now, you little knock-kneed, bow-legged two-bit cowpuncher! What're you doing with those things ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... Irgalac, "but Iriel good at arms, great-kneed son of Conall Cernac. He is a Conall for havoc, a Cuculain for dexterity of feats. He is a Catbad, a right-wonderful Druid, for intelligence and counsel, he is a Senca son of Ailill for peace and for good speech, he is a Celtcair son of Utecar for valor, he is a Concobar ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... I, 'an' let the devil win? That's not the trouble. Yer afeered, that's what's the matter. Yer too weak-kneed, an' hain't got as much backbone as an angle worm.' That's what I said to 'em, right out straight, too. Now kin ye tell me, Mr. Bishop, why the Lord made some people men instead of makin' 'em chickens fer all the ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish to achieve great things, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... do for poor pay. For a week after we hit San Francisco I didn't get any further away from the dining-room of the nearest hotel—well, than"—he turned suddenly—"than that fellow there is from here—that fat, knock-kneed chap there who seems to have so much to say about me." The second clerk, who was also the second head wit, yelped like a suddenly squelched concertina and ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... four children now. Winter of visit school dined five free daily, and clothed three, and previous winter three had free dinners and two had clothes. A school-boy earns. The twins are delicate. There are two lodgers. The eldest child very dirty; the second, glands; the third, knock-kneed, pigeon chest; very feeble, enlarged radices. Three children have died. Housing: nine in three rooms. Evidence from Police, Poor Law Officer, Parish Sister, School Charity, Army Charity, Children's Employment, School Officer, Factor, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... virgin face, and virgin arms, and virgin habit bore, A Spartan maid; or like to her who tames the Thracian horse, Harpalyce, and flies before the hurrying Hebrus' course. For huntress-wise on shoulder she had hung the handy bow, And given all her hair abroad for any wind to blow, And, naked-kneed, her kirtle long had gathered in a lap: 320 She spake the first: "Ho youths," she said, "tell me by any hap If of my sisters any one ye saw a wandering wide With quiver girt, and done about with lynx's ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... was marching up and down the pavement, with an unlighted cigar stuck in his mouth. I took a match, and said, 'Have a light, my noble swell?' and hanged if he didn't give me ten centimes! My! ain't he ugly!—short, shrivelled up, and knock-kneed, with a glass in his eye, and altogether precious like ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... said. "She went her way and I went mine. If she recalls me at all, she probably thinks of me as a weak-kneed individual who faints like a woman when everything ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... formidable proportions. But—and here is the national hygienic failing—the first instinct is to conceal smallpox, typhoid, or any other disease that assumes epidemic form. Repeated observations of this tendency have deprived me of that knock-kneed reverence for Business Interests which is the glorious heritage of every true American. As a matter of fact, Business Interests when involved with hygienic affairs are always a malign influence, and usually an incredibly stupid ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... morning Mr. Perkins produced a book—a small, limp, gray-colored volume upon the cover of which were two bare-kneed boy scouts, one of whom was waving a pair of flags. Also on that cover, near its top, were the words, Boy Scouts of America. "I wonder if you wouldn't like to ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... obliged to you for Carter," said Mr Ormiston; "a more slack-kneed, double-jointed scoundrel was never offered a commission in a respectable cause. He'll be the first to rat if things begin to look queer for this new policy ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... its citizens on account of color, all that class shall be counted out of the basis of representation;" but at once the enemy asked, "Do you mean that if any State shall disfranchise its negro women, you are going to count all of the black race out of the basis of representation?" And weak-kneed Republicans, after having fought such a glorious battle, surrendered; they could not stand the taunt. Charles Sumner said he wrote over nineteen pages of foolscap in order to keep the word "male" out of the Constitution; but he ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... wish to appear contemptible?" he shouted. "D' ye think I like to sit here like an old wife, scolding in one breath and preaching thrift in the next? A weak-kneed, chicken-livered, white-bellied old bullfrog that squeaks and jumps, plunk! into the puddle when a footstep falls in the grass! Am I not a patroon? Am I not Dutch? Granted I'm fat and slow and a glutton, and lazy as a wolverine. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... large piece of beechwood, and secured, for the present, with ropes, in a temporary manner. During the short period of one tide all that could further be done for their security was to put a single screw-bolt through the great kneed bats or stanchions on each side of the beams, and screw ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the runner but not to the umpire, as if about to pitch. This, of course, starts the runner, and before he can recover, the pitcher has turned and thrown to first. Notwithstanding the strictest prohibition last season of any motion even "calculated" to deceive the runner, there were umpires weak- kneed enough ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... will come out all right, and so will Marcy," said Billings confidently. "Wait till this excitement culminates in a fight, and then you will see a big change of opinion among these weak-kneed chaps. They expect a skirmish this morning and are prepared for it. We'll see fun before that new flag of ours goes up on the tower, and ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... bridges of his people, in killing a too persistent tiger here or there, in sleeping out in the reeking jungle, or in tracking the Suria Kol raiders who had taken a few heads from their brethren of the Buria clan. He was a knock-kneed, shambling young man, naturally devoid of creed or reverence, with a longing for absolute power which ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... had seen the French soldier in times of peace had not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step, so carefully taught him—so different from the stately progress of the British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground—his loose trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the ensemble effect of ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hid myself behind a folding-gate of the fence and caught him in the act. Having his retreat cut off he grappled with me in desperation. He was about two years older than I, and, though weak-kneed, was physically the stronger. While I wallopped him, he pushed his head against my breast and by chance it slipped inside my sleeve. As this hindered the free action of my arm, I tried to shake him loose, though, his head dangled the further inside, and being no longer able to stand ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... against this Berselius," said Adams to himself, "same as if we were dogs. That's the long and short of it. Yes, I can understand his meaning in part; he's afraid if Berselius engages some week-kneed individual, he'll give the weak-kneed individual more than he can take. He wants to stick a six-foot Yankee in the breach, instead of a five-foot froggie, all absinthe and cigarette ends. Well, he was frank, at all events. Hum, I don't like the proposition—and yet there's something—there's ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... his grandson, Louis XVI (1774-1792), a weak-kneed prince of twenty years, very virtuous and well-meaning, but lacking in intelligence and will-power. He was too awkward and shy to preside with dignity over the ceremonious court; he was too stupid and lazy to dominate the ministry. He liked to shoot ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... "I'm just naturally obliged to 'tend to this here thing what thinks he's a hoss. Come along, you ornery, pigeon-toed, knock-kneed, sway-backed, wooly-haired excuse, you. You ain't got no more manners ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... was greatly amused at being told (his informants meaning to be complimentary) "that he would never be taken for anything but an Englishman." He called Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," just printed at that time, "a broken-kneed gallop of a poem." ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... white, or faintly creamy, or there may be an effect of a filmy sheen over a florid complexion. Little or no hair on the face contributes to the general feminine aspect in the more extreme types. They are often double jointed somewhere, flat footed, knock-kneed. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... several pages—descriptions of things she had seen on the trip west, and loving messages for her friends at Camp, and closing with a hasty "Goodbye, Jo dear." Not a word about the robin. The choking sensation in Agony's throat left her. Weak-kneed, she sank down on the bed and lay back on the pillow, closing her eyes wearily. Unnoticing, Jo departed to show the letter to the girls to whom ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... playing fast and loose with national safety to further his own ends and salve his ego. I'm accusing the men above me of being too weak-kneed to back their own against ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... immortality, which affects many people who would nominally disclaim it, is that we think of the soul after death as a thing so altered as to be practically unrecognisable—as a meek and pious emanation, without qualities or aims or passions or traits—as a sort of amiable and weak-kneed sacristan in the temple of God; and this is the unhappy result of our so often making religion a pursuit apart from life—an occupation, not an atmosphere; so that it seems impious to think of the departed spirit as interested in anything but ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... stable with their caballerias, being either arrieros or small peddling merchants, who travelled the country with coarse cloth or linen. Opposite to my room in the corridor lodged a wounded officer, who had just arrived from San Sebastian on a galled broken-kneed pony: he was an Estrimenian, and was returning to his own village to be cured. He was attended by three broken soldiers, lame or maimed, and unfit for service: they told me that they were of the same village as his worship, and on that account he permitted them to travel with him. They slept amongst ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... know—but somehow it hasn't come off. I expect I left it too long. In the end I didn't really want to come at all—wanted to lie down and die, but hadn't the strength of mind to insist. I'd been in London a week before I wrote you—just drifting round—too weak-kneed to take the first step. I tore up that idiotic note ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... was at that time President of the twelve apostles, and I think Brigham Young was second and Orson Hyde the third on the roll. The great opposition to our people and Church caused the two pillars, Marsh and Hyde, to become weak-kneed and turn over to the enemy. Col. G. M. Hinkle, Dr. Averard, Judge W. W. Phelps, and others of the "tall" men of the Church followed suit. I remember going with Brother Levi Stewart to some of those fallen angels (in the days of our prosperity they had looked like ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... needed to put the finishing touch to the courage of an oriental. He loved To' Raja and all his house, nor could he be tempted or scared into a denial of his affection and loyalty. Imam Prang Samah and Khatib Bujang, both of whom I know well, are men of a different type. They belong to the weak-kneed brethren, and they followed Imam Bakar because they feared him and To' Raja. They found themselves, to use an emphatic colloquialism, between the Devil and the Deep Sea, nor had they sufficient originality between them to suggest a compromise. Thus they imitated ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... south. It was not his first nocturnal visit to the spot; often, as his prototype divined, had the mimic would-be desperado sat trembling on his hoary screw, revolvers ready, while the red eyes of the coach dilated down the road; and as often had the cumbrous ship pitched past unscathed. The week-kneed and weak-minded youth was too vain to feel much ashamed. He was biding his time, he could pick his night; one was too dark, another not dark enough; he had always some excuse for himself when he regained his room, still unstained by crime; ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... says 'salt or sugar, I'm here, an' what air you goin' to do about it?' They fotch money again' me, an' the lawyers they jawed an' they palarvered; an' finally I got a chance to speak to that weak-kneed jedge, I did, an' I says, 'Look here, I've a longer knife, an' if you tell this jury to convict me, I'll put about a foot an' a half of it under yo' rusty ribs.' An' you better believe he smiled on me. Margaret, there ain't no use to set around here an' grieve. In this ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth from a country college, underfed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many of this sort ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a tall, thin man whose clothes hung loosely on the angles of his round-shouldered, bony form. His long, thin legs, about which the baggy trousers draped in ungraceful folds, were slightly knock-kneed and terminated in large, flat feet. His arms were very long even for such a tall man, and the huge, bony hands were gnarled and knotted. When he removed his bowler hat, as he frequently did to wipe away with a red handkerchief the sweat occasioned by furious ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... it can't be! Unless Pertinax is man enough to strike the blow that shall restore the ancient liberties, then he is better dead before he tries to play the savior! We have a tyrant now. Shall we exchange him for a weak-kneed theorist?" ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... together at the top, and designed for no other purpose than to conceal from the world the character and quality of the wearer's legs. When that beatific invention arrives your spindle-legged, knock-kneed imitation of a man will, as far as the public eye is concerned, find himself on as sure a footing as your very Adonis, and a person with a comparatively under-developed understanding will be able to make as good a showing in the world as the man who is really all there. Like charity, ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... Slumper were making two. They were inexpressibly bored, but that was beside the point. By occupying two stalls, Mrs. Slumper was sure they were doing the right thing. A box would have been better, of course, but there had been some difficulty, and Slumper, being a weak-kneed fool, had been bluffed into taking the stalls. Mrs. Slumper would like to see the clerk who could bluff her. By dint of concentrating upon her grievance, she had worked herself into a passion by the end of the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... of Supreme Judges, twelve relicts of Governors and Generals, and twenty-two ruins left by various happy Colonels, Professors, and Majors, who valued their aristocratic worth from $90 to $900 per week, with weak-kneed hash and dried apples on the side. I admire people of fine descent, but my stomach yearns for pork and beans instead of culture. Am I ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... feet, they saw one of the conquered race of earlier inhabitants, a "Formorian" of huge size and repulsive ugliness coming towards them, leading his horse by the halter, an animal larger, it seems, than six ordinary horses, but broken down and knock-kneed, with jaws that stuck out far in advance of its head. How the heroes, idling pleasantly about in the sunshine, laughed aloud at the uncouth "foreigner" and his ugly raw-boned beast, "covered with tangled scraggy hair ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... Dick knew in his heart of hearts that only a lingering sense of humour and no special virtue had kept him alive. Suicide, he had persuaded himself, would be a ludicrous insult to the gravity of the situation as well as a weak-kneed ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... burst forth, into tears and groans, sweet wailings and deep sighs. Some lay powerless on the ground, forsaken by their strength and to all appearances dead. Others drifted from one corner to another, beating their breasts, as though urged by an evil spirit. Some knelt bare-kneed; as they prayed, stretching out their arms like a rood. Others were shaken with such violent sobs that they could only sit down and hold their heads in their hands. Some lost all command of themselves, and, forgetting how to behave, ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... and ships; but we can't renew our food or drink, or ammunition. The end is sure against us. Our original agitation was just; our present obduracy is madness. This ship is suspected. It is believed by the rest of the fleet—by ships like the Invincible—that we're weak-kneed, selfish, and lacking in fidelity to the cause. That's not true; but we have either to fight or to run, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... woods-colt with the humps on your shoulders and a stalk-knife by your side, help drive these hogs into the Ohio River. They've got more devils in 'em than what's-his-name, in the Holy Scripture, cast into all the swine of Jerusalem. Git out, I say, you knock-kneed jackasses!" ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Lucines is not the only one whom this brute is terrorising," murmured Blakeney once between his teeth; "I marvel that the man ever feels safe, alone in these lodgings, with no one but that weak-kneed Rondeau to protect him. He must have scores of enemies in this city who would gladly put a dagger in his heart or ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... their time sitting on a rather sharp rail of the fence, bemoaning Bob's obstinacy in not having the well shot in regular moonlighter's fashion, without being so weak-kneed as to buy the right to do simply what no one ought to be allowed to prevent ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... white men fightin' each other jus' naturally gave th' Apaches an' some of th' border riffraff idears 'bout takin' over. But mosta us now ain't wavin' no flag. Iffen Kitchell has got him some diehards backin' him—" Nye shrugged again. "Git 'long there, you knock-kneed, goat-headed wagon-loafer!" He pushed on to ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... thousand dollars. It was right out o' my own bank roll. Wal, I set it up—the notice o' reward—one night, an' next day got the news we was all yearnin' for. Bob Whitstone, as he called himself, brought it right along to me. I hadn't no use fer the feller up to then. He was weak-kneed. And, in a way, had fallen fer Ju Penrose's rye. He'd come to me once before on the subject o' these all-fired grazin' rights. Y'see, he'd been tryin' to git ahead raisin' wheat in a country where ther' was only a market fer cattle an' rye whisky. Anyway, he ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... that the cabmen are in great superabundance in Rome, and the number of barrel-ribbed, ewe-necked, and broken-kneed horses is in no greater proportion than in Paris. Still, the average is large, though, if you will go to the stand, you may select any horse you please without offence. It was a cheerful sight, verging upon gayety, to see every morning the crowd of cabs at our stand ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... a bare kneed lad began to amble behind the foreigners, he taking his cue smartly and lolling out his tongue. The whole crowd set up a shout, and Eagle looked back. She wheeled and slapped the St. ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... The hut I entered for food had an unleveled earth floor, many wide cracks in the roof, and every inch within was black with soot of the cooking-stove—three large stones with a steaming earthen pot on them. There was carne de carnero, tortillas and water, all for five cents. The weak-kneed table was spread with a white cloth, there were several awkward, shallow, home-made chairs, and against the wall a large primitive sideboard with glistening brown earthen pots and carefully polished plates ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... reminded me of a scene I once saw in our line, where a weak-kneed Captain was ordered to take a party of rather chicken-hearted ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... English language. I put him upon the mantel, and the clock stopped, the servant girl sent in her resignation, and a large dog jumped through the parlor-window. All this happened within two hours from the time I erected the lop-eared, knocked-kneed and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... sometimes the result of a bruise or contusion, often repeated, inflicted upon himself by a horse addicted to the habit of pawing while in the stable and striking the front of the stall with his knees. Another class of patients is formed of those weak-kneed animals which are subject to falling and bruising the front of the joint against the ground, the results not being always ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the worn-out, lame, halt, blind, and spavined horses that can be raked up by hook or crook in the neighborhood. Such a medley was never seen in any other country. Barnum's woolly horse was nothing to these shaggy, stunted, raw-backed, bow-legged, knock-kneed little monsters, offered to the astonished traveler with unintelligible pedigrees in the Icelandic, which, if literally translated, must surely mean that they are a mixed product of codfish and brushwood. The size has but little to do with ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... away. Jason Philip detected a lukewarm impotency creeping over his body. The sweat of solicitude trickled down across his forehead. Involuntarily he kneed his way closer to the edge of the platform, threw out his chest, jerked his hat from his head, opened his ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... tall and knobby-kneed, spoke with a squeak at the end of his deeper sentences, and about his tired eyes he had made a red circle with camwood. Round his head he had twisted a wire so tightly that it all but cut the flesh: ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... that was only to turn out to be that black-a-vised Ayrshire ploughman, it would be all over with me; it would be 'Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad.'" And then some shambling fellow of a labourer has come along, straw-haired, bent-backed, twisted-kneed, and scarcely enough spirit in him to say, "Marnin t' ye—good marnin t' ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... ad absurdum of the reformed religion, when weak-kneed Catholics sheltered themselves from its pains and penalties under the fairly secure ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Buckmasters: Miss Betsy, Miss Dosy, Miss Biddy, and Miss Winny; 1 Miss Shum, Mary by name, Shum's daughter, and seven others, who shall be nameless. Mrs. Shum was a fat, red-haired woman, at least a foot taller than S.; who was but a yard and a half high, pale-faced, red-nosed, knock-kneed, bald-headed, his nose and shut-frill all ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... side by side on the sofa. Both were cross—kneed, and the tip of her russet boot almost grazed that of his Oxford tie. He did not notice: he was already arranging the first paragraph of a letter to a friend in Winnebago, Wisconsin. "Dear Arthur: I called,—as I said I was going to. She is a scrapper. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... damned if I do! You're men here—or supposed to be—not a pack of weak-kneed women!... Afraid to go out and see what those lights are, are you? Well, I'm not. Look here. I'll have a bet with you boys. Fifty pounds that I get back safely, and dispel the morbid fancies from your kindergarten ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... a short jacket of goat's skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of the thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same; the breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side, that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs; stockings and shoes I had none, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... dodge it and become a manufacturer. I am the kind of fellow who, when he takes hold of a question, never lets go. The picture of Comrade Bannerman shaking his fist at the trainload of "plutes" lingered with me. I still heard the voice of the knock-kneed reformer who envied my husky limbs. The cry for bloody revolution was already in the air. When would the mob be started and what would it do? When Comrade Bannerman had robbed the rich and piled their corpses in a Caesar's column, would not the knock-kneed ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... cried the third excitedly, and he rose, planted a foot on the bench, and bared his bound-up leg, "here's that tall un's shot as went through my calf here. I'm as lame as a broken-kneed un." ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... Richard, with great simplicity, it is not Cousin Bess. But when did you ever know a half-breed, Duke, who could bear civilization? For that mat ter, they are worse than the savages themselves! Did you notice how knock-kneed he stood, Elizabeth, and what a wild look ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... widow and an only son; but this rumour had not been verified, as by that time his father and uncle were dead, and his cousins were reigning in his stead; and it was hardly to be expected that the proud Miss Farringdon would take much trouble concerning the woman whom her weak-kneed kinsman had ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... shaped dress to-day, but he had recalled her as she was in her poke-bonnet days, when she had been wont to accept the same kind of salutation without demur. It did not seem so very long ago since he had seen her bare-kneed, in short, crimson skirts and all sorts of fantastic caps and brilliant turbans; and he now reminded her of the fact, undeterred by the haughtiness of her mien and the arrogantly rippling masses of golden-brown hair, just a shade ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... sore-kneed, hair awry, and his eyes with the red rims of fatigue. "You'll sure ring the little bell if you want ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... Prussianism had got such a knock that it could never again do what it had in the past. These last, however, were but side reflections, toning down for him the fact that his nerves could no longer stand this vicarious butchery of youth. And so he had gradually become that "traitor to his country, a weak-kneed Peace by Negotiation man." Physically his knees really were weak, and he used to smile a wry smile when ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... one end, it grows up at the other. You can't accomplish anything that way; it's labor lost. I proposed a scheme to them, something on a larger scale. They got frightened, wouldn't hear of it. A little weak-kneed they are. So I left them. Let them practise virtue. A narrow-minded bunch. They lack ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... chinook, a howling, warm wind from out the southwest, cutting the snowbanks as with a knife that turned to water what it touched, and laying bare the brown grass beneath. He saw the riders go out with the wagons to gather the lank-bodied, big-kneed calves and set upon them the searing ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... back, bad as we were.... These kids of to-day! My Gawd! they're the limit. They paralyze me. I thought I was pretty fast. But compared to these youngsters I'm tied to a post. My kid sister Joyce—Rose Clymer—Bessy Bell!... Some kids, believe me. And take it from me, girls, these dimple-kneed chickens are vamping ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... all right," snarled the first speaker, "but whether you're ready or not is another matter. Now I'm going to give you a last chance to pull out. Do you want to go ahead or don't you? It's no good for us to be laying plans if you are going to be weak-kneed at the end and balk at carrying them out. Do you mean to stand by me and see this thing to a finish or ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett |
