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More "Clinch" Quotes from Famous Books



... Masten, sent him back several feet, and his legs shook under him, sagging limply. His lips, where the blow had landed, were smashed, gaping hideously, red-stained. Randerson was after him relentlessly. Masten dared not clinch, for no rules of boxing governed this fight, and he knew that if he accepted rough and tumble tactics he would be beaten quickly. So he trusted to his agility, which, though waning, answered well until he recovered from the ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... bucket of water on the fire to prevent them from seeing us, made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred the door, and posted herself there with an axe and rifle: We never knew why they desisted from an attack or how father escaped. In two or three days all of us set out for Clinch Mountain to the wedding of Happy Kincaid, a clever young fellow from Holston, and Sally McClure, a fine girl of seventeen, modest and pretty, yet fearless. We knew the Shawnees were about; that our fort and household effects must be left unguarded ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... style, the sentence is given the effect of being sent straight forth, as if to a mark, with the last word made the telling one, and so kept well up in force and pitch. The accumulating force has the effect of sending the last word home, or of making it the one to clinch the statement. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... right from any flank attacks which might be hurled against it from Paris, the Germans placed a strong army under von Kluck in front of that city to hold the French left in check, as a boxer in a clinch holds back his opponent's left arm. Von Kluck fought his way to a position approximately defined by a line through Creil, Senlis, Nanteuil-le-Haudouin, and Lizy-sur-Ourg. His cavalry advanced even to Chantilly and Crecy. His army was not intended to have ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now consider in more detail certain ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... are immediately deputed, sir, By the Assembly of Asturias, More sailing soon from other provinces. We bring official writings, charging us To clinch and solder Treaties with this realm That may promote our cause against the foe. Nextly a letter to your gracious King; Also a Proclamation, soon to sound And swell the pulse of the Peninsula, Declaring that the act by which King Carlos And his son Prince Fernando cede the throne To ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... made out to be, as he built some hasty comparisons, the Maxim silencer attached either at the end of a revolver or of a rifle; for the black cylinder on the muzzle was circumscribed at regular intervals with small, sharp depressions, the clinch-marks of the silencing chambers. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... Thomas, tempting in the extreme, and baited with alluring possibilities that certainly were dazzling to her if they were not to her lover. She meant to make him tell her of the offer, and she meant to make him accept it that very afternoon and clinch the contract by telephoning the acceptance to the telegraph-office before he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... reason; lured him into the garden, and killed him with my sword. Then he fled to the city, tossing the sword away as he went. By the way, Ivan tells me the dead man had a Yankee dollar in his pocket. So he was a countryman of Brayne's, and that seems to clinch it. I don't see any difficulties ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... between its fingers a broad belt of leather and a fine thread of wire, prick rows of holes across the breadth of the leather, bend, cut off, and insert the shank ends of the teeth clear through these holes, and clinch them on the back side, and pour out a continuous, uninterrupted stream of perfectly-teethed belt, all ready for carding,—this, I fancied, was the ne plus ultra of mechanical inventions. But it is quite surpassed by the lace-weaving ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... and fearing accidental defeat, forgot caution and tried to rush in for a clinch. But this was the kind of attack that Prescott ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... Planter arrived. We left St. Simon's on the following morning, reached Fort Clinch by four o'clock, and there transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the John Adams, allowed the larger transport to go into Fernandina, while the two other vessels were to ascend the St. Mary's River, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... tell you. Ten days ago, when I was in the Holston settlements, Major Ben Logan came in. His fort had been shut up since May, they were out of powder and lead, and somebody had to come. How did he come? As the wolf lopes, nay, as the crow flies over crag and ford, Cumberland, Clinch, and all, forty miles a day for five days, and never saw a trace—for the war parties were watching the Wilderness Road." And he swung again towards Polly Ann. "You'll not go to Kaintuckee, ma'am; you'll stay here with us until ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... eye on her, sir; I was afraid she was coming into the shop after me, and my arm was too sore for me to want her to clinch hold on it again. So when she started to go, I took a step nearer, and saw her move toward the curbstone and hold up her hand. But it wasn't a car she was after, for none came ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... what errand he was come there at that hour, and alone. Whereupon Arriguccio, beginning with the discovery of the pack-thread attached to his lady's great toe, gave them the whole narrative of his discoveries and doings down to the very end; and to clinch the whole matter, he put in their hands the locks which he had cut, as he believed, from his wife's head, adding that 'twas now for them to come for her and deal with her on such wise as they might deem their honour required, seeing that ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... two of his assailants had fallen under its sweeping blows, and Farbish stood weakly supporting himself against the table and gasping for the breath which had been choked out of him, the mountaineer hurled aside his chair, and plunged for the sole remaining man. They closed in a clinch. The last antagonist was a boxer, and when he saw the Kentuckian advance toward him empty-handed, he smiled and accepted the gauge of battle. In weight and reach and practice, he knew that he had the advantage, and, now that it was man to man, he realized that there was no danger of interference ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... used as cattle?—what of all this, and as much more like this, as can be drawn from the history of that dreadful process by which men "are deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal?" Can all this force you to put the cap upon the climax—to clinch the nail by doing that, without which nothing in the work of slave-making would be attempted? The slaveholder is the soul of the whole system. Without him, the chattel principle is a lifeless abstraction. Without him, charters, and markets, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... gathered himself together and leaped upon his opponent. The fight was on: fast and furious. The followers of each leader, appalled at the fierceness of the combat, stood as though frozen in their places. The flag, clutched by both fighters, was in danger of being torn from end to end. Then came the clinch. Gripping, writhing, twisting, tangled in the colors, the lithe young bodies wavered to their fall. And when they fell the flag fell with them, into the grime and slush of the road. In an instant Pen was on his feet again, but Aleck did not rise. He pulled himself slowly to ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... was left to him his last lingering flesh thrill. As for the rest, he lived in his intellect, ruling his people, seeking out data from which to induce laws that would make his people stronger and rivet his people's clinch upon life. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage. But the fighting blood of O'Connell was up. He beat Quinlan out of the clinch with a well-timed upper-cut that put the youth upon ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... The pile of baggage in the boat seemed to furnish sufficient testimony to clinch ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... it, Mohammed Beyd had recovered himself and was dashing upon him. Again Werper struck the other in the face, and the Arab returned the blow. Striking at each other and ceaselessly attempting to clinch, the two battled about the small interior of the tent, while the girl, wide-eyed in terror and astonishment, watched ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in the middle of a kiss, that he loved her, and she had smiled and held him closer and murmured, "I'm glad," looking into his eyes. There had been a new quality in her attitude, a new growth of sheer physical attraction toward him and a strange emotional tenseness, that was enough to make him clinch his hands and draw in his breath at the recollection. He had felt nearer to her than ever before. In a rare delight he cried aloud to the room that ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... through a blinding mist or fog, our skirmishers not being able to see an object fifty paces in front. Our line of advance was along the dirt road, on the west side of the little mountain range, a spur of the clinch, while the main body of the enemy kept close to the railroad, on the east side, and between the mountain range and the river, traversing a narrow valley, which gave him strong positions for defensive battle. The mountain was crossed in several places by dull roads and bridle paths, and it was ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... fist struck Murray's solid jaw, scraping the skin off his knuckles, but Murray swayed to the blow, sapping its force, and came in to clinch. They rolled on the floor. Murray twisted Sime's head painfully, bit his ear. But in the next ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... colossal blocks. The spire, floriated richly and graduated with a precise symmetry, rises to an extreme altitude of 220 feet 6 inches. The extreme length is about 170 ft. The massive oaken front doors are carved handsomely, and contain the arms of the Stewart family, the Clinch family (Mrs. Stewart's maiden name), the Hilton family, and those of Bishop Littlejohn, the Episcopal head of the Long Island Diocese. The porch or tower entrance, which is the main entrance to the building, is paved with white marble. In the center of the floor the Stewart arms are enameled ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... there was no sign of life about the place, and Wade craftily advanced into the deeper shadows close to the wall of the house. Taking off his hat, so that the crown might not betray him, he peeped through a window. What he saw made him clinch his fingers and grit ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... room, immediately underneath, was like that of a cellar where a furnace is in full blast. But Susan knew she was indeed in luck. "It's clean and nice here," said she to Mrs. Tucker, "and I'm much obliged to you for being so reasonable with me." And to clinch the bargain she then and there paid half a month's rent. "I'll give you the rest when my week at the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... and crushed—and trembled with overplus of intoxicated strength—He knew if he could lay his hand on Crime at that moment he could crush the life out of the thing's throat; and there was a parchedness that was not thirst, a tingling to clinch that Criminal Thing menacing the Nation, to clinch and strangle it to a death not honored in the code ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... that thar Pope Wus reely twins with Satan. I took no stock in countin' up How menny hed ov cattle From Egypt's ranches Moses drove; I never fit a battle On p'ints that frequently gave rise Tew pious spat an' grumble, An' makes the brethren clinch an' yell ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... attorney. To swear a Turk who spoke only Turkish through another Turk, who mangled a little Spanish, for a judge who would not recognize a non-American word from the voice of a steam-shovel, with a solemn "So Help Me God!" to clinch and strengthen it when the witness was a follower of the prophet of Medina—or nobody—was not without its possibilities of humor. The trial proceeded; the witnesses witnessed in their various tongues, the perspiring arresting officer ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... a mistake commonly made by applicants for positions who do not understand the art of successfully closing the sale of one's services. When they try to clinch the final decision, they just repeat strongly all their best points. They make no mention of their shortcomings. For dessert, in other words, they serve a hash of the best dishes of previous courses. Is it any wonder that such ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... of adhesion or tenacity, as in cleave, clay, cling, climb, clamber, clammy, clasp, to clasp, to clip, to clinch, cloak, clog, close, to close, a clod, a clot, as a clot of blood, clouted cream, a ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... over [Mrs. Clinker was told]—the advent of Mr. Hanbury-Green (a very unpleasant personality, afraid of being polite to me in case I should fancy myself his equal) seemed to clinch matters in M. E.'s mind. I suppose he was able to give her some definite assurance of the future of the Government. In any case, I could see, when they returned from their excursion in the gondola yesterday, that things were upon a very familiar footing between them. ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... condemnation of the Temple and the Sacrifices.(634) But that condemnation had been uttered by Jeremiah because of his contemporaries' sinful use of the House of God, whereas now he is looking into a new dispensation. How could he more signally clinch the promise of that reunion of Israel and Judah, for which all his life he had longed, than by this call to them to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... I saw one of our Ruin's long hands draw up and clinch. He turned his head toward Harriet. His face was partly in the shadow, but there was something striking and strange in the way he looked at her, and a deepness in his voice ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... before they were out of the speaker's mouth. His answer to "Soapy's" query was a broad grin,—for he had detected a sly twinkle in the speaker's eye. He also shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands,—and, to clinch the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... that Nat must have been aboard the schooner secretly; what he told his father and his eagerness to bet with me on a proposition that seemed foolhardy on the face of it clinch the thing in my mind. The misguided fool! That, Elsa, is an example of how low a man will go who has been spoiled and brought up without the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... then that an actor lived like a god on praise and greasepaint and his photograph in the papers. "Another cup, won't you?" says Miss Gladys Cooper; "No, thank you," says Mr. Dennis Eadie—dash it, it's exactly what we do at home ourselves. And when, to clinch matters, the dramatist makes Mr. Gerald du Maurier light a real cigarette in the Third Act, then he can flatter himself that he has indeed achieved the ambition of every stage writer, and "brought the actual scent of ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... explained. "It will be up-river most of the way, and I've got a couple of Siwash to pole the canoes. All you have to do is the cooking, make camp, and tend to Miss Stirling's friends when they go fishing." He waved his hand, and added, as though to clinch the argument, "I've known people of that kind to give a man that pleased ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... treaty was struck between England and France, where it appeared that Coligny was paramount at court. Both English and French volunteers were fighting in the Netherlands. Small wonder that Burghley and Walsingham believed that a French marriage would clinch matters, make France a virtually Huguenot Power, and secure a combination which would bring the Pope and the King of Spain to their knees. The approaching marriage of the French King's sister, Margaret, to young Henry of Navarre—now standing next after the King's brothers in the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... then," said Varney, ever ready to clinch the business that promised gold, and relieve his apprehensions of the detection of his fraud. "And now to your noiseless hands, as soon as may be, I consign the girl; she has ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a fellow-townsman, was so impressed by his tone of quietistic mysticism that he felt sure the philosophic doctor was guided by "the inward light," and wrote, sending a godly book, and proposing to clinch his conversion in a personal interview. Such are the perils that environ the man who not only repeats a creed in sincerity, but ventures to do and to utter his own ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... stuff in 'em," said Nick. "Anyhow, I haven't grown up enough to get beyond it. I don't mean ever to turn the boy that lives inside of me out-of-doors. If I ever do anything to make him so mad that he quits, I'll be finished—dried up. That book, The Arabian Nights, has got a dead clinch on me. You know, when I run into Bakersfield, I like to have a browse in the bookstores. It sort of rests me, and seein' the pictures in that book made me buy it—a birthday ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... of shame which this last thought aroused, following in the train of her bitter reasoning, that caused her to quicken her pace and clinch her hands. That same pride, which had been her ally hitherto, had come to her rescue once more. She said to herself that she had done what she knew was right, and that no force of cruel circumstances should ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... profusely and lavishly. The decorations were superb, the entertainments magnificent, in the ceremonious and rather affected style of the period. In 1770 she was at the climax of prosperity. "Galas, masquerades, and festivals, all equally splendid, succeeded one another throughout the season" (Clinch); but after her sky-rocket ascent came the fall: fickle Fashion deserted her, and finally the house and its contents were announced in the Gazette for sale. The Pantheon had proved too formidable a rival. In 1785 the property ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... in turn, was astonished at the complete change that had come over the "yokel." Before they recovered from their mistaken opinion about the man, they saw him clinch his fists in determination and heard his voice ring out clearly and distinctly, above the din of the ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... "Then we'll clinch your ladyship's determination at once. May I make use of your writing table? Have you any other ink than this rose-coloured ink, with which to be sure, your ladyship generally writes your letters, but which is a ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... trembling seized me. I was almost as much agitated as Mrs. Rayne. I felt that I must clinch the matter somehow, but I took refuge in a platitude to gain time: "There is such a difference in ships, almost as much as in houses, and the comfort of the voyage depends greatly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... now sent down by the buoy-rope, and the running clinch or noose formed on its end, placed over the fluke of the anchor in the usual way. A couple of round turns were then taken with the hawser at the middle part of the cylindrical raft, after it had been drawn up as tight as possible from the anchor. A number of slew-ropes, I think about sixty or seventy ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... The stone, which had been built sideways into the wall, offered traces of heraldic sculpture. At once there came a wild idea into my mind: his appearance tallied with Flora's description of Mr. Robbie; a knowledge of heraldry would go far to clinch the proof; and what could be more desirable than to scrape an informal acquaintance with the man whom I must approach next day with my tale of the drovers, and whom I yet wished to please? ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to yourself. I'm afraid that after the many disappointments he has inflicted upon you, you will be doubtful of my judgment. Yet I do think that the critical moment has arrived when by surprising him thus we might clinch the matter of his future behaviour once and for all. His conduct here has been so humble and patient and in every way exemplary that my heart bleeds for him. Therefore, my dear Bishop of Warwick, I hope ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... after I'd grabbed the nigger he told me he hadn't done the shootin', and begged me to let him go. He said the shootin' had been done by the old man's son, and a lot more stuff like that. To clinch the business, I said the nigger, scared half to death, told me about getting a deed signed that night and about a will that had been substituted, and so on and so forth. I was just repeatin' what you said, David. Well, by gum, he was knocked silly. He saw that I did know all about everything. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... a vague idea of village politics, but he had more important things to think of. Most of his foul mood had disappeared with the clue he'd stumbled on, and his chief worry now was to clinch ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner; and the serious Kellner of "Der Wildemann" glanced in mild reproach at Mr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory table d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten a late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover, preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on entering ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... formulae of politeness in French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... got to come through, or I'll put him out of business. That gentleman's agreement is all poppycock. If it were only that, of course he could break it. But I've got some mighty interesting correspondence that he's forgotten about.... Yes, yes; it will clinch it in any court of law. I'll have the file in your office by five this afternoon. And tell him, for me, that if he tries to put through this trick, I'll break him. I'll put a competing line on, and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... with his fists, Cantor's superior weight and muscle counted in this deadly clinch. And now Darrin found himself lying with both shoulders touching, while Cantor, kneeling over him, fought to free his knife hand for the ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... a fire," he shouted; "there's lots of things to burn." He looked about him as though to choose a place. But he couldn't find one. He pointed vaguely, first at Maria, as though she was the thing to burn, and then at the landscape generally. "Then you can dance round it," he added convincingly to clinch ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... the clinches of the nails with a rather dull clinch cutter ("buffer") and drawing the nails one at a time, the old shoe is critically examined and laid aside. Remaining stubs of nails are then drawn or punched out and the hoof freed of dirt and partially detached ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... he t'row'd away his axe an' goes to a clinch wid his knoife in his fisht. An' phwin 'tis over an' he picks himsilf up out av th' shnow an' wipes th' blood from his eyes—her blood—f'r he comes out av ut widout scratch nor scar—D'ablish lays at his feet dead as ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... condition of mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same subject a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... poor dumb brute, my Roderick Dhu, And our scientific brethren scoff at you. They "reason" and they "think," Then they set it down in ink, And clinch it with their learned ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... over-estimating their hold upon the public interest. Excepting General Jackson, who was a fighter and not a talker, their public men, with Henry Clay and Felix Grundy in the lead, were "stump orators." He who could not relate and impersonate an anecdote to illustrate and clinch his argument, nor "make the welkin ring" with the clarion tones of his voice, was politically good for nothing. James K. Polk and James C. Jones led the van of stump orators in Tennessee, Ben Hardin, John J. Crittenden and John C. Breckenridge in Kentucky. Tradition still has stories to tell of ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... say you'll come? it's as much your interest as mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off. I know their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to clinch, always. There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife, "I'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on him," my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... take care of her properly, you'll admit; and it's silly. Besides, Conlow was telling me just an hour or more ago, that Phil and Lettie was old-time sweethearts. I've nothing to do with Phil's puppy love, however. I'm here to advise with you. Shall we clinch the bargain now, or do you want to think about it a little while? But don't take long. It's a little sudden maybe to you. It's been on my mind since the day I got that memorial window in an' Marjory sang 'Lead Kindly Light,' standing there in the light of it. It was a service for ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... a-talkin' to her and her a-talkin' at him. All I got to do, accordin' to all the books I've ever read, is see that it don't all come too easy for him, and still turns out all right. I expect I'll run 'em into a clinch with another guy standin' around eatin' his heart out with jealousy. It'll serve him right; he's just that mean sort, you know. Oh, I'll just marry 'em, along toward the end of the last chapter, and that'll kind of close ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... which they know is lying to the northward waiting for them, would deny them the honor of a salute, and that Old England would not recognize her sons—then they grip their muskets tighter, they forget their wounds and their flowing blood; silent and grim, they clinch their teeth, and hold their ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... ten to one he'll take to his heels. Most animals have more confidence in their legs than they have in their teeth and claws, and they'll be very likely to use 'em, if you'll give 'em time to consider. But if you find a painter, or a bear, takin' a nap in your path, and don't want to have a clinch with him, wake him up before you get right onto him, or he'll be very likely to think he's cornered, and them animals have onpleasant ways with 'em when they're ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... clinch the reunion and fulfil customary law, advises Agamemnon to bring out the gifts of atonement (the gifts prepared in Book IX.), after which the right thing is for him to give a feast of reconciliation, "that Achilles ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... camphire camphor canvas canvass carcase carcass centinel sentinel chace chase chalibeate chalybeate chamelion chameleon chimist chemist chimistry chemistry cholic colic chuse choose cimetar cimeter clench clinch cloke cloak cobler cobbler chimnies chimneys chesnut chestnut clue clew connection connexion corset corslet cypher cipher cyphering ciphering dactyl dactyle develope develop dipthong diphthong dispatch despatch doat dote drouth drought ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... entire history of the growth of the Christian doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah — And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters —four yarns —is one of the smallest strands in the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... went after it! You know how I am, Johnnie, when I go after anything. I been smokin' cigars I dunno how long!" Glancing about him, his eye became reassured; it was obvious that even Johnnie had accepted this airy statement as the truth, and to clinch plausibility he added: "When I smoke, I smoke! I smoke cigars straight along—light one right on the stub of the other. I only wish I had some with me, because I miss 'em after a meal. I'd give a good deal for something to smoke right ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... stray Indians smoking the peace-pipe at his hearth. Long before she had reached the stature of woman she had sat on her stool beside that jovial old man, her father, grimy from his forge, and drunk the tales wide-eyed, to creep away and watch the stars, to dream of those dashing streams and to clinch her hands for that she was not ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... it best to take separate action; and that it would not interfere with any proper efforts of other powers to secure simple redress for actual grievances; but that it could not make common cause with other powers in any such efforts. To clinch this, I cited the famous passage in Washington's Farewell Address against "entangling alliances with foreign powers'' as American gospel, and added that my government would also be unalterably opposed to anything leading to permanent occupation of South ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... nod, to clinch the last word on the subject, the bushranger gave himself over to his camp-chair, his pipe, and his inexhaustible Australasian. As for Vanheimert, he eventually returned to the tent in which he had spent the night; and there he remained a good many minutes, though it was now the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... from the realms afar! Thy strong wings whir like some huge bellows' breath— Swift falls thy fiery eyeball, like a star, And dark thy shadow as the pall of death! But thou hast marked a tall and reverend tree, And now thy talons clinch yon leafless limb; Before thee stretch the sandy shore and sea, And sails, like ghosts, move in the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... encampments, on Vinegar Hill, above Enniscorthy; on Carrickbyrne, on the road leading to Ross, and on the hill of Corrigrua, seven miles from Gorey. The principal leaders of the first division were Fathers Kearns and Clinch, and Messrs. Fitzgerald, Doyle, and Redmond; of the second, Bagenal Harvey, and Father Philip Roche; of the last, Anthony Perry of Inch, Esmond Kyan, and the two Fathers Murphy, Michael, and John. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... returned once more to the fight with bare hands. My superior agility now began to tell in my favour, and I found I was the better boxer and wrestler of the two, so that I rained blows upon my opponent, some of which drew blood. He then tried to clinch with me, but I had waited for this, and when he seized me in his powerful grip I held myself as I had been taught to do by my friend the smuggler, so that when he tried to throw me, he himself, by his own weight and a dexterous twist I gave him, was hurled over my head some distance ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... subsequent conduct showed that he did not want me aboard with him any more than I wanted to be there. Had I not taken matters into my own hands by boarding the brig in such a desperate hurry—just as I had hurried to close with his offer and to clinch it by paying down my passage-money—he would have gone off without me. And very likely he would have thought that the lesson in worldly wisdom he had given me was only fairly paid for by the fifty dollars which had jumped so easily out of my pocket ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... old fellows to look out for us here, we had better go and present ourselves in Montreal, and so be as it were in two places at once. Moreover, I should like to see Roland Stanley if possible before I clinch any bargain. We are perfectly certain of getting disinterested advice from him, though I see no reason whatever to doubt the policy of what I have done or the intentions of our backers. I don't know if I have made all our doings and plans sufficiently clear. ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn

... a little foolish, but Clench, the boatswain, coming aft to say something to him in confidence, just at that moment, he was enabled to avoid the awkwardness of attempting to explain. This man Clench, or Clinch, as the name was pronounced, was deep in the captain's secrets; far more so than was his mate, and would have been filling Mulford's station at that very time, had he not been hopelessly ignorant of navigation. On the present occasion, his business was to point out to the captain, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... the town was out one Irishman would have seemed a good business proposition, and, to clinch the assurance, the bear began to walk on Jim. While the bear kneaded him like a batch of dough, some of us woke and rushed to ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... realized at the outset that he was up against a hard fight. In his hurry to close with the red-bearded man, his foot had slipped on the slimy grass and he had been forced to clinch to save himself from falling. This placed him at a marked disadvantage. His opponent had the best of him in weight by at least twenty pounds and was heavily muscled. Moreover he possessed a certain agility on the grass-covered rocks which rendered any attempt on Gregory's ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... not intend to be made an exhibition of in front of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposed to go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dug Mr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expert to clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... don't show except when they choose.) But the novice wasn't a fool. He looked down at the horse's feet, and saw the new shoes fastened as only Weland knew how to fasten 'em. (Weland had a way of turning down the nails that folks called the Smith's Clinch.) ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... for Kentucky with his family and his brother, Squire Boone—Is joined by five families and forty men at Powell's Valley—The party is attacked by Indians, and Daniel Boone's oldest son is killed—The party return to the settlements on Clinch River—Boone, at the request of Governor Dunmore, goes to the West and conducts a party of surveyors to Virginia—Boone receives the command of three garrisons and the commission of Captain—He takes a part in the ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... eyes bulged out like shining little onions as he took in the scene of battle. He had longed for a fight but what he saw now fairly paralyzed him. The two bears were at it, roaring and tearing each other's hides and throwing up showers of gravel and earth in their deadly clinch. In this first round Noozak had the best of it. She had butted the wind out of Makoos in her first dynamic assault, and now with her dulled and broken teeth at his throat she was lashing him with her sharp ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... The manager, eager to clinch the bargain, advanced to meet him, and the boy, keeping his back toward the new-comer, managed to walk out of the opposite door ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... Dade's command, the murder of their agent, General Thompson, and other acts of cruel treachery. When this alarming and unexpected intelligence reached the seat of Government, every effort appears to have been made to reenforce General Clinch, who commanded the troops then in Florida. General Eustis was dispatched with reenforcements from Charleston, troops were called out from Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and General Scott was sent to take the command, with ample powers and ample ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... of comical Obedience. I do not know but I may be such a Fellow as this my self. But I appeal to you, whether this is to be called a Club, because so many Impertinents will break in upon me, and come without Appointment? 'Clinch of Barnet' [2] has a nightly Meeting, and shows to every one that will come in and pay; but then he is the only Actor. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... fellow, for the argument excites these saints. They gesticulate freely; martyrs seem to fence with their palm-leaves. One will turn away abruptly, another will pay sudden attention to his book, while his companion continues to talk. One man slaps his book to clinch the discussion, another jots down a note; two others are ending their controversy and prepare to leave—in opposite directions. But, though these are literal descriptions of the scenes, there is no levity; everything is ordained according to Donatello's strict formula. He was none ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... being favorable, the farmer, assisted by his relatives and friends, begins the clearing without delay. It is essential that at least a little work be done in order to clinch the bargain with the powers above, for should a delay occur the omens might go awry and necessitate a repetition of the ceremonies and even an abandonment of the farm. I heard of several cases where prospective farms ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... strained to Manassas plains; every heart throbbed stronger at the mention of that name. All knew that there the giants were soon to clinch in deadly wrestle for the mastery; that the struggle was now at hand, when the flag of the South would be carried high in triumph or trampled in ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... the best kind of wives. I give 'em a good home, plenty to eat an'—" His eyes roamed aloft, as if searching for some other beneficence, and finally lighting on Dr. Brown's door-plate, found something to clinch his argument. "An' as fine a funeral as any woman could ask ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... into fame. If he were great as principal, he was unrivalled as confidant. He could enter into a passion; he could counsel wary moves, being, in his own phrase, so old a hawk; nay, he could turn a letter for some unlucky swain, or even string a few lines of verse that should clinch the business and fetch the hesitating fair one to the ground. Nor, perhaps, was it only his "curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity" that recommended him for a second in such affairs; it must have been a distinction to have ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... out, and another man called Stephen Clinch, an ally of Crayford's immediately came in. After a few ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... concluded it would be more satisfactory to go, for perhaps Ellis might give her the slip, or, if the big brother objected, she might add her persuasions to Ellis's and so clinch the matter. Yet while she stood waiting for Ellis to make his request for the boat, she had many compunctions of conscience. She had never before done so bold and desperate a thing. She had scarcely ever appeared on the street without her governess, ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard

... Chiswick, and found Bute Lodge to be, if not precisely a jewel amongst lodges, at any rate clean and comfortable, she came back to the agent with an offer to take it from month to month, and with a roll of notes ready to clinch the bargain. Money is the best reference, as she found when she paid a month's rent on the spot, and promised that all her payments should be in advance. But, as the agent had asked her for a reference of another kind, Lettice, who had expected this demand, and was prepared for it, gave ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... had to listen with polite attention. Luckily, I did not understand the import of what he said till he had taken himself off, with an unusually deep bow of thanks to myself. The only comfort we derived was the reflection that these lies were too audacious to be aught but inventions made up to clinch the wavering ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... take to the marriage customs of the country. Nevertheless he was not averse to the Factor's imperilling his own immortal soul, and, especially, feeling an ominous attraction himself for Lit-lit, he was sombrely content to clinch his own soul's safety by seeing ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... you," said Moretti, as he untied some papers he had been carrying, and sat down at a table to glance over them, "Did I not tell you that when all other arguments fail, the unanswerable one of woman can be brought in to clinch ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... couldn't have been better done. That was what made it so touchingly absurd. He put himself in her position. He pictured himself as her, "sitting up in bed," pencil in hand, to explain away, to soothe, to clinch and bind... Yes, if he had happened to be some other man—one whom her insult might have angered without giving love its death-blow, and one who could be frightened out of not keeping his word—this letter ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... watching, that the girl did not take food; that she could not swallow; that whenever food was mentioned to her she became as it were, excited; that when it was offered to her she would have a fit, or the offer would make her ill. The sworn testimony of the vicar, the Rev. Wm. Thomas, Sister Clinch, Ann Jones, and the other nurses, is sufficiently confirmative on this point. Furthermore, the parents went so far as to expressly forbid the mere mention of food in ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond

... called for jiu-jitsu work, he didn't rest satisfied with learning just enough to "get by." Every spare moment found him in a clinch with the Japanese expert, mastering every secret, perfecting himself in every hold. Same way with boxing. When no pugilists came handy, he put on the gloves with anyone willing to take chances on a black eye, keeping at it until today they have to hire professionals ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... is needed to clinch the matter. No, no, there is no drawing back now, Clara, or we shall ruin everything. Papa is sure to come back by the 9:45. He will reach the door at 10. We must have everything ready for him. Now, just sit down at once, and ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... hard journey for the wagon teams brought us to the foot of Pine Mountain at the point where the road leaves the bed of Elk Fork to climb the steep ascent. We were now only nineteen miles from Jacksboro, in the valley of the Clinch, but the distance was multiplied by the cumulating difficulties of the way. We were not far from Cross Mountain, a ridge which, as its name indicates, connects the long parallel ranges of Jellico, Pine, and Cumberland mountains. We must climb Pine Mountain to ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Don't butt nor trip. Don't clinch. Don't use knee, elbow, nor shoulder. When I call 'Break away,' break without hitting. If you do any of these things you will be jolly well disqualified. Fight fair and God have mercy on your souls." To Dam it seemed that the advice was superfluous—and of God's ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... break the monotony, although at one time it looked as if Belleville might add a tally to their score, and possibly clinch matters. Leonard, their hard-hitting backstop, sent one out in short center, failing to give it enough force to take advantage of that incline back of "K.K." Then Conway, who had been hitting savagely latterly, tried to knock the cover off the ball, but only succeeded in popping up a high ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... flour-barrels, with a background of shelves laden with bright-coloured calicoes, and a line of tin pails hanging overhead, and stated his view of the case with vigour. He even pulled off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeve to show the knotty arguments with which he proposed to clinch his opinion. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... unjust but foolish, and, figuratively speaking, peeled the court from head to foot.... Lincoln was alternately furious and eloquent, and after pursuing the court with broad facts and pointed inquiries in rapid succession, he made use of this homely incident to clinch ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... the man, who had a peculiar power by reason of being unhampered either by truth or precedent. Blake, who was the duke's secretary in '84, told me at the club one night, that on one occasion his grace had needed some statistics to clinch an argument. After investigation the statistics were found to disprove his point. Upon this being presented to him, he ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... the men, including Boon's eldest son, were slain, and the cattle scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... and stepping as proud and regular as The Boston Guards. In some great battle between Right and Wrong you will hear from him. I hope it may be the battle between Slavery and Freedom, although at present he thinks they must avoid coming to a clinch. In my opinion, it can not be done. I expect to live to see the fight and to take part ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... been done!" cried the man, striking his left hand a blow with his fist, as if to clinch the thought which ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... have," grinned Andy, promptly. "Never could bear to let anything puzzle me long. Used to lie awake half the night trying to clinch a name that had just slipped a cog in ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... sorry not to be able to clinch the story, but the man recovered and is now a successful stockbroker in Drapers Gardens. The woman, too, is the mother of a considerable family. But what are ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... swings 'cross on an outlaw hawse And my spurs clinch into his hide, He kin r'ar and pitch over hill and ditch, But wherever he goes I'll ride. Let 'im spin and flop like a crazy top, Or flit like a wind-whipped smoke, But he'll know the feel of my rowelled heel Till he's happy to ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... pool under the dark ledges of rock where the catfish are wont to lurk, his right arm wrapped to the fingers with a scarlet cloth. Tempted by the seeming bait, the catfish would take the finger-tips deep in its gullet, the strong hand would instantly clinch on its head, and Attusah would rise with his struggling gleaming prey, to be broiled on the coals ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... greatest scoundrel and blackleg in the history of dancing," continued Poulter. Then, as if to clinch the matter, he added, "Poulter's 'Special and Select' is two shillings, with carriages at eleven. Gellybrand's is one and six, with ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... and took out the bacon. As Albert looked at it he began unconsciously to clinch and unclinch his teeth. Dick saw his face, and, knowing that the same eager look was in his own, he laughed ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... Good idea if you're stuck. Gain time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they harden. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... the better of the battle as he was stronger, quicker and more intelligent. It soon seemed that the encounter was done saving only the final death thrust when Bar Comas slipped in breaking away from a clinch. It was the one little opening that Dak Kova needed, and hurling himself at the body of his adversary he buried his single mighty tusk in Bar Comas' groin and with a last powerful effort ripped the young jeddak wide ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... abstract her letters or yours from time to time, but the case needed something more than that. Neglect would not rouse her; jealousy might. One day there came the picture of those girls at Hastings (Abbot's hands begin to clinch; he has listened coldly up to this point), and I saw the group that was sent to them, and the pretty letter written by their secretary, Miss Warren. Then came her letter saying she was Guthrie Warren's sister. I knew him well at college, and an idea occurred to me. I took your picture, wrote ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops—lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... Walsh. Register devotion, gratitude, adoration—now you got it. Turn on your lamps full power, dearie! Wow! Bully! A couple of tears, please. That's the stuff. You'll be the queen of the world. Weep a little more. Real tears. That's it! Now clinch for ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... blood out of his eyes with a toss of his head and stepped forward angrily. He had no mind to let his adversary clinch again if ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake

... and in society, and that any path which led you elsewhere was a departure from happiness." Through nine pages of gentle and friendly eloquence Deyverdun pursues his argument to induce his friend to clinch the bargain. "I advise you not only not to solicit a place, but to refuse one if it were offered to you. Would a thousand a year make up to you for the loss of five days a week?... By making this retreat to Switzerland, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... days after these dispositions were made, the enemy advanced upon Rogersville in heavy force, drove Colonel Morgan away and followed him closely. He retreated without loss, although constantly skirmishing to Kingsport, twenty-five miles from Rogersville, and crossing Clinch river at nightfall, prepared to dispute the passage of the enemy. He believed that he could do so successfully, but his force was too small to guard all of the fords, and the next morning the enemy got across, attacked and defeated him, capturing him, more than eighty men, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... forward and looked at the signatures dashed across the paper; both who saw him saw also the shiver, like a shiver of intense cold, that ran through him as he did so, and saw his teeth clinch tight, in the extremity of rage, in the excess of pain, or—to hold in all utterance that might be ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... was not marked by the effusion vocal, gymnastical, osculatory and catechetical that distinguishes the greetings of their unprofessional sisters in society. There was a brief clinch, two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the same footing of the old days. Very much like the short salutations of soldiers or of travellers in foreign wilds are the welcomes between the strollers at the corners of ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... soundingboard devised for the sole purpose of throwing back the mellifluous voices of native orators. At the cross-roads store, philosophers, perched upon barrel and soap-box (note the soap-box), clinch in endless argument. Every county has its Theocritus who sings the nearest creek, the bloom of the may-apple, the squirrel on the stake-and-rider fence, the rabbit in the corn, the paw-paw thicket where fruit for the gods lures farm boys ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... MEN. Oh! those confounded women! how they do cajole us! How true the saying: "'Tis impossible to live with the baggages, impossible to live without 'em"! Come, let us agree for the future not to regard each other any more as enemies; and to clinch the bargain, let us sing ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... brought to bear. He forbade me to visit Aunt Jed's or to see Jeanette again. He gave me to understand that the years held no hope for me—that on the day I broke his command I would cut myself off from him and home. To clinch things, he sent me away to college a month early, and put me ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... To clinch the thing, Florence went around and saw Frederica about it. And Frederica, after listening, non-committally, dashed off to the last meeting of the Thursday Club (all this happened in June, just before the wedding) and talked the matter over ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... grinned and sat down. "I was afraid she would back out," he said, "and I wanted to clinch the thing. Jest let me tell her that I am afraid she can't do a thing and then it would take a good deal more high water than we've had for a year or two to ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... thousand disorganized men escaped by making their way through the woods toward the Appomattox River before they could be entirely enveloped. Night had fallen when the fight was entirely over, but Devin was pushed on in pursuit for about two miles, part of the Sixth Corps following to clinch a victory which not only led to the annihilation of one corps of Lee's retreating army, but obliged Longstreet to move up to Farmville, so as to take a road north of the Appomattox River toward Lynchburg instead of continuing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... blood. The complications of his position daze Oswald. How can he return and give information of Alice Webster's death? What reasonable excuse can be assigned for his delay? How seemingly transparent this yarn! Will it not be evident that he manufactured a tissue of falsehoods, and to clinch these preposterous lies inflicted on himself ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... things he meant to say when, breakfast over and the two girls out of the way, he would invite his father to smoke a pipe outside, during the companionship of which he intended taking old Zebedee decidedly to task, and, putting his intended marriage with Eve well to the front, clinch his arguments by the startling announcement that unless some reformation was soon made he would leave his native place and seek a home in a foreign land. Such words and such threats as these could not be uttered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... Clinch the experiment thus: Open the door of your chamber and allow the dust to enter it. In three days afterwards you have every vessel within the chamber swarming with bacteria, and in a state of active putrefaction. Here, also, the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... talk and philanderin' after we've settled whar we are, what we're goin', and what's goin' to happen. Jest now it 'pears to me that ez these yere logs are the only thing betwixt us and 'kingdom come,' ye'd better be hustlin' round with a few spikes to clinch 'em to ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... his watch; he had three minutes left to clinch their convictions. Clearly and admirably he outlined his present scope of work; then, stepping into the future, he showed into what it might easily grow, had it the room and beds. He showed indisputably what experimental ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... in silence, Ardita's hand still resting in Carlyle's as it had when they finished dancing. She felt it clinch nervously from time to time as though he were unaware of the contact, but though he hurt her she made no attempt to remove it. It seemed an hour's climb before they reached the top and crept cautiously across the silhouetted plateau to the edge of the cliff. After one short look Carlyle ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... it was argued by the prosecution that the weakness of the bomb was a blunder on the part of the socialists, just as its premature explosion, caused by Ernest's losing his nerve and dropping it, was a blunder. And to clinch the argument, there were the several Congressmen who testified to having seen Ernest fumble and drop ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... in view of what's ahead in the way of competition, but we have made it a five-eighths proposition in order to clinch the deal promptly. I just sent one of our boys around ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... sum lies in the answer," he said, quoting one of those copybook proverbs with which all Syrians love to clinch an argument. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... water on the fire to prevent them from seeing us, made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred the door, and posted herself there with an axe and rifle: We never knew why they desisted from an attack or how father escaped. In two or three days all of us set out for Clinch Mountain to the wedding of Happy Kincaid, a clever young fellow from Holston, and Sally McClure, a fine girl of seventeen, modest and pretty, yet fearless. We knew the Shawnees were about; that our fort and household effects must be left unguarded and might be destroyed; that we incurred ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... place," said I, recollecting the scene near Charleston bar, "we will clinch the end of the cable around the mast, and then we can veer out as much as we like, without risk of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... hundred thousand pounds within a fortnight. The general at first refused and became a trifle—well, just a trifle resentful, even vindictive; but by showing a bold front I've brought him round. To-morrow I shall clinch the matter. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... any money. I mention this because, when people give money for that which they themselves desire, they generally make haste to give it. For a box to see Sarah Bernhardt, they will instantly place the money in your hand, to clinch the bargain. Here, however, out of all those who agreed to contribute, and who expressed their sympathy, not one of them proposed to give me the money on the spot, but they merely assented in silence to the sum which I suggested. In the last house which I visited on that day, in the evening, ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... burden to yourself. I'm afraid that after the many disappointments he has inflicted upon you, you will be doubtful of my judgment. Yet I do think that the critical moment has arrived when by surprising him thus we might clinch the matter of his future behaviour once and for all. His conduct here has been so humble and patient and in every way exemplary that my heart bleeds for him. Therefore, my dear Bishop of Warwick, I ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... smarting and fearing accidental defeat, forgot caution and tried to rush in for a clinch. But this was the kind of attack that Prescott was skilled ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... fence. Down the line of the fence the two curs walked, their eyes glaring, their jaws snapping, their tongues out, and dropping foam. The racket was tremendous. At each place where the pickets were a little spread, they redoubled their efforts to clinch. They approached the opening. The interest of the spectators redoubled. Now they reached the spot; sprung at each other; their jaws touched,—and each, dropping his tail, slunk away to his kennel. Gentlemen, the attitude of these armies reminds ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... passim). This points strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (quinquennium Neronis) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... denote a kind of adhesion or tenacity, as in cleave, clay, cling, climb, clamber, clammy, clasp, to clasp, to clip, to clinch, cloak, clog, close, to close, a clod, a clot, as a clot of blood, clouted cream, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson

... step the devil thrust him into desperation, and strove thereby to clinch the hopelessness of his estate. With wild fierce passion, Kennedy flung himself into sins he had never known before; angrily he laid waste the beauty and glory of the vineyard whose hedge had been broken down; a little entrance to the sanctuary ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops—lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... Odysseus, to clinch the reunion and fulfil customary law, advises Agamemnon to bring out the gifts of atonement (the gifts prepared in Book IX.), after which the right thing is for him to give a feast of reconciliation, "that Achilles may have nothing lacking of his right." ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... time Commander of the Southern Military District, directed Lieut.-Colonel Clinch to perform the barbarous task. I was at one time personally acquainted with that officer, and know the impulses of his generous nature, and can readily account for the failure of his expedition. He marched to the vicinity of the Fort, made the necessary recognisance, ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... estimate of the army and of the futility of an attack from McClellan was justified when, after the 26th of June, the Army of the Potomac, almost in sight of the spires of Richmond, was forced to reel back, in the deadly clinch of a seven days' combat, to the James River. The Confederate army changed its position from one of retreat to a brilliant and aggressive policy, and the subtle tactics of Johnston gave way to the bold strokes of Lee. The ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... departure the next day appeared to clinch this hypothesis. She—she would not betray her mistress and friend, but the shock of the discovery she must have made had proved too much for her. We figured she had either left voluntarily to—to pacify her own conscience, or at Miss Ocky's insistence because she was too dangerous to have around. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... statement to Flinders was perfectly true, and that the assertions of Peron and Freycinet which, if veracious, would make Le Geographe the second ship that ever saw Port Phillip—cannot be accepted. One other fact will clinch the case and place the ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... mildly reproved. She was convinced now that Mr. Cannon had come on purpose to clinch ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... great facts which clinch the argument that this is a great struggle for freedom. The first is the fact that America has come in. She would not have come in otherwise. When France in the eighteenth century sent her soldiers to ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... almost as completely divided as if the big river below had rolled between them. Since the great fight between old Darby and Cove Mills over Henry Clay, there had rarely been an election in which some members of the two families had not had a "clinch". They had to be thrown together sometimes "at meeting", and their children now and then met down on the river fishing, or at "the washing hole", as the deep place in the little stream below where the branches ran together was called; but they held themselves ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... The spire, floriated richly and graduated with a precise symmetry, rises to an extreme altitude of 220 feet 6 inches. The extreme length is about 170 ft. The massive oaken front doors are carved handsomely, and contain the arms of the Stewart family, the Clinch family (Mrs. Stewart's maiden name), the Hilton family, and those of Bishop Littlejohn, the Episcopal head of the Long Island Diocese. The porch or tower entrance, which is the main entrance to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... Register devotion, gratitude, adoration—now you got it. Turn on your lamps full power, dearie! Wow! Bully! A couple of tears, please. That's the stuff. You'll be the queen of the world. Weep a little more. Real tears. That's it! Now clinch for ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... the value of Indian friendship, and suggested to the assembly that it would be better to clinch it with presents, and that as soon as possible. An envoy accordingly was sent off early in October, who was supposed to have great influence among the western tribes. This was one George Croghan, a veteran trader, shrewd and sagacious, who had been frequently to the Ohio country ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... occasion, the owner was at home, and gave him instant notice that the place was no longer on view. He retired, but, being no coward, and not choosing to submit to dictation, he came again. This time, a fly-up together, a clinch in the air, with loud and offensive remarks, cured him of further ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... moment have disturbed the public peace. That Bill of Indemnity and Oblivion had to be shaped in accordance with the Declaration issued by the King from Breda. Personally, Hyde had endeavoured to restrain the impulse which tempted the King to clinch a promising bargain by over-lavish concessions. He always held that the dignity of the King could not be satisfied without vengeance on the murderers of his father, and that the security of the Crown rendered a severe example ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... Japan. For the benefit of trade and religion, Los Rios thinks it advisable to depopulate Macao and suppress it. Indeed the hate of the Portuguese goes so far that they attack the remnants of Luis Perez's expedition as it is about to return home. All their hostility they clinch with "a royal decree given more than thirty years ago, in which your Majesty [38] orders Castilians not to go to that port to trade. It is very important for your Majesty to order the Portuguese not to use that decree for the evil that they do us—not only those of us who go there to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... mean to catch it," said Charles. "I allowed ten minutes extra for the snow. We shall do it if we go quietly, but not if I let him go. An upset would clinch the matter." ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... these men rarely did business without the other. If a digger came to purchase a pair of trousers or boots the bargain was never completed to the satisfaction of both parties without a glass of spirits at the adjacent grog shop to clinch it; and at night, when the diggers would drop round the latter for a glass, many pairs of breeches, boots, or other articles were disposed of under the happy influence of wine ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... appease them), then he would give strangers to understand that it was pure inclination that induced him to a good treatment of them, and not any love or partiality to their persons; for, says he, "there is none of you but will hang me, I know, whenever you can clinch ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... 'there is the payment made - first proof of your good faith: first step to your security. You have now to clinch it by a second. Enter the payment in your book, and then you for your part may defy ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the farmer made her say out loud, "The Blessing of God be upon your cattle!" To clinch the matter, he compelled her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, which she was able to do, without missing one syllable. She used the form of words which are not found in the prayer book, but are in the Bible, and was ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... the way to the city of London," the captain exclaimed, with a clinch of his fist, "or even to Portsmouth, where my wife came from, and never find a maid fit to hold a candle for Mary to ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... doesn't own up that it is justice, now all this evidence has been brought together. The country couldn't be responsible for throwing the thing over—even till another session. Everything's in black and white and sworn to and proved—and the papers Baird has sent in clinch the whole thing. Now just look here—" And he would repeat his story and refer to his documents, until even the indifferent succumbed ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and the Sacrifices.(634) But that condemnation had been uttered by Jeremiah because of his contemporaries' sinful use of the House of God, whereas now he is looking into a new dispensation. How could he more signally clinch the promise of that reunion of Israel and Judah, for which all his life he had longed, than by this call to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... clods without hope or memory, who from dwelling so hidden in the lap of the earth seem to win a share of its eternal sufferance. Your peasant will bow his back as soon as he can stand upright, and every year draws him nearer to the earth. The rheumatics at last grip him unawares, and clinch him in a gesture which is a figure of his lot. The scarred hills, the burnt plains, the trees which the wind cows and lays down, the flowers and corn, meek or glad at the bidding of the hour—the earth-born is kin to these, more plant ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... patronizingly, but he seemed a little uncomfortable under his wife's stare of amazement. "But," he added, in a tone meant to clinch the argument, "she ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... place we came to a burned cottage and the tracks of driven cattle; in another upon a dead forest guard, with his green coat all splashed in splotches of dark crimson, a sight which made the Prince clinch his hands and swear. And this also kept him pretty silent for the rest ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... us. You talk to him after I go, and the next time I see him I'll clinch matters. You'll make the most gorgeous of queens, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... valley having been resorted to by the herdsmen of the country, for the attainment of a good range, or choice pasture-ground, for their cattle. The creek rises in Powell's mountain, and is tributary to Clinch river, which it enters at the distance of between two and three miles below the tunnel. The aspect of the surrounding country, and especially of that to the northward of the tunnel, and constituting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the growth of the Christian doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... and general roustabout had performed his part. Our little man, Garfield, too, had found employment in holding the hammer to clinch the nails and giving much advice on the coming voyage. All were busy, I say, and no one had given a thought of what we were about to encounter from the port officials farther up the coast; it was pretended ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... was beaten to his knees. Struggling up, he tried to clinch, only to be met by another smashing blow in the face. He turned to escape, but the dancing figure with the battering fists was ever in ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... going to bury half on it, for it won't keep mor'n two nights; but your two sheep, dogs'll help him. We'll feed 'em up a bit for two or three days, and then starve 'em for two or three more to put it straight. Now then, sir, you stick the fork into they three bits, and you shall feed 'em, that'll clinch old Nibbler's making friends ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... flourished was in the reign of King James the First. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or privy-councillors that had not sometime or other signalized themselves by a clinch or a conundrum. It was therefore in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity. It had been before admitted into merry speeches and ludicrous compositions, but was now delivered with great gravity ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... high wages too, say twelve hundred or sixteen hundred dollars a year. We take him at first on trial for a Sabbath or two, to try his paces, and if he takes with the folks, if he goes down well, we clinch the bargain, and let and sell the pews; and, I tell you it pays well and makes a real good investment. There were few better specs among us than inns and churches, until the railroads came on the carpet; as soon as the ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... one intention that before all others must be carried out. He would have to clinch the statement he had made, for the sake of appeasing and convincing Claude, concerning Lois Willoughby. It was something to be signed and sealed before Claude could see her or betray the daring assertion to his parents. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... las' round, and turned his man over like a tab. He's a proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and he'll rise up in the middle and look at 'ee. There was no one a patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back the Dane next time they clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like this—with a big job coming on, too, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of Beacham Ford Park, with a rent-roll of four thousand good pounds a year, he is now up for sale, and will be knocked down to the bidder who pleases him best. Say but the word, and we'll have another flagon of sack to clinch the bargain.' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... over-prepare your words. Arrange your subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or four heads—not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I mean a carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trust yourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids. Keep your best 'island'—your most effective passage—for your peroration; and, when once you ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... camblet camlet camphire camphor canvas canvass carcase carcass centinel sentinel chace chase chalibeate chalybeate chamelion chameleon chimist chemist chimistry chemistry cholic colic chuse choose cimetar cimeter clench clinch cloke cloak cobler cobbler chimnies chimneys chesnut chestnut clue clew connection connexion corset corslet cypher cipher cyphering ciphering dactyl dactyle develope develop dipthong diphthong dispatch despatch doat dote drouth drought embitter ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... trembling officials sought to clinch their arguments by stating, that not alone did the conclave consist of the chief members of the university, the senior doctors of theology, medicine, and law, the professors of the humanities, rhetoric, and philosophy, and all the various ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... exclaims Walt; thinking that the verbatim et literatim—of the meaning of which he has not the slightest conception—will be just the thing to clinch his ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... resolved that now that the nail was driven home, he would clinch it on the other side and make it stay forever. He moved a reconsideration of the vote by which the bill had passed. The motion was lost, of course, and the great Industrial University act was an accomplished fact as far as it was in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... liberty, and the pursuit of his breakfast. Sometimes they had a little set-to, with beaks not more than three inches apart, the woodpecker making feints of rushing upon his vis-a-vis, and the cardinal jumping up ready to clinch, if a fight became necessary. It never went quite so far as that, though they glared at each other, and the cardinal uttered a little whispered "ha!" every time ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... adventurers who effected them, were Evan Shelby, William Campbell, William Preston and Daniel Boone, all of whom became distinguished characters in subsequent history. Thomas Walden,[18] who was afterwards killed on Clinch river and from whom the mountain dividing Clinch and Powel rivers derived its name, was likewise one of them. The lands taken up by them, were held as "corn rights" each acquiring a title to an hundred acres of the adjoining land, for every acre ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... been futile, and that for all his good will, it had not been vouchsafed him to leave behind one thought in fertile soil. The matter had been brought home to him by an incident of the last meeting he had addressed, over on Clinch. ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... and, maybe, over-estimating their hold upon the public interest. Excepting General Jackson, who was a fighter and not a talker, their public men, with Henry Clay and Felix Grundy in the lead, were "stump orators." He who could not relate and impersonate an anecdote to illustrate and clinch his argument, nor "make the welkin ring" with the clarion tones of his voice, was politically good for nothing. James K. Polk and James C. Jones led the van of stump orators in Tennessee, Ben Hardin, John J. Crittenden and John C. Breckenridge in Kentucky. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... carmagnole, Whooped praise of the Anti-just; Her boulevard brood Gyratory in convolvements militant-mad; Theatrical of faith in the Belliform, Her Og, Her Monstrous. Fled what force she had To buckle the jaw-gape, wide agog For the Preconcerted One, The Anticipated, ripe to clinch the whole; Queen-bee to hive the hither and thither ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... Kid, holdin' his side. "Can you tie that?" He looks over and sees Van Ness in a clinch with Miss Vincent—and son, you could see the muscles rollin' under his coat sleeves. "Look at the big, ignorant boob ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer

... errand of this conventionally clad but excited-seeming gentleman, he was the recipient of a punch that arched him back through the air to the pavement. A kick in the face led an ascending policeman to follow his example. A rush of three more gained the top and locked with Bill Totts in a gigantic clinch, during which his scalp was opened up by a club, and coat, vest, and half his starched shirt were torn from him. But the three policemen were flung far and wide, and Bill Totts, raining down lumps of ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... D'ablish herself, moind, he t'row'd away his axe an' goes to a clinch wid his knoife in his fisht. An' phwin 'tis over an' he picks himsilf up out av th' shnow an' wipes th' blood from his eyes—her blood—f'r he comes out av ut widout scratch nor scar—D'ablish lays at his feet ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... church was crowded. After addresses had been made by the writer and Colonel Beard, one hundred men volunteered at once, and the number soon reached about one hundred and twenty-five. Such, however, were the demands of Fort Clinch and the Quartermaster's Department for laborers, that Colonel Rich, commanding the fort, consented to only twenty-five men leaving. This was a sad disappointment, and one which some determined not to bear. The twenty-five men were carefully selected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... was there, and guests, for the matter of that; she insisted on it. He knew his place as well as any man, but his eye fell on the rabbit and he looked very queer and nearly dropped a cup. She saw it and began to tremble and go white, and it came over me then that now or never was the time to clinch matters or she'd nearly die from shame and I couldn't ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same subject a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... shank. If the rivet is driven into a hole that has been punched with a sharp punch and sharp die, the result is that the fillet is cut off under the head, and the riveted end is also cut, and does not give the clinch or hold desired. That is to say, rivet holes in plates to be riveted should have the burr or sharp edge taken off, either by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... I'd grabbed the nigger he told me he hadn't done the shootin', and begged me to let him go. He said the shootin' had been done by the old man's son, and a lot more stuff like that. To clinch the business, I said the nigger, scared half to death, told me about getting a deed signed that night and about a will that had been substituted, and so on and so forth. I was just repeatin' what you said, David. Well, by gum, he was knocked silly. He saw that I ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... pack and took out the bacon. As Albert looked at it he began unconsciously to clinch and unclinch his teeth. Dick saw his face, and, knowing that the same eager look was in his own, he laughed ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... quarto pages per diem. A polished style, on the other hand, exhibited care and looked amateurish. He had no very great opinion of this kind of writing, and advised her to get rid of the delusion that when she wrote a novel she made literature. To clinch the argument, he proceeded to put a series of uncomfortable questions to her. Did she expect to live by novel-writing? How long would it take her to write three volumes? How long could she maintain existence on the market price of a three-volume novel? It was clear that, unless she was prepared ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... the earl with a stately smile, "seldom express much satisfaction with the terms of their rejection; but I cannot say that Lord Ballindine testified any strong emotion." He rose from the sofa as he said this, and then, intending to clinch the nail, added as he went to the door—"to tell the truth, Fanny, I think Lord Ballindine is much more eager for an alliance with your fair self now, than he was a few days back, when he could never find a moment's time to leave his horses, and his friend Mr Blake, either to see ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... early September, Miss Shippen, the trained nurse at the Settlement School on Perilous, set off for a day of district-visiting over on Clinch, accompanied by Miss Loring, another of the workers. After riding up Perilous Creek a short distance, they crossed Tudor Mountain, and then followed the headwaters of Clinch down to Skain's Fork, where in a forlorn little district-school-house the trained nurse gave a talk on the causes and prevention ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman

... hear some powder'd critics say Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play! The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion, Have gratify'd her softer inclination, Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation. But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil! He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age Would bear ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... be thrown overboard for the purpose of lightening a ship which is aground, they must be buoyed, and care is to be taken that each buoy-rope is of a proper length and strong enough to weigh the gun. The best mode of securing the buoy-rope to the gun is to form a clinch or splice an eye in the end which goes over the cascabel, and take a half-hitch with the bight around the chase of the gun, and stop it ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... from the hips. John's left fist found its mark. He jabbed—once, twice, three times—and lashed out with his right. The blow glanced off the Mexican's shoulders and they clinched. He felt the Battler's strength in that clinch and he realized it was more than his. The referee called "Break!" and they pushed away from ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... the murdered child he felt her hand clinch in his and when he told of the prayer consigning the "respectable" dealer to the place prepared for Satan and his earthly henchmen, involuntarily she would have drawn away from him, but his arm bound her like a ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... there ever such a truly virginal brow, such a natural classic elegance in the wave of the hair and the arch of the forehead? I have studied her; I may say I know her. I have absorbed her little by little; my mind is stamped and imbued, and I have determined now to clinch the impression; I shall at last invite her to sit ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... in, that reflection; and depend upon it, my dear mother, that I'll be sure to clinch your masses in the surest mode. I'll not fly over them like Camilla across a field of potato oats, without discommoding a single walk, as too many of my worthy brethren—I mane as! too many of those whose worthy brother I will soon be—do in this present year of grace. I'm no fool ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... off," went on the engineer. "You remember I only broached it to you. I did not clinch it. I pointed out its advantages to you, and you were eager to go in. I said I would talk to you ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... have been done!" cried the man, striking his left hand a blow with his fist, as if to clinch the thought ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... own investigations, the line was satisfactorily identified as being the boundary line mentioned in the Cherokee treaty of July 2, 1791, and described as extending from the North Carolina boundary "north to a point from which a line is to be extended to the river Clinch that shall pass the Holston at the ridge which divides the waters running into Little River from those running into ...
— Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States: Illustrated by Those in the State of Indiana • C. C. Royce

... night the Planter arrived. We left St. Simon's on the following morning, reached Fort Clinch by four o'clock, and there transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the John Adams, allowed the larger transport to go into Fernandina, while the two other vessels were to ascend the St. Mary's ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... the women that I heard the most vindictive and shameless abuse. I heard more than enough; for, as we got closer to the Serapeum, the more slowly was the chariot obliged to proceed, to make its way through the crowd. And the things I heard! I clinch my fists now as I only think of them.—And what will it be in the Circus? What will not Melissa have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... had used the brush (thoroughly, too), and could not, therefore, retreat out of her bargain, he offered an argument which he felt sure would clinch her silence. "You wouldn't want Mister Perkins t' find out that y' didn't have a good brush of your own," he reminded her, "and ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... seemed this man's story that the Executive Committee took up with him personally the facts of his recital, and later the Secretary of the League, in response to a demand, had to vouch for his statements in open meeting. To clinch the matter still further Mr. Washington wrote to the Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in Brockton, who replied that Terry's story had, if anything, been understated rather than overstated. Booker Washington himself ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... boy," was the reply; "those hoof-prints are not more than a few hot old, and certainly clinch my idea that someone on horseback was in the vicinity of the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... an excitin' game; and when we work in a few minutes of hand-holdin', or I get away with a hasty clinch, why, that scores for our side. So, for a personally conducted affair, it ain't so poor. I'm missin' no dates, I notice. And tuck this away; if it was a case of Vee and a whole squad of aunts, or an uninterrupted two-some with one of these nobody-home dolls, I'd ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... the store the day before and selected, in broad daylight, with a big mirror staring me out of countenance, a hat which was a quarter of a size too large. To clinch the matter, I had ordered four ventilating holes to be punched in it, and had it sent to my rooms to be my hat—implacably my hat as I supposed, for better for worse, for richer for poorer—always. The next morning, after standing before a ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... of those who will foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction—a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... have won with his fists, Cantor's superior weight and muscle counted in this deadly clinch. And now Darrin found himself lying with both shoulders touching, while Cantor, kneeling over him, fought to free his knife hand for the ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... Temeraire, Your stern-lights fade away; Your bulwarks to the years must yield, And heart-of-oak decay. A pigmy steam-tug tows you, Gigantic, to the shore— Dismantled of your guns and spars, And sweeping wings of war. The rivets clinch the iron clads, Men learn a deadlier lore; But Fame has nailed your battle-flags— Your ghost it sails before: O, the navies old and oaken, O, the ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... from here," Mr. Fordyce announced with meaning. "Violet can pop in on you at any moment, and she'll clinch the matter and bind you with her cobwebs before ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to the prime minister's cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame d'Espard brought so many persons into the field in opposition to Lucien, that Charles X.'s Maitre Jacques hesitated to clinch the matter. Nor was Lucien's position by any means clear; not only did the question, "What does he live on?" on everybody's lips as the young man rose in life, require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity—as much as malevolent curiosity—went on from one inquiry to another, and found ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... those confounded women! how they do cajole us! How true the saying: "'Tis impossible to live with the baggages, impossible to live without 'em"! Come, let us agree for the future not to regard each other any more as enemies; and to clinch the bargain, let us ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... heels. Most animals have more confidence in their legs than they have in their teeth and claws, and they'll be very likely to use 'em, if you'll give 'em time to consider. But if you find a painter, or a bear, takin' a nap in your path, and don't want to have a clinch with him, wake him up before you get right onto him, or he'll be very likely to think he's cornered, and them animals have onpleasant ways with 'em when they're in ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... Colonel Calhoun was made up as nearly resembling Major Talbot as one pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, raveling shirt front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the Major's supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment could have been designed from ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... the watch ticked off the seconds. An over-sanguine pack-rat tried to scramble up the tar-paper covering on the outside and squeaked as he fell back with a thud, but the face of neither man relaxed. Smaltz took the full limit of the time. He saw Bruce's fingers work, then clinch. Suddenly ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... the prosecution had been very strong, but it was in the final experiments in court, which were expected to clinch the evidence, that a very serious mishap occurred. A bewitched child, eleven years old, had been fetched into court. With eyes closed and head reclining upon the bar she had remained quiet until one of the accused was brought up, when she at once became frantic in her effort to ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... where tiny antlers clinch and strain as life grapples in a million avid points, and threshing things strike and die, letting their hate live on in the spreading purple of a wound... I too will make covert of a crevice in the night, and turn and watch... nose ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... back, but rushed into another clinch as Duval raised his revolver. Ducking, Chester drove his fist to his opponent's chin, even as the latter pressed the trigger. The bullet whistled ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... help him into fame. If he were great as principal, he was unrivalled as confidant. He could enter into a passion; he could counsel wary moves, being, in his own phrase, so old a hawk; nay, he could turn a letter for some unlucky swain, or even string a few lines of verse that should clinch the business and fetch the hesitating fair one to the ground. Nor, perhaps, was it only his "curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity" that recommended him for a second in such affairs; it must have been a distinction to have the assistance ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to secure his place. Bang! went an easel. "Nom de Dieu!" in French,—"Where in h—l are you goin'!" in English. Crash! a paintbox fell with brushes and all on board. "Dieu de Dieu de—" spat! A blow, a short rush, a clinch and scuffle, and the voice of the massier, stern ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... the first rush, ending in complete victory for the Freshmen, Haviland had been so unfortunate as to clinch with Cap Smith, and he was largely responsible for the ignominious tying up of that husky Sophomore. He would much rather have been carted off himself, if it hadn't been for the class. He saw his Beta Rho chances vanishing. Pellams evidently did not know what had happened, ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... the axe had caused Cuthfert to drop the pistol, and as his lungs panted for release, he fumbled aimlessly for it among the blankets. Then he remembered. He slid a hand up the clerk's belt to the sheath-knife; and they drew very close to each other in that last clinch. ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... looked at his watch; he had three minutes left to clinch their convictions. Clearly and admirably he outlined his present scope of work; then, stepping into the future, he showed into what it might easily grow, had it the room and beds. He showed indisputably what experimental surgery had done for science—what ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... a vale of little intricate follies should we be going, lighted by one ghastly conclusion! At times, struggling from the midst of her sophisms, Cornelia prayed her lover would claim her openly, and so nerve her to a pitch of energy that would clinch the ruinous debate. Forgetting that she was an 'ideal'—the accredited mistress of pure wisdom and of the power of deciding rightly—she prayed to be dealt with as a thoughtless person, and one of the herd of women. She felt that Sir Purcell threw too much on her. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the polished floor of the resort, his hands in his pockets, his brow wrinkled, his mouth set. He was getting some vague comfort out of a good cigar, but it was no panacea for the ill which affected him. Every once in a while he would clinch his fingers and tap his foot—signs of the stirring mental process he was undergoing. His whole nature was vigorously and powerfully shaken up, and he was finding what limits the mind has to endurance. He drank more brandy and soda than he had any evening in ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... when a fellow must act, and act promptly, or lose his chance to clinch a good thing. In the preceding talk our key-word was "Wait." To-day it is a shorter, quicker, sharper word, and one that a boy likes better. A-c-t—that's it. There is movement,—something doing. The word is all pep, touch and go! We ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... the charge with lowered head and outstretched hands, and in another second they were locked in a clinch, tearing at one another like two great gorillas. For a moment Number Three stood watching the battle, and then he too sprang in to aid his fellow mutineer. Number Thirteen was striking heavy blows with his giant hands upon the face and head of his antagonist, ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... where she was, all into the golden mass and shine of her bright raiment, with her hands before her eyes, the paper crumpled in the clinch of ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... in fastening to wood thin material, such as veneers, textiles, leather, matting, tin, etc. Tinner's tacks, which are used for clinching, are commonly called clinch-nails. Wire tacks, altho made, are not so successful as cut tacks because they lack a sharp point, ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... added Destyn, "can be instantly switched on to a private psychical current which will clinch the only girl in the world. Engagements will be superfluous; those two simply can't get away ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... to Chiswick, and found Bute Lodge to be, if not precisely a jewel amongst lodges, at any rate clean and comfortable, she came back to the agent with an offer to take it from month to month, and with a roll of notes ready to clinch the bargain. Money is the best reference, as she found when she paid a month's rent on the spot, and promised that all her payments should be in advance. But, as the agent had asked her for a reference of another kind, Lettice, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other side and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... in everything but sense," said Morgan, not unkindly, "and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart. And I don't know who'd come out on top at the finish, neither. So I don't want to have any trouble with you. All I ask of you is step to one side and ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... the outset that he was up against a hard fight. In his hurry to close with the red-bearded man, his foot had slipped on the slimy grass and he had been forced to clinch to save himself from falling. This placed him at a marked disadvantage. His opponent had the best of him in weight by at least twenty pounds and was heavily muscled. Moreover he possessed a certain agility on the grass-covered rocks which rendered any attempt on Gregory's ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... he sat writing until past one o'clock. Topham did not appear, and indeed never came back at all. The overworked corresponding tutor was taking his ease at the seaside on the strength of a quarter's salary in advance, which Mr. Wigmore, tremulously anxious to clinch their bargain, had insisted on paying him. Before leaving London he had written to Starkey, apologising for his abrupt departure, 'The result of unforeseen circumstances.' He enclosed six penny stamps in repayment of a sum ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... the cattle scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... reached the stature of woman she had sat on her stool beside that jovial old man, her father, grimy from his forge, and drunk the tales wide-eyed, to creep away and watch the stars, to dream of those dashing streams and to clinch her hands for that she ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... not only because as yet we provide no moral education of any consequence for our youth, but because, if we did, the temptations in a world where every man is free to grab for himself would still be almost irresistible. But there are two positive arguments for the extension of legal control that clinch the matter: ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... that of a cellar where a furnace is in full blast. But Susan knew she was indeed in luck. "It's clean and nice here," said she to Mrs. Tucker, "and I'm much obliged to you for being so reasonable with me." And to clinch the bargain she then and there paid half a month's rent. "I'll give you the rest when my week ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... hung back, and it took considerable coaxing before he consented to go; and then it took Stubbs to clinch matters. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... Mohammed Beyd had recovered himself and was dashing upon him. Again Werper struck the other in the face, and the Arab returned the blow. Striking at each other and ceaselessly attempting to clinch, the two battled about the small interior of the tent, while the girl, wide-eyed in terror and astonishment, watched the duel ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... were yelling presently, here was so evidently grit against mere muscle, spirit against flesh. Randall grew angry and hit hard, but he was wild; he grew afraid and tried to clinch, but his rush was feeble. David jabbed him repeatedly in the ribs, drew off, and for the first time in the three rounds (the referee was just calling time) hit ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... I bought it just to clinch the Italian vote for fusion, but I got hold of a Tammany banana by mistake. Just one little nub of it on the end was nice and white. That was the Shepard end. The other nine-tenths were rotten. Now that little white end won't make the rest of the banana good. The nine-tenths ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... the light, there was no sign of life about the place, and Wade craftily advanced into the deeper shadows close to the wall of the house. Taking off his hat, so that the crown might not betray him, he peeped through a window. What he saw made him clinch his fingers and grit his ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... matin', Tew figger out that that thar Pope Wus reely twins with Satan. I took no stock in countin' up How menny hed ov cattle From Egypt's ranches Moses drove; I never fit a battle On p'ints that frequently gave rise Tew pious spat an' grumble, An' makes the brethren clinch an' yell ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... This seemed to clinch the matter, for the Moor purchased the objectionable slave, ordered Peter the Great to bring him along, ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... divided primarily into political nation states rather than into areas of economic function. Always, economics is important. But, at least superficially, political considerations are in the foreground to clinch decisions. A time may come when economists or sociologists occupy the central offices where primary decisions are made. That time has not yet arrived. In so far as the present generation is concerned, politics is ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... had the alarm out for him a couple of years. You kids never knew that, hey?" And by way of a pleasantry he hit Roy a rap with his bulging wallet. "We'll measure him up down yonder. The face is enough, but these specifications will clinch it." ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... not concluded the bargain for his winter fodder. Just a week later he rode over from Port Nassau, to clinch it, and had almost reached the foot of the descent to the river meadows when a ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... by raising his eyebrows and tilting his head sideways; a shrug with an accent, as it were. Then he allowed Sebastian to clinch his argument by saying that the Englishman seemed to be getting the better of his emotion; for here was a week, said he, and he had not once been into the shop to inquire for his relic. Sebastian was down upon the admission. "What did I tell you, my ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... his certificate of devoutness, the treasures of the earth laid at his feet in a heap would be insufficient to induce him to drop it though for an instant. His colony is one of many like it. Spare him thy pity. He believes the clinch of that hand holds fast the latch of Heaven.... The shouters who have just entered the arch in a body have hermitaries in close grouping around the one failing monastery on Plati, and live on lentils and snails; aside from which they commit themselves ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... beamed forth a satisfaction that was almost fierce in its strength. "Now you are my friend!" he exclaimed. "Come back to my house; let's clinch it at once by clear terms, so as to be comfortable in our minds." Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the North-West Avenue in Henchard's company as he had come. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... shoe fits, clinch it," said Tedda, snorting. "I named no names, though, to be sure, some folks are mean enough an' greedy enough to ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... You married men are mere sieves. You'll run straight home with your tongue out and tell Lady Newhaven that I want to marry Miss—I can't clinch her name—and then she'll tell her when they are combing their back hair. And then if I find, later on, I don't like her and step off the grass, I shall have behaved like a perfect brute, and all ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... not to be able to clinch the story, but the man recovered and is now a successful stockbroker in Drapers Gardens. The woman, too, is the mother of a considerable family. But what are ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah — And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters —four yarns —is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to clinch this matter and make it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... miracle by alluding to great revenues granted to the prince and his heirs by the Castilian monarchs, together with a territory in Marchena, with towns, lands, and vassals; but in this (says Agapida) we only see a wise precaution of King Ferdinand to clinch and secure the conversion of his proselyte. The policy of the Catholic monarch was at all times equal to his piety. Instead also of vaunting of this great conversion and making a public parade of the entry of the prince into the Church, King Ferdinand ordered that the baptism should ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... noon meal—and the big gang of Italians, with its inevitable Irish foreman, was already at work. Out at the head of the great fill a dozen men were dumping the carts as they came in an endless stream from the cutting. Suddenly there was a casting down of shovels, a shrill altercation, a clinch, a flash of steel in the August sunlight, and one of the disputants was down, his heels drumming on the soft earth ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... Andy, promptly. "Never could bear to let anything puzzle me long. Used to lie awake half the night trying to clinch a name that had just slipped a ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... it, the farmer made her say out loud, "The Blessing of God be upon your cattle!" To clinch the matter, he compelled her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, which she was able to do, without missing one syllable. She used the form of words which are not found in the prayer book, but are in the Bible, and was very earnest, when ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... their agent, General Thompson, and other acts of cruel treachery. When this alarming and unexpected intelligence reached the seat of Government, every effort appears to have been made to reenforce General Clinch, who commanded the troops then in Florida. General Eustis was dispatched with reenforcements from Charleston, troops were called out from Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and General Scott was sent to take the command, with ample ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... the wagon teams brought us to the foot of Pine Mountain at the point where the road leaves the bed of Elk Fork to climb the steep ascent. We were now only nineteen miles from Jacksboro, in the valley of the Clinch, but the distance was multiplied by the cumulating difficulties of the way. We were not far from Cross Mountain, a ridge which, as its name indicates, connects the long parallel ranges of Jellico, Pine, and Cumberland mountains. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... stuff!" growled Tim, head forward and jaw out. "If ye want trouble come and git it like a man, not sneak up with a grin and then clinch. Don't reach for no knife, now, or ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... wonder if the suggestion of Mr. O'Connor is clearly appreciated. It was barely suggested in his talk but he did not seem to clinch it at the end. As I understand his idea it was that this plan of furnishing a tree as a premium might well be accompanied by an offer of a prize for results, which would be an added inducement ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various

... Jeremiah, feeling it inconsistent with the Prophet's condemnation of the Temple and the Sacrifices.(634) But that condemnation had been uttered by Jeremiah because of his contemporaries' sinful use of the House of God, whereas now he is looking into a new dispensation. How could he more signally clinch the promise of that reunion of Israel and Judah, for which all his life he had longed, than by this call to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... wise, 'when I can't drive a nail with one blow, I hammer away till I do git it in. Some folks' heads is as hard as hackmetacks—you have to bore a hole in it first to put the nail in, to keep it from bendin', and then it is as touch as a bargain if you can send it home and clinch it.' ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... it in the way of capacity acquired. Even as mere impression, it fails to produce its proper effect upon the memory; for, to remain fully among the acquisitions of this latter faculty, it must be wrought into the whole cycle of our operations. Its motor consequences are what clinch it. Some effect due to it in the way of an activity must return to the mind in the form of the sensation of having acted, and connect itself with the impression. The most durable impressions are those on account of which we speak or act, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... saw one of our Ruin's long hands draw up and clinch. He turned his head toward Harriet. His face was partly in the shadow, but there was something striking and strange in the way he looked at her, and a deepness in ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... to prevent the duplication of his present anxieties, and at the same time settle satisfactorily the affairs of this troublesome province. But unfortunately Sher Singh, in his eagerness to clinch matters, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... the wonder, and got to be in that condition of mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same subject a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... clinches of the nails with a rather dull clinch cutter ("buffer") and drawing the nails one at a time, the old shoe is critically examined and laid aside. Remaining stubs of nails are then drawn or punched out and the hoof freed of dirt and partially detached horn. The farrier has now to "dress" ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... of the men, including Boon's eldest son, were slain, and the cattle scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... involved in the very beginning." In other words, the supreme certainty brought home to us by the researches of modern science is that all creation is thrilled through by an all-encompassing Purpose. We really ask for no more than such an admission; that, in short, is our case. We can clinch the whole argument with one quiet sentence of Mr. Chesterton's: "Where there is a purpose, {84} there is a person." If Mr. Spencer's "Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed" is purposive, that is equivalent to saying that God is ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... spire, floriated richly and graduated with a precise symmetry, rises to an extreme altitude of 220 feet 6 inches. The extreme length is about 170 ft. The massive oaken front doors are carved handsomely, and contain the arms of the Stewart family, the Clinch family (Mrs. Stewart's maiden name), the Hilton family, and those of Bishop Littlejohn, the Episcopal head of the Long Island Diocese. The porch or tower entrance, which is the main entrance to the building, is paved with white marble. In the center of the floor the Stewart arms are enameled in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... not bribe. They need not resort to illegal or unethical methods. The ordinary channels of advertising, of business acquaintance and patronage, of philanthropy and of social intercourse clinch their power over the ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... tiny antlers clinch and strain as life grapples in a million avid points, and threshing things strike and die, letting their hate live on in the spreading purple of a wound... I too will make covert of a crevice in the night, and turn and watch... ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... will be up-river most of the way, and I've got a couple of Siwash to pole the canoes. All you have to do is the cooking, make camp, and tend to Miss Stirling's friends when they go fishing." He waved his hand, and added, as though to clinch the argument, "I've known people of that kind to give a man that pleased ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... was plainly what he had meant to imply. If he told such a story, things would go hard with Gordon. In court it would clinch the case against him by supplying the one missing link in the chain ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... ain't," he went on emphatically. Then he added as though to clinch his statement, "not ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... than ever before during its existence. There is probably more human electricity, more population to make it, more business, more light-heartedness, than ever before. The armies that swiftly circumambiated from Fredericksburgh—march'd, struggled, fought, had out their mighty clinch and hurl at Gettysburg—wheel'd, circumambiated again, return'd to their ways, touching us not, either at their going or coming. And Washington feels that she has pass'd the worst; perhaps feels that she is henceforth mistress. So here she sits with her surrounding ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... Major thoughtfully remarked to me, "There isn't much of that in the Infantry Manual. But the corporal knows his job. When you're in a scrap you haven't time to think about the rules of the game; the automatic movements come all right, but in a clinch you've got to fight like a cat with tooth and claw, use your boots, your knee, or anything that comes handy. Perhaps that's why your lithe little Cockney is such a useful man with the bayonet. Now the Hun is a hefty beggar, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage. But the fighting blood of O'Connell was up. He beat Quinlan out of the clinch with a well-timed upper-cut that put the youth upon his back ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... holy war against infidels, and for some time the issue remained in doubt. At length, about sundown, three squadrons of the Household Cavalry, and the 7th Dragoon Guards, together with four light guns, were hastily sent forward from the main body in the rear to clinch the affair. General Drury Lowe wheeled this little force round the left flank of the enemy, and, coming up unperceived in the gathering darkness, charged with such fury as to scatter the hostile array in instant ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... the Seminoles. The government endeavored to recover them and to force the Seminoles to remove westward. These efforts were not immediately successful, Osceola, their wily and intrepid chief, defeating and capturing four of the generals sent against them, namely, Clinch, Gaines, Call and Winfield Scott. He was finally captured by his captors violating a flag of truce. In 1845 they were induced to move west of the Mississippi and in 1856, they were assigned lands west of the Creeks in the central part ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... permit leaving the matter in the hands of the provincial authorities. Great anxiety, however, was beginning to reign in Peking owing to continual rumours that dangerous opposition, both internal and external, was developing. It was therefore held necessary to clinch the matter in such a way that no possible questions should be raised later. Accordingly, before the end of October—and only two days before the "advice" was tendered by Japan and her Allies,—the following additional instructions were ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... assembled his division of new troops, mostly Indianans, and marched with them to Cumberland Gap, where he relieved the garrison of that post, and was himself entrusted by Burnside with the command of that portion of the department, covering the upper valleys of the Clinch and Holston as well as the lines of communication with Cincinnati and the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... and thumb Clinch his small nose, A gurgle, a gasp, And down it goes; Scowls Henry now; But mark that cheek, Sleek with the bloom ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... all commanders should press forward in order to clinch the advantage gained and to use their reserves ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department

... sullen that he had to fight the old pacer, but confident of shutting him out this time. Confident and maddened. The old man, as was his wont in great emergencies, had put a bullet in his mouth to clinch his teeth on. He had learned it from Col. Jeremiah Travis, who said Jackson did it when he killed Dickinson, and at Tallapoosa, and ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... now; but be d—d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge, and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at composure, but with a voice that trembled with ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... and found Bute Lodge to be, if not precisely a jewel amongst lodges, at any rate clean and comfortable, she came back to the agent with an offer to take it from month to month, and with a roll of notes ready to clinch the bargain. Money is the best reference, as she found when she paid a month's rent on the spot, and promised that all her payments should be in advance. But, as the agent had asked her for a reference of another kind, Lettice, who had expected this demand, and was prepared for it, gave ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the habit of marryin' hired girls, figgerin' they make the best kind of wives. I give 'em a good home, plenty to eat an'—" His eyes roamed aloft, as if searching for some other beneficence, and finally lighting on Dr. Brown's door-plate, found something to clinch his argument. "An' as fine a funeral as any woman could ask fer!" ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... would clinch it, would confirm it. I should lose him at last, and completely, just as I ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... ME in, if you're goin', Kernel. I reckon I'm talkin' to Kernel Clinch," said the passenger beside Hale with sudden alacrity. "I'm Rawlins, of Frisco. Heerd of ye afore, Kernel, and kinder spotted you jist now ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... beginning," said Hugh. "I mean to look around closely the next time I drop in to see the Madame. Perhaps if I picked up a tiny green feather that must have come from Pretty Poll, and on the table close to the case that holds the spoons, it might clinch matters." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... referee to make them break away when they clinch." When she explained that Pleasant scratched ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch the plan; "we three alone—and at midnight, when the household is asleep and we ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... Gaines's forces were sent by sea from New Orleans. The vessels carrying them were to go up the Appalachicola, and General Gaines was not sure that the little fleet would be permitted to pass the robbers' stronghold, which had come to be called the Negro Fort. Accordingly, he sent Colonel Clinch with a small force down the river, to render any assistance that might be necessary. On the way Colonel Clinch was joined by a band of Seminoles, who wanted to recapture the fort on their own account, and the two bodies ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... reinforce the defence against the main offensive. For this purpose they were perhaps needlessly aggressive, for each resulted in the capture of ground which could not be held, and the forces engaged in these local enterprises were badly needed to clinch the nearly successful major operation. Later on in the war it was found that enemy troops could be contained along the line without such numerous and expensive precautionary attacks, and possibly these were really ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... This points strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (quinquennium Neronis) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... destroying him and his sub? No sir! His microphones will tell him, while he is still totally submerged, that his approaching prey is a slow poke and cannot possibly outrun him; then he'll come up, take a look and clinch his conclusions—after ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... was the man who fetched and carried the mails. 'Twas easy enough to abstract her letters or yours from time to time, but the case needed something more than that. Neglect would not rouse her; jealousy might. One day there came the picture of those girls at Hastings (Abbot's hands begin to clinch; he has listened coldly up to this point), and I saw the group that was sent to them, and the pretty letter written by their secretary, Miss Warren. Then came her letter saying she was Guthrie Warren's sister. I knew him well at college, and an idea occurred to me. I took your picture, wrote ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for in a woman. She ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... stifled and hid, emanated from her like fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond—were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that—or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal—for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: 'Ah, so I thought when I was your age.' It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so I ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and the black alley, expecting to see some one lurking there. A hundred times I took the locket out of its hiding-place and wondered what to do, and at last it came to me that the first question the Judge would ask was why I had not told him at once. That was enough to clinch the matter; until to-night the secret has been my own and you can blame me or ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... punch that arched him back through the air to the pavement. A kick in the face led an ascending policeman to follow his example. A rush of three more gained the top and locked with Bill Totts in a gigantic clinch, during which his scalp was opened up by a club, and coat, vest, and half his starched shirt were torn from him. But the three policemen were flung far and wide, and Bill Totts, raining down lumps of coal, held ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... turn, was astonished at the complete change that had come over the "yokel." Before they recovered from their mistaken opinion about the man, they saw him clinch his fists in determination and heard his voice ring out clearly and distinctly, above the din of ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... agin t'other, and maybe don't care a pin for neither? Get shet of her once for all, and be a man; can't ye?' And then I'd find I couldn't; and so it went till we come to that night, and stood there on the edge of the crick,—two on us ready to clinch and fight till one cried enough, and t'other a-laughing ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... for the maintenance and even strengthening of British prestige must have been constantly before the British ruler and no other campaign could possibly serve this end so efficaciously as a successful assault upon Constantinople and the temporal power of the sultan. It would clinch probably for generations to come Britain's claim to be the great Mohammedan power of the world and would destroy the one condition that for years before and at that time especially had contained the seeds of rebellion ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... to his mother's room, not from a sense of duty, but a desire to clinch the matter finally. Lady Rylton would be the last person to permit backsliding where her own interests were concerned, and perhaps—— He does not exactly say it to himself in so many words, but he feels a certain ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... as a snake, it seemed, under the grip of Morgan's hand at his spiney throat, squirmed and turned and fought to his knees. They struggled and battled breast to breast, until they stood on their feet, locked in a clinch out of which but one of them, Morgan was determined, ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... his temples swollen and his eyes glaring, he kept throttling the officer with one hand, while with the other clenched he began to strike him violent blows in the face. The Prussian struggled, tried to draw his sword, to clinch with his adversary, who was on top of him. But M. Dubuis crushed him with his enormous weight and kept punching him without taking breath or knowing where his blows fell. Blood flowed down the face ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... action; and that it would not interfere with any proper efforts of other powers to secure simple redress for actual grievances; but that it could not make common cause with other powers in any such efforts. To clinch this, I cited the famous passage in Washington's Farewell Address against "entangling alliances with foreign powers'' as American gospel, and added that my government would also be unalterably opposed to anything ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... days past there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to the prime minister's cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame d'Espard brought so many persons into the field in opposition to Lucien, that Charles X.'s Maitre Jacques hesitated to clinch the matter. Nor was Lucien's position by any means clear; not only did the question, "What does he live on?" on everybody's lips as the young man rose in life, require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity—as much as malevolent curiosity—went ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... embarcadero. I've told what a charming evening we had with you and your daughters in the old house, and how I returned your hospitality by giving you a tip about the railroad; and how you slipped out while we were playing cards, to clinch the bargain for the land with that ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... I had seen many settlers crossing the river to make the eastern settlements. I was told that a thousand men, women and children had crossed during the space of twenty-four hours. Down on the Clinch and Holston the settlers were either "forting" ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... sitting at a Barmecide feast, very hungry, only the Barmecide's sitting opposite you eating all the time and talking about his food. I tell you it's maddening, perfectly maddening—" There was a fierce vehemence in her face, her voice, the clinch of her slender hands on the muslin frill. That strong vitality which before had seemed to carry her lightly as on wings, over all the rough places of life, had now not failed, but turned itself inwards, burning in ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... 1769, William Bean of North Carolina built a cabin on the banks of the Watauga Creek and began the settlement of what is now Tennessee. The next year James Robertson and many others followed and dotted the valleys of the Holston and the Clinch with clearings and log cabins. These men at first were without government of any sort, so they formed an association and for some years governed themselves; but in 1776 their delegates were seated in the legislature of North Carolina, and ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... dark ledges of rock where the catfish are wont to lurk, his right arm wrapped to the fingers with a scarlet cloth. Tempted by the seeming bait, the catfish would take the finger-tips deep in its gullet, the strong hand would instantly clinch on its head, and Attusah would rise with his struggling gleaming prey, to be broiled on the coals ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... good. I would not be one of those who will foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction—a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... stood at arm's length and sparred. In this style of fighting, however, the young Englishman had all the better of it and after he had landed several blows upon the pirate's face and body, the latter rushed into a clinch. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... into the hit. Walton went back a pace, sparred for a moment, then came in again, hitting heavily. Kennedy's counter missed its mark this time. He just stopped a round sweep of Walton's right, ducked to avoid a similar effort of his left, and they came together in a clinch. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... it—to take to the marriage customs of the country. Nevertheless he was not averse to the Factor's imperilling his own immortal soul, and, especially, feeling an ominous attraction himself for Lit-lit, he was sombrely content to clinch his own soul's safety by seeing her married to ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... that he was trying to tell me that they meant to go without me, for he hurried out with the last words. No boy wants to talk to a disappointed boy, and I had to clinch my teeth hard to keep back ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... threw a bucket of water on the fire to prevent them from seeing us, made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred the door, and posted herself there with an axe and rifle: We never knew why they desisted from an attack or how father escaped. In two or three days all of us set out for Clinch Mountain to the wedding of Happy Kincaid, a clever young fellow from Holston, and Sally McClure, a fine girl of seventeen, modest and pretty, yet fearless. We knew the Shawnees were about; that our fort and household effects must be left unguarded and might be destroyed; ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... question they ask you another. Good idea if you're stuck. Gain time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they harden. And kissed my ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... talking to various persons and in going over my story, testing it link by link. I could only find the one weakness which seemed to be involved in Martin's sitting up until 12.30; and since his having been instructed to do so was certainly a part of the plan, meant to clinch the alibi for Marlowe, I knew there must be an explanation somewhere. If I could not find that explanation, my theory was valueless. I must be able to show that at the time Martin went up to bed the man who had shut himself in Manderson's bedroom might have been many miles away ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... be made an exhibition of in front of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposed to go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dug Mr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expert to clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp barking ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... all the same," his cousin went on. "The way to clinch the matter will be to show me ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... predicament he was in) that he had to go back nearly two thousand years to find an obedient woman. There were evidently none in his day, but as he wished to make his teaching effective and submit some proof to clinch his argument, he went back to Sarah and said, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham," which shows he had never gotten at the real facts in the lovely Sarah's career, or else was misrepresenting Sarah to carry his point in favor ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... yelling periodically:—"Who's afeard? Who's afeard?" Another one jumped up, excited, with blazing eyes, sent out a string of unattached curses and sat down quietly. Two men discussed familiarly, striking one another's breast in turn, to clinch arguments. Three others, with their heads in a bunch, spoke all together with a confidential air, and at the top of their voices. It was a stormy chaos of speech where intelligible fragments tossing, struck the ear. One ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... and to clinch the victory said, in his forceful manner: "Louis XII will not live a year; let me carry to the king your consent, and I guarantee you his promise ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops—lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... hundred, or twenty-five rubles?" And not one of them gave me any money. I mention this because, when people give money for that which they themselves desire, they generally make haste to give it. For a box to see Sarah Bernhardt, they will instantly place the money in your hand, to clinch the bargain. Here, however, out of all those who agreed to contribute, and who expressed their sympathy, not one of them proposed to give me the money on the spot, but they merely assented in silence ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... U—— met me joyfully, but seemed to have had a good time with Mrs. Oakford and her daughter; and, being pressed to stay to tea, I could not well help it. Before tea I sat talking with Mrs. Oakford and a friend of hers, Miss Clinch, about the Americans and the English, especially dwelling on the defects of the latter,—among which we reckoned a wretched meanness in money transactions, a lack of any embroidery of honor and liberality in their dealings, so that they require close ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Ravenslee turned to see Murder close on his heels. Once he smote and twice, but nothing might stay that bull-like rush and, locked in a desperate clinch, he was borne back and back, their trampling lost in the universal din about them, as reeling, staggering, they crashed out through wrecked and splintered door and, still locked together, were swallowed in the ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... turned to the mayor with the plain intent of getting down to a working understanding, Mr. Daunt broke up what threatened to be an embarrassing clinch. As if carried away by enthusiasm in meeting one of his own kind in business affairs, Daunt grabbed Morrison's hand and pulled the mayor away with him toward the door, assuring him that he was glad to pitch in, heart and soul, with a man who had the best interests of a grand state to conserve ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... flesh, you'll never make the third!" 'Flower o' the pine, You keep your mistr. . .manners, and I'll stick to mine!' I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! {240} Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clinch my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do, and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business of the world— ('Flower o' the peach, Death for ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... panting for breath and Morris brought the wine again, after which she went on with the story, which made Morris clinch his hands as he comprehended the deceit which had been practiced so long. Of course he did not look at it as Katy did, for he knew that according to all civil law she was as really Wilford's wife as if no other had existed, and he told her so, but Katy ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... accidental defeat, forgot caution and tried to rush in for a clinch. But this was the kind of attack that ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... laughed Morris, as he took the last man. "Clinch for the port; the last, but by no means ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... into another clinch as Duval raised his revolver. Ducking, Chester drove his fist to his opponent's chin, even as the latter pressed the trigger. The bullet whistled harmlessly ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... undreamed of by her and very likely was. A girl like that would not take seriously a "steamer friendship." She was only doing what all young people do on such trips, making pleasant acquaintances with whom to pass away the monotonous days. "Sure, sure," said he, as if to clinch the argument, but nevertheless, deep within his soul there was an undercurrent of protest ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... said, gravely, "is the original of the Woods Eagle—the Eagle that intimidates us all. Do you remember what Shakespeare—one always harks back to Shakespeare to clinch an argument, because not even our foremost actors have been able to conceal the fact that he was, as somebody in Dickens acutely points out, 'a dayvilish clever fellow'—do you remember. I say, what Shakespeare observes ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... Fane, he had him locked up with his short account. No doubt he'd hear from the Orchils through the Fanes. However, to clinch the matter, he thought he might as well stop in to see Ruthven. A plain word or two to Ruthven indicating his own wishes—perhaps outlining his policy concerning the future house of Neergard—might as well be delivered now ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... that of the ignis fatuus on the marsh. The story introduces Caraccioli and the Neapolitan court, Nelson and Lady Hamilton; but without striking points. There are some cleverly-drawn characters, however: Clinch, the drunken but winning British tar; Raoul Yvard, brilliant, handsome, and Parisian all over, philosophism included; and Ithuel Bolt, a new (not improved) edition of Long Tom. The plot is ingenious, though perhaps, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... (His fists clinch; his neck thickens; his face reddens; the fleshy purses under his eyes become injected with hot blood; the man of peace vanishes, transfigured into a choleric and formidable man of war. Still, she does not come out of her absorption ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... advanced upon Rogersville in heavy force, drove Colonel Morgan away and followed him closely. He retreated without loss, although constantly skirmishing to Kingsport, twenty-five miles from Rogersville, and crossing Clinch river at nightfall, prepared to dispute the passage of the enemy. He believed that he could do so successfully, but his force was too small to guard all of the fords, and the next morning the enemy got across, attacked and defeated him, capturing ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... banana. I bought it just to clinch the Italian vote for fusion, but I got hold of a Tammany banana by mistake. Just one little nub of it on the end was nice and white. That was the Shepard end. The other nine-tenths were rotten. Now that little white end ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... that day received another offer from Ramsey Thomas, tempting in the extreme, and baited with alluring possibilities that certainly were dazzling to her if they were not to her lover. She meant to make him tell her of the offer, and she meant to make him accept it that very afternoon and clinch the contract by telephoning the acceptance to the telegraph-office before ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... was unrivalled as confidant. He could enter into a passion; he could counsel wary moves, being, in his own phrase, so old a hawk; nay, he could turn a letter for some unlucky swain, or even string a few lines of verse that should clinch the business and fetch the hesitating fair one to the ground. Nor, perhaps, was it only his "curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity" that recommended him for a second in such affairs; it must have been a distinction to have the assistance and advice of RAB THE RANTER; and one who was in no ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... purpose of lightening a ship which is aground, they must be buoyed, and care is to be taken that each buoy-rope is of a proper length and strong enough to weigh the gun. The best mode of securing the buoy-rope to the gun is to form a clinch or splice an eye in the end which goes over the cascabel, and take a half-hitch with the bight around the chase of the gun, and stop ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... their way through the woods toward the Appomattox River before they could be entirely enveloped. Night had fallen when the fight was entirely over, but Devin was pushed on in pursuit for about two miles, part of the Sixth Corps following to clinch a victory which not only led to the annihilation of one corps of Lee's retreating army, but obliged Longstreet to move up to Farmville, so as to take a road north of the Appomattox River toward Lynchburg instead ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan

... short of mania. And yet he persisted. John's nature was purely obstinate, and obstinacy is weakness. The money-lender knew that obstinacy could be broken down by steady determination. However, time, with him, was now everything. He must clinch the deal with as little delay as possible if he would escape from Foss River and the ruinous attacks of Retief. This thought was ever present with him and urged him to press the old man hard. If John Allandale would not be reasonable, he, Lablache, must force an acceptance of his terms ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... Commander of the Southern Military District, directed Lieut.-Colonel Clinch to perform the barbarous task. I was at one time personally acquainted with that officer, and know the impulses of his generous nature, and can readily account for the failure of his expedition. He marched to the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... went up as the two fighters leaped forward. Both seemed about to clinch, to test their prowess as wrestlers. Murmurs went up from back of Mormon where his fanciers had ranged themselves. "Russell's got too many tricks for him," men told ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... with its creeping terror, cold with its sudden clinch; Cold so utter you wonder if 'twill ever again be warm; Clancy grinned as he shuddered, "Surely it isn't a cinch Being wet-nurse to a looney in the teeth of an ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. "So I would, too, if there weren't a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. 'How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away.' But," I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... after Kumanova, started southwest over the mountain passes in the snow and through the valleys in the mud to clinch the great Servian object of the war with the nine points of possession. To young Servia, Durazzo, the port of old Servia, is as water to the gasping fish. It stands for unhampered trade relations with the world; for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... the possibility, by raising his eyebrows and tilting his head sideways; a shrug with an accent, as it were. Then he allowed Sebastian to clinch his argument by saying that the Englishman seemed to be getting the better of his emotion; for here was a week, said he, and he had not once been into the shop to inquire for his relic. Sebastian was down upon the admission. "What did I tell you, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... shall I describe the horror of it. It was not a face—only wasted or wasting features—a living ravage, noseless, lipless, with one ear swollen and distorted, hanging down to the shoulder. I was frantic. In a clinch he hugged me close to him until that ear flapped in my face. Then I guess I went insane. It was too terrible. I began striking him with my revolver. How it happened I don't know, but just as I was getting clear he fastened upon me with his teeth. The whole side of my hand was in that lipless ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... fixed. The populace gathered as if by instinct into three great encampments, on Vinegar Hill, above Enniscorthy; on Carrickbyrne, on the road leading to Ross, and on the hill of Corrigrua, seven miles from Gorey. The principal leaders of the first division were Fathers Kearns and Clinch, and Messrs. Fitzgerald, Doyle, and Redmond; of the second, Bagenal Harvey, and Father Philip Roche; of the last, Anthony Perry of Inch, Esmond Kyan, and the two Fathers Murphy, Michael, and John. The general plan of operations was ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... line was satisfactorily identified as being the boundary line mentioned in the Cherokee treaty of July 2, 1791, and described as extending from the North Carolina boundary "north to a point from which a line is to be extended to the river Clinch that shall pass the Holston at the ridge which divides the waters running into Little River from those ...
— Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States: Illustrated by Those in the State of Indiana • C. C. Royce

... privileged to be discursive in a little book which seeks to hit the nail on the head in every paragraph, drive it home in every page, and clinch it in every chapter, and there would be no excuse, therefore, for sketching, even in brief outline, the history of the various attempts that have been made, from Brown-Sequard, with his Elixir, to Metchnikoff, ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower

... being used against us is this: The spirits have the greatest difficulty in getting names through to us, and it is this which makes many of their communications so vague and unsatisfactory. They will talk all round a thing, and yet never get the name which would clinch the matter. There is an example of the point in a recent communication in Light, which describes how a young officer, recently dead, endeavoured to get a message through the direct voice method of Mrs. Susannah ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Vinegar Hill, above Enniscorthy; on Carrickbyrne, on the road leading to Ross, and on the hill of Corrigrua, seven miles from Gorey. The principal leaders of the first division were Fathers Kearns and Clinch, and Messrs. Fitzgerald, Doyle, and Redmond; of the second, Bagenal Harvey, and Father Philip Roche; of the last, Anthony Perry of Inch, Esmond Kyan, and the two Fathers Murphy, Michael, and John. The general plan of operations was that the third division ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... took in the scene of battle. He had longed for a fight but what he saw now fairly paralyzed him. The two bears were at it, roaring and tearing each other's hides and throwing up showers of gravel and earth in their deadly clinch. In this first round Noozak had the best of it. She had butted the wind out of Makoos in her first dynamic assault, and now with her dulled and broken teeth at his throat she was lashing him with her sharp hind claws until the blood streamed from ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... their possession of the same divine Spirit, and has flung fiery questions at the Judaisers, which silenced them. Then, after the impressive hush following his eager words, Barnabas and Paul tell their story once more, and clinch the nail driven by Peter by asserting that God had already by 'signs and wonders' given His sanction to the admission of Gentiles without circumcision. Characteristically, in Jerusalem Barnabas is restored to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... darkness settled again, I got to my feet and jumped at him. He jumped at me—another marvel. Going into the clinch I missed him with the persuader and lost my grip on it, leaving the weapon dangling by the leather loop on my wrist. He had struck at me with his automatic, which I think he must have dropped, though I'm not sure of that. Anyway we fell into each other's arms and went at it ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... Said so at breakfast, didn't I? Silly women always do have to have idees druv into their heads, like nails, 'fore they can clinch 'em. Eunice 'lowed that we'd ought to have a lot more small sticks chopped," answered the man who managed the estate but was presumably managed himself by Miss Maitland. He had his axe over his shoulder, and had merely stopped at the pantry window, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... got to be in that condition of mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same subject ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... facts which clinch the argument that this is a great struggle for freedom. The first is the fact that America has come in. She would not have come in otherwise. When France in the eighteenth century sent her soldiers to America to fight for the freedom and independence of that land, France also was an ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... men escaped by making their way through the woods toward the Appomattox River before they could be entirely enveloped. Night had fallen when the fight was entirely over, but Devin was pushed on in pursuit for about two miles, part of the Sixth Corps following to clinch a victory which not only led to the annihilation of one corps of Lee's retreating army, but obliged Longstreet to move up to Farmville, so as to take a road north of the Appomattox River toward Lynchburg instead of ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... the opposing troops from being sent to reinforce the defence against the main offensive. For this purpose they were perhaps needlessly aggressive, for each resulted in the capture of ground which could not be held, and the forces engaged in these local enterprises were badly needed to clinch the nearly successful major operation. Later on in the war it was found that enemy troops could be contained along the line without such numerous and expensive precautionary attacks, and possibly ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... the conversation, By many windings to their clever clinch; And secondly, must let slip no occasion, Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch,[mt] But take an ell—and make a great sensation, If possible; and thirdly, never flinch When some smart talker ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... sheep, dogs'll help him. We'll feed 'em up a bit for two or three days, and then starve 'em for two or three more to put it straight. Now then, sir, you stick the fork into they three bits, and you shall feed 'em, that'll clinch old Nibbler's making friends ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... fight was on: fast and furious. The followers of each leader, appalled at the fierceness of the combat, stood as though frozen in their places. The flag, clutched by both fighters, was in danger of being torn from end to end. Then came the clinch. Gripping, writhing, twisting, tangled in the colors, the lithe young bodies wavered to their fall. And when they fell the flag fell with them, into the grime and slush of the road. In an instant Pen was on his feet again, but ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... Paddington's. They stood close together, and from their gestures, he seemed to be arguing or pleading, while she was drawing back and refusing, or at least, holding out against him. At last they fell into a regular third-act clinch—it was as good as a movie! After a moment she drew herself out of his arms and they moved away from the window. In a minute or two they came out of the house together, and I tailed them. They walked slowly, with their heads very close, and I didn't dare get near enough to try to hear what they ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... like seeing a man hanged; but much more interesting. Finally, the woman wound up by saying that the Senior Subaltern carried a double F. M. in tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent minds it seemed to clinch the matter. But one of the Bachelor Majors said very politely:—"I presume that your marriage certificate would be more ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Snow, ditto The Hon. John Byron, midshipman Alexander Campbell, ditto Isaac Morris, ditto Thomas Maclean, cook Richard Phipps, boatswain's mate John Mooring, ditto Matthew Langley, gunner's mate Guy Broadwater, coxswain Samuel Stook, seaman Joseph Clinch, ditto John Duck, ditto Peter Plastow, captain's steward John Pitman, butcher David Buckley, quarter-gunner Richard Noble, quarter-master William Moore, captain's cook George Smith, seaman Benjamin Smith, ditto William Oram, carpenter's mate ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... the farmer, assisted by his relatives and friends, begins the clearing without delay. It is essential that at least a little work be done in order to clinch the bargain with the powers above, for should a delay occur the omens might go awry and necessitate a repetition of the ceremonies and even an abandonment of the farm. I heard of several cases where prospective farms ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... Graham. "By the time you've done it, you'll have made sixty for me. We'll go out and have some lunch to clinch the deal ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... general roustabout had performed his part. Our little man, Garfield, too, had found employment in holding the hammer to clinch the nails and giving much advice on the coming voyage. All were busy, I say, and no one had given a thought of what we were about to encounter from the port officials farther up the coast; it was pretended by them that a passport could not be granted to so small ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... acquired. Even as mere impression, it fails to produce its proper effect upon the memory; for, to remain fully among the acquisitions of this latter faculty, it must be wrought into the whole cycle of our operations. Its motor consequences are what clinch it. Some effect due to it in the way of an activity must return to the mind in the form of the sensation of having acted, and connect itself with the impression. The most durable impressions are those on account of which we speak or act, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... "it's time this circus was over, anyway, and if Carter will take my bid I'll clinch that deal with you. Have the pack and seizings ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... For me!!! (His fists clinch; his neck thickens; his face reddens; the fleshy purses under his eyes become injected with hot blood; the man of peace vanishes, transfigured into a choleric and formidable man of war. Still, she does not come out of her absorption ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... another instance of the same spirit, that the opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: 'Ah, so I thought when I was your age.' It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours.' And yet the one is as good as the other: pass ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Quaker, a fellow-townsman, was so impressed by his tone of quietistic mysticism that he felt sure the philosophic doctor was guided by "the inward light," and wrote, sending a godly book, and proposing to clinch his conversion in a personal interview. Such are the perils that environ the man who not only repeats a creed in sincerity, but ventures to do and to utter ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... comfort in, that reflection; and depend upon it, my dear mother, that I'll be sure to clinch your masses in the surest mode. I'll not fly over them like Camilla across a field of potato oats, without discommoding a single walk, as too many of my worthy brethren—I mane as! too many of those whose worthy brother I will soon be—do ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... won with his fists, Cantor's superior weight and muscle counted in this deadly clinch. And now Darrin found himself lying with both shoulders touching, while Cantor, kneeling over him, fought to free his knife hand for the ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... the two curs walked, their eyes glaring, their jaws snapping, their tongues out, and dropping foam. The racket was tremendous. At each place where the pickets were a little spread, they redoubled their efforts to clinch. They approached the opening. The interest of the spectators redoubled. Now they reached the spot; sprung at each other; their jaws touched,—and each, dropping his tail, slunk away to his kennel. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... some powder'd critics say Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play! The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion, Have gratify'd her softer inclination, Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation. But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil! He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age Would bear ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... them. And when Stone, cursing, was ordered to lower his right arm and hand his revolver to Bradley at arm's length, the old man's feet were planted at least six feet from the foreman for a jump-away in case Stone tried to clinch him and shoot at Laramie from ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... day; so it seems to me, having got these two old fellows to look out for us here, we had better go and present ourselves in Montreal, and so be as it were in two places at once. Moreover, I should like to see Roland Stanley if possible before I clinch any bargain. We are perfectly certain of getting disinterested advice from him, though I see no reason whatever to doubt the policy of what I have done or the intentions of our backers. I don't know if I have made all our doings and plans sufficiently clear. I ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn

... stay until the whole job is cleaned up, and he's in right up to his shoulderblades. No more convincing proof of America's determination to see the thing through could be had than a sight of Uncle Sam's big storage depot and all-around tool shop. And, to clinch the argument even further, as fast as the shops on the big reservation have been put up, the machinery has been shoved into them and the work in them started as soon as the machinery was in ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... where the catfish are wont to lurk, his right arm wrapped to the fingers with a scarlet cloth. Tempted by the seeming bait, the catfish would take the finger-tips deep in its gullet, the strong hand would instantly clinch on its head, and Attusah would rise with his struggling gleaming prey, to be broiled on the ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... "To clinch the matter, Elmer," observed Matty, "if you look inside the hat you'll find two little silver letters fastened there. The N. S. stands ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... Monongahela I had seen many settlers crossing the river to make the eastern settlements. I was told that a thousand men, women and children had crossed during the space of twenty-four hours. Down on the Clinch and Holston the settlers were either "forting" ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... in a costume by Paillard; he in his peajacket buttoned close under his heavy beard. They seem to brush through and against the clouds! A gentle breath from heaven makes the basket decline a little and the ropes creak against the hardwood clinch blocks. It grows colder, and he wraps her ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... seemed to have had a good time with Mrs. Oakford and her daughter; and, being pressed to stay to tea, I could not well help it. Before tea I sat talking with Mrs. Oakford and a friend of hers, Miss Clinch, about the Americans and the English, especially dwelling on the defects of the latter,—among which we reckoned a wretched meanness in money transactions, a lack of any embroidery of honor and liberality in their dealings, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... her like fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond—were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that—or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal—for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud achievement to ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... and looked at the signatures dashed across the paper; both who saw him saw also the shiver, like a shiver of intense cold, that ran through him as he did so, and saw his teeth clinch tight, in the extremity of rage, in the excess of pain, or—to hold in all utterance that might ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... But tell me this. When I call you Gerry—Gerry ... there!—does the association or impression repeat itself?" She repeated the name once and again, to try. There was a good deal of nettle-grasping in all this. Also a wish to clinch matters, to drive the sword to the hilt; to put an end, once and for all, to the state of tension she lived in. For surely, if anything could prove his memory was really gone, it would be this. That she should call him by his name ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... it couldn't have been better done. That was what made it so touchingly absurd. He put himself in her position. He pictured himself as her, "sitting up in bed," pencil in hand, to explain away, to soothe, to clinch and bind... Yes, if he had happened to be some other man—one whom her insult might have angered without giving love its death-blow, and one who could be frightened out of not keeping his word—this letter would have ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... called Buck-eye, or Stock Creek. This last name owes its origin to its valley having been resorted to by the herdsmen of the country, for the attainment of a good range, or choice pasture-ground, for their cattle. The creek rises in Powell's mountain, and is tributary to Clinch river, which it enters at the distance of between two and three miles below the tunnel. The aspect of the surrounding country, and especially of that to the northward of the tunnel, and constituting the southerly slope of the mountain just mentioned, is exceedingly diversified, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... I cared about. If all this had not happened everything would have been all right. But, you see, nine-tenths of what that girl said to you was so perfectly true that it is humanly impossible for you not to believe the other tenth, which wasn't. And then, to clinch it, you hear Nutty consoling me. That brings me ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... grinned Andy, promptly. "Never could bear to let anything puzzle me long. Used to lie awake half the night trying to clinch a name that had just slipped a ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... out for Kentucky with his family and his brother, Squire Boone—Is joined by five families and forty men at Powell's Valley—The party is attacked by Indians, and Daniel Boone's oldest son is killed—The party return to the settlements on Clinch River—Boone, at the request of Governor Dunmore, goes to the West and conducts a party of surveyors to Virginia—Boone receives the command of three garrisons and the commission of Captain—He takes a part in the Dunmore war—Battle of Point Pleasant and termination ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... he said till he had taken himself off, with an unusually deep bow of thanks to myself. The only comfort we derived was the reflection that these lies were too audacious to be aught but inventions made up to clinch the wavering ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... an extent that little of their original material could be seen, and once when trying a case he was sitting on the bench in a way to expose them to all in Court. It was an action for breach of contract to deliver shoes soundly made, and to clinch a witness for the pursuer he suddenly asked, "Were the shoes anything like these?" pointing to his own. "No, my lord," replied the witness, "they were a good ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... yo' dawg, too," said Tad, and Chad saw that he was going to have trouble with those Dillons, for Daws winked at the other boys, and the Dillon girl laughed again scornfully—at which Chad saw Melissa's eyes flash and her hands clinch as, quite unconsciously, she moved toward him to take his part; and all at once he was glad that he had nobody ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... light, there was no sign of life about the place, and Wade craftily advanced into the deeper shadows close to the wall of the house. Taking off his hat, so that the crown might not betray him, he peeped through a window. What he saw made him clinch his fingers and grit his teeth ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... Osceola scalped his enemy with his own hands. On the same day, Major Dade, leading a relief expedition from Tampa Bay, was ambushed and overwhelmed near Wahoo Swamp. Only four of his men escaped death. Within forty-eight hours, on the last day of the year, General Clinch, commanding the troops in Florida, won a bloody fight on the banks of the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... Wexford county, Murphy and his colleague, Father Michael, proposed to raise Wicklow and Waterford. If these efforts succeeded, it was probable that Dublin and Munster would rise. Ulster might then revolt; and the advent of the French would clinch the triumph. In full confidence, then, the masses of pikemen moved against the loyalists at New Ross, an important position on the River Barrow. Parish by parish, the priests at their head, they marched, some 30,000 strong. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... of the magical stick, but the two ringleaders affected to make light of it. Realising that the time had come for decisive action, the white man summoned the company, told them that his stick had revealed the plot to him and warned them of the danger they ran. To clinch his argument he offered to allow the ringleaders to return home, taking the stick with them; but told them that they would be dead within twenty-four hours, and the stick would come back to him. To his dismay they accepted the challenge, and for him there ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... "He introduce Master Duncan Clinch Heyward at Walterboro in 1902, when Master Heyward was making his first race for governor. He raise such laughter and pay so many witty compliments to Master Heyward, dat Governor Heyward, when he was 'lected, appoint my daddy to an office in Columbia, and we come to Columbia ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... Indian night-gown was wrapped about his rugged limbs; a red nightcap overshadowed his frowning brow; an iron-grey beard of three days' growth gave additional grimness to his visage. Thrice did he seize a worn-out stump of a pen, and essay to sign the loathsome paper; thrice did he clinch his teeth, and make a horrible countenance, as though a dose of rhubarb-senna, and ipecacuanha, had been offered to his lips. At length, dashing it from him, he seized his brass-hilted sword, and jerking it from the scabbard, swore by St. Nicholas to sooner die than yield to ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... ought to be made out of his colonial relatives. He had spent his own moderate fortune before he came here. He showed his character in his way of going to work," finished Archdale, contemptuously. "He could not believe that anybody would have honesty enough not to defeat his claim unless he could clinch his proofs instantly." ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various

... "Let's clinch it now," laughed Nan, as she took the wheel. "Just put on your wishing caps and wish as hard as you can, and the Silver ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... or memory, who from dwelling so hidden in the lap of the earth seem to win a share of its eternal sufferance. Your peasant will bow his back as soon as he can stand upright, and every year draws him nearer to the earth. The rheumatics at last grip him unawares, and clinch him in a gesture which is a figure of his lot. The scarred hills, the burnt plains, the trees which the wind cows and lays down, the flowers and corn, meek or glad at the bidding of the hour—the earth-born ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... purposes spines serve me. Which of you defies the fox or terrier in the open? I leave the fliers out—running away is not defence. To me a fight is child's play. The more inquisitive my foe, the tighter do I clinch myself together. They get more harm ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... to conflict—is the very first possible instant after the clear, forceful and foreshadowing introduction. The introduction has started the action of the story, the chief characters have shown what they are and the interest of the audience has been awakened. Now you must clinch that interest by having something happen that is novel, and promises in the division of personal interests which grow out of it to hold a punch that will stir the sympathies ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... "Let us clinch it, and make 'em cry for mercy!" shouted one of the victorious army, and forward he went, and nearly all of the others ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... thirty-six quarto pages per diem. A polished style, on the other hand, exhibited care and looked amateurish. He had no very great opinion of this kind of writing, and advised her to get rid of the delusion that when she wrote a novel she made literature. To clinch the argument, he proceeded to put a series of uncomfortable questions to her. Did she expect to live by novel-writing? How long would it take her to write three volumes? How long could she maintain ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... 19th, 900 men left the hastily made zeriba and marched towards the river. Without their camels or those of the transport they appeared insignificant, a mere speck on the broad plain of Metemma. The Dervishes hastened to clinch the matter. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... Colonel held the lantern close down. "He's all right, Brother Gholson," was his verdict; the ball had gone to the heart. "Still, just to clinch the thing, we'll calcine him, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... take to his heels. Most animals have more confidence in their legs than they have in their teeth and claws, and they'll be very likely to use 'em, if you'll give 'em time to consider. But if you find a painter, or a bear, takin' a nap in your path, and don't want to have a clinch with him, wake him up before you get right onto him, or he'll be very likely to think he's cornered, and them animals have onpleasant ways with 'em when ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... feller rides behind. Some sez we put a pile of side on. Well, where's the single-handed brace Will take us on? We'll put the peg in, Train fine, 'n' jump, or box, or race, Or wrestle them; 'n' more than that To clinch a match, so 'elp me cat, ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... the devil thrust him into desperation, and strove thereby to clinch the hopelessness of his estate. With wild fierce passion, Kennedy flung himself into sins he had never known before; angrily he laid waste the beauty and glory of the vineyard whose hedge had been broken down; a little entrance to the sanctuary had been opened to ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... boost When grief an' it was matin', Tew figger out that that thar Pope Wus reely twins with Satan. I took no stock in countin' up How menny hed ov cattle From Egypt's ranches Moses drove; I never fit a battle On p'ints that frequently gave rise Tew pious spat an' grumble, An' makes the brethren clinch an' yell In ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... church and all de children too, and I think all should look after saving their souls so as to drive de nail in, and den go about de earth spreading kindness and hoeing de row clean so as to clinch dat nail and make ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... met the charge with lowered head and outstretched hands, and in another second they were locked in a clinch, tearing at one another like two great gorillas. For a moment Number Three stood watching the battle, and then he too sprang in to aid his fellow mutineer. Number Thirteen was striking heavy blows with his giant hands upon the face and head of his antagonist, while the long, uneven ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... his man over like a tab. He's a proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and he'll rise up in the middle and look at 'ee. There was no one a patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back the Dane next time they clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like this—with a big job coming on, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... suddenly aware that a change had come over the fight. Both men were clutching each other in a tense embrace; no blows were being struck at all. She recognized it to be what Joe had described to her as the "clinch." Ponta was struggling to free ...
— The Game • Jack London

... of Indian friendship, and suggested to the assembly that it would be better to clinch it with presents, and that as soon as possible. An envoy accordingly was sent off early in October, who was supposed to have great influence among the western tribes. This was one George Croghan, a veteran trader, shrewd and sagacious, who had been frequently to the Ohio ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... misery and wretchedness. Why was such an unkind thing permitted in the world? And then again returned that something which stirred inside him, something hot and hard, which made his cheeks and eyes burn and his fingers clinch once more. And then again the question, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... for the wagon teams brought us to the foot of Pine Mountain at the point where the road leaves the bed of Elk Fork to climb the steep ascent. We were now only nineteen miles from Jacksboro, in the valley of the Clinch, but the distance was multiplied by the cumulating difficulties of the way. We were not far from Cross Mountain, a ridge which, as its name indicates, connects the long parallel ranges of Jellico, Pine, and Cumberland mountains. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... and sat down. "I was afraid she would back out," he said, "and I wanted to clinch the thing. Jest let me tell her that I am afraid she can't do a thing and then it would take a good deal more high water than we've had for a year or two to keep ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... of sport it is not allowed to strike with the hand, nor catch around the neck, nor kick, nor pull by the hair. One may break away and run a few yards to get a fresh start, or clinch, or catch as catch can. When a boy is thrown and held to the ground, he is counted out. If a boy has met his superior, he may drop to the ground to escape rough handling, but it is very seldom one gives up without a full trial ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... all clinch, as everybody knows; and Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat his former successful experiment an the new master. He sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... passage Ravenslee turned to see Murder close on his heels. Once he smote and twice, but nothing might stay that bull-like rush and, locked in a desperate clinch, he was borne back and back, their trampling lost in the universal din about them, as reeling, staggering, they crashed out through wrecked and splintered door and, still locked together, were swallowed in the ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... marksmen, a tin can in each hand. Both High Chin and Shoop knew what was coming, and Shoop decided to surprise the assemblage. The main issue was not the shooting contest, and if High-Chin Bob had not already seen enough of Shoop's work to satisfy him, the genial Bud intended to clinch the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... children of Cincinnati come back to the kindergarten teachers for an hour's kindergartening once each week, in order to clinch the kindergarten influence on the lives of the first graders. The first grade teachers meet the director of kindergartening once each week, for a discussion of kindergarten methods, and an initiation into the kindergarten spirit. Thus ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... waterway straight to Sidon from the embarcadero. I've told what a charming evening we had with you and your daughters in the old house, and how I returned your hospitality by giving you a tip about the railroad; and how you slipped out while we were playing cards, to clinch the bargain for the land with that drunken ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... pursuit of his breakfast. Sometimes they had a little set-to, with beaks not more than three inches apart, the woodpecker making feints of rushing upon his vis-a-vis, and the cardinal jumping up ready to clinch, if a fight became necessary. It never went quite so far as that, though they glared at each other, and the cardinal uttered a little whispered "ha!" every ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... GEORGIA EXPEDITIONS.—After its capture in the autumn of 1861, Port Royal became the base of operations against Florida and Georgia. Fernandina, Fort Clinch, Jacksonville, Darien, and St. Augustine, were taken. Fort Pulaski, also, was reduced after a severe bombardment, and thus the port of Savannah was closed. At the end of the year every city of the Atlantic ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... you redeem him within a year. Now that's equivalent to my lending you five hundred dollars out and out. I see, but seeing it's you, I reckon I'll have to do it. As luck will have it, I was going down to Frankfort this very day to put some money in the bank, and if you say so, we'll clinch the bargain at once," and the colonel began to count ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... became doubtful as to which was the north end of the needle—the white or the black. After a few moments' puzzling he was quite at sea, and could no more remember how he had been taught as to this than you can clinch the spelling of a doubtful word after you have tried on paper a dozen variations. But being a youth of sense he ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... command, the murder of their agent, General Thompson, and other acts of cruel treachery. When this alarming and unexpected intelligence reached the seat of Government, every effort appears to have been made to reenforce General Clinch, who commanded the troops then in Florida. General Eustis was dispatched with reenforcements from Charleston, troops were called out from Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and General Scott was sent to take the command, with ample powers and ample means. At the first alarm General Gaines organized ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... is." This was spoken in a tired drawl which was evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clinch things, he slouched away, waving me in an abstracted manner ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... putting you on to, as a special favor," he explained. "It will be up-river most of the way, and I've got a couple of Siwash to pole the canoes. All you have to do is the cooking, make camp, and tend to Miss Stirling's friends when they go fishing." He waved his hand, and added, as though to clinch the argument, "I've known people of that kind to give a man that pleased them ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... had been built sideways into the wall, offered traces of heraldic sculpture. At once there came a wild idea into my mind: his appearance tallied with Flora's description of Mr. Robbie; a knowledge of heraldry would go far to clinch the proof; and what could be more desirable than to scrape an informal acquaintance with the man whom I must approach next day with my tale of the drovers, and whom I yet wished to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a bloody nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage. But the fighting blood of O'Connell was up. He beat Quinlan out of the clinch with a well-timed upper-cut that put the youth upon his back on ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... you fellows!" broke in the captain. "You are getting down-hearted, and that won't do. We've got this game and we are going to hold it; but we want to go in to clinch ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... past there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to the prime minister's cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame d'Espard brought so many persons into the field in opposition to Lucien, that Charles X.'s Maitre Jacques hesitated to clinch the matter. Nor was Lucien's position by any means clear; not only did the question, "What does he live on?" on everybody's lips as the young man rose in life, require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity—as ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... sure of it, the farmer made her say out loud, "The Blessing of God be upon your cattle!" To clinch the matter, he compelled her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, which she was able to do, without missing one syllable. She used the form of words which are not found in the prayer book, but are in the Bible, and was very earnest, when she prayed "Forgive ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... his pack and took out the bacon. As Albert looked at it he began unconsciously to clinch and unclinch his teeth. Dick saw his face, and, knowing that the same eager look was in his ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's rivers on a tour of exploration, into what is now Kentucky. The Cherokees were then at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back settlements began, with safety, to penetrate deeper and further into the wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... question. This was refused, as contrary to precedent, but a hearing was granted before the Senate Judiciary Committee,[63] Friday morning, January 12. Not only the committee room but the corridors were crowded. Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker spoke grandly,[64] and as usual Miss Anthony was chosen to clinch the argument, which she did ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... boy had slipped out of danger. They exchanged blows here, toe to toe, and the crowd howled with delight. Here was a mere boxer who wasn't afraid to take what he gave. In the exchange Jerry profited, for Clancy, lunging with his right and missing, fell into a clinch where Jerry gave his ribs a fearful beating. At the end of the round both were breathing hard, but the ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... Das hit. On'y one laig,' says dat scar't yaller gal, an' ter clinch it she added, 'All yo' geese dat a-ways, Mars' Colby. Dey all ain' got ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... money invested in Government paper, besides a substantial brick house—qualifications which augured well for his sister's wedded happiness. The next step was to invite his own father, Kumodini Babu, to come from Benares and help him to clinch matters. The old man pleaded that he had done with the world and all its vanities; so Jadu Babu had to make a pilgrimage to the Holy City, where he induced Kumodini Babu to return home with him. Three days later the pair went to Calcutta with two friends, in order to make the suitor's acquaintance. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... it is insupportable. Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved. I believe I repeated the words, "O that it had been but one!" a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my hands would clinch together, and my fingers would press the palms of my hands, so that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have crushed it involuntarily; and the teeth in my head would strike together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time I could not part ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... timekeeper and referee to make them break away when they clinch." When she explained ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... side, and see if he don't behave. Hold on; don't be in a hurry. Let him throw a few more jumps, then he'll quit for to-day most likely. And say, son, if he does take to buckin' with you again, don't choke that saddle to death hangin' on to the horn. Set up straight, lean a little back, and clinch your knees. You'll get piled, anyhow, but you ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... notices this classy young couple who are makin' their way across the dinin'-room, bein' hailed right and left. And next thing I know, the young lady gets her eye on Vee, stops to take another look, then rushes over and gives her the fond clinch from behind. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... to come out through the coroner's office, but I settled as soon as I read the first newspaper item—here it is." He handed to me a clipping which Smith had used to clinch the payment of what he (Smith) called ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... twenty-five rubles?" And not one of them gave me any money. I mention this because, when people give money for that which they themselves desire, they generally make haste to give it. For a box to see Sarah Bernhardt, they will instantly place the money in your hand, to clinch the bargain. Here, however, out of all those who agreed to contribute, and who expressed their sympathy, not one of them proposed to give me the money on the spot, but they merely assented in silence to the sum which I suggested. In the last house which I visited on that day, in the ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... army and of the futility of an attack from McClellan was justified when, after the 26th of June, the Army of the Potomac, almost in sight of the spires of Richmond, was forced to reel back, in the deadly clinch of a seven days' combat, to the James River. The Confederate army changed its position from one of retreat to a brilliant and aggressive policy, and the subtle tactics of Johnston gave way to the bold strokes of Lee. The South ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... chance whatever: but he did not intend to be made an exhibition of in front of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposed to go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dug Mr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expert to clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... the excitement waxed. An outburst was imminent. The cause of this demonstration of displeasure was the presence in the town of a big, pink-cheeked Englishman, who, it was said, was an agent of his government come to clinch the bargain by which the president placed his people in the hands of a foreign power. It was charged that not only had he given away priceless concessions, but that the public debt was to be transferred into the hands ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... that. Only, I say this to you, it has but just come to light, and only one or two know it. To prove it positively he's got to be allowed more rope; for he got her out of the way last time before we could clinch the matter. If he suspects it is known he won't repeat it; if kept to ourselves he will probably try it again,—and be caught. Now I charge you all to regard ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... though perhaps you are so tired that you are fainting; but you fight yourself like a madman, you struggle until you feel a thing at your heart like a wild beast; and you keep on, you hold it fast and learn it, clinch it tight, and make it yours forever. I have done that same thing five times to-day without a rest; and toiled for five hours in that frenzy; and then lain down upon the ground, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... usual extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops—lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... here do when they are serious? How do they make themselves understood when they go on in this way habitually? It is a most extraordinary state of affairs! And neither party seems to feel in the least compromised by it. There is that fellow Clinch, who fairly lives at the Bascombes', and when I asked her if she was engaged to him she said, 'Engaged to George Clinch? What an idea! No. What put that in your head? He is a nice fellow, and I like him immensely, but there's nothing of that sort between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... a note or two, to clinch that idea of ours in the right shape." He dashed off a few lines with pencil in his play at several points, and then he said: "There! I guess I shall get some bones into those two flabby idiots to-morrow. ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... C. Anderson, who led the advance of the American troops at the Battle of Trenton. General Robert Anderson, U.S.A., whose memory the country honors as the defender of Fort Sumpter, was his son. The General's widow, a daughter of General Duncan L. Clinch, U.S.A., resided in Washington until her death a few years ago. She was a woman of rare intelligence and, although a great invalid for many years, gathered around her an appreciative circle of friends, who were always charmed ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... consoling glass were speedily supplied; and with the reassured stamina of my improved condition, it may readily be supposed I was not long in satisfying the worthy Mr. Seagram that I had no concern in the encounter betwixt the natives and his boats. To clinch the argument I assured the lieutenant that I was not only guiltless of the assault, but had made up my mind ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... advocate. Suppose it is voted in? It never has had the test of discussion and amendment that every law ought to have. I am not complaining of the movement that brings about this initiative and referendum, for that is prompted by a desire to clinch the movement against corruption, on the theory that you cannot corrupt the whole people and that the initiative and referendum mean detailed and direct government by the whole people. But the theory is erroneous. The whole people will not vote at an election, much less at a primary. ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft

... force he could put into the hit. Walton went back a pace, sparred for a moment, then came in again, hitting heavily. Kennedy's counter missed its mark this time. He just stopped a round sweep of Walton's right, ducked to avoid a similar effort of his left, and they came together in a clinch. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... therefore threw down both knives at Hartog's feet, and returned once more to the fight with bare hands. My superior agility now began to tell in my favour, and I found I was the better boxer and wrestler of the two, so that I rained blows upon my opponent, some of which drew blood. He then tried to clinch with me, but I had waited for this, and when he seized me in his powerful grip I held myself as I had been taught to do by my friend the smuggler, so that when he tried to throw me, he himself, by his own ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... in time, Stafford," he remarked. "You ran it close. We will clinch it instantly. Let us ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... wondered—had Dunham after all been on the level with his promised crookedness? He followed Holliday up, carefully. And again a wild right swing, a light step inside, a light left to the face. And then Holliday, holding him with disturbing ease in a clinch, pressed his mouth close ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... That Bill of Indemnity and Oblivion had to be shaped in accordance with the Declaration issued by the King from Breda. Personally, Hyde had endeavoured to restrain the impulse which tempted the King to clinch a promising bargain by over-lavish concessions. He always held that the dignity of the King could not be satisfied without vengeance on the murderers of his father, and that the security of the Crown rendered a severe example necessary. But if his ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... a poor dumb brute, my Roderick Dhu, And our scientific brethren scoff at you. They "reason" and they "think," Then they set it down in ink, And clinch it with their ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... I think some progress is made in the work of conversion. Harris has gone back, and Wilton, whom I always doubted. I doubt anybody within the immediate sphere of the Duke, but Wynford is well disposed, and the Archbishop has nearly given in. His surrender would clinch the matter. I am inclined to think we shall get through the second reading. Lord Grey was attacked by Madame de Lieven the other day, who told him he was naturally all that is right-minded and good, but was supposed to ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... 1720—was found to be a very attractive measure. Authors who were on friendly terms with the actors, or had reason to be grateful to them, frequently gave them short pieces or wrote special epilogues for their benefits. Sheridan's farce, "St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant," was a present to Clinch, the actor, and first produced on his benefit-night in 1775. Goldsmith felt himself so obliged to Quick and Lee Lewes, who had been the original Tony Lumpkin and Young Marlow in "She Stoops to Conquer," that for the one he ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... during its existence. There is probably more human electricity, more population to make it, more business, more light-heartedness, than ever before. The armies that swiftly circumambiated from Fredericksburgh—march'd, struggled, fought, had out their mighty clinch and hurl at Gettysburg—wheel'd, circumambiated again, return'd to their ways, touching us not, either at their going or coming. And Washington feels that she has pass'd the worst; perhaps feels that she is henceforth mistress. So here she sits with her ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... it. I don't mean ever to turn the boy that lives inside of me out-of-doors. If I ever do anything to make him so mad that he quits, I'll be finished—dried up. That book, The Arabian Nights, has got a dead clinch on me. You know, when I run into Bakersfield, I like to have a browse in the bookstores. It sort of rests me, and seein' the pictures in that book made me buy it—a birthday present for ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... earl with a stately smile, "seldom express much satisfaction with the terms of their rejection; but I cannot say that Lord Ballindine testified any strong emotion." He rose from the sofa as he said this, and then, intending to clinch the nail, added as he went to the door—"to tell the truth, Fanny, I think Lord Ballindine is much more eager for an alliance with your fair self now, than he was a few days back, when he could never find a moment's ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... turning something over in his mind as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some evidence, even part of the jewels that she had hidden, it would clinch the case. ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... could," snapped the thief, with great earnestness. "When I think how I let a skinny, half-witted boob like you walk right into a clinch with me, and me holdin' a gun, and weighin' forty pounds more than you do, I—Can ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... (and she would allow me to kiss her when we parted), until I was quite gone altogether, and did nothing but think of her all day and dream of her all night. Well, the last time that I was in the transport to Portsmouth, I had made up my mind to clinch the business, and as soon as the sails were furled, I dressed myself in my best toggery and made all sail for the old house. When I came in I found Peggy in the bar, and a very fancy sort of young chap alongside of her. I did not think so much of that, and I was ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... would be a dead sure thing then. And Mr. Brown wouldn't have to take Mr. Smith's word that it was he who was talking. He could even get witnesses to look at the wire-image if he wanted to, and so clinch the thing. It will prevent a ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton

... Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (quinquennium Neronis) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., while ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... master was there, and guests, for the matter of that; she insisted on it. He knew his place as well as any man, but his eye fell on the rabbit and he looked very queer and nearly dropped a cup. She saw it and began to tremble and go white, and it came over me then that now or never was the time to clinch matters or she'd nearly die from shame and I couldn't soothe ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... fearing accidental defeat, forgot caution and tried to rush in for a clinch. But this was the kind of attack that Prescott was ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... insupportable. Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved. I believe I repeated the words, "O that it had been but one!" a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my hands would clinch together, and my fingers would press the palms of my hands, so that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have crushed it involuntarily; and the teeth in my head would strike together, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... in, if you're goin', Kernel. I reckon I'm talkin' to Kernel Clinch," said the passenger beside Hale with sudden alacrity. "I'm Rawlins, of Frisco. Heerd of ye afore, Kernel, and kinder spotted you jist now ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... hill in silence, Ardita's hand still resting in Carlyle's as it had when they finished dancing. She felt it clinch nervously from time to time as though he were unaware of the contact, but though he hurt her she made no attempt to remove it. It seemed an hour's climb before they reached the top and crept cautiously across the silhouetted plateau to the edge of the cliff. After ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... Boon's eldest son, were slain, and the cattle scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... holdin' his side. "Can you tie that?" He looks over and sees Van Ness in a clinch with Miss Vincent—and son, you could see the muscles rollin' under his coat sleeves. "Look at the big, ignorant ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer

... Mr. Gibney welcomed Captain Hicks with a terrific right swing, which missed; before he could guard, Dan Hicks had planted left and right where they would do the most good and Mr. Gibney went into a clinch to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... obtain enlistments. The large church was crowded. After addresses had been made by the writer and Colonel Beard, one hundred men volunteered at once, and the number soon reached about one hundred and twenty-five. Such, however, were the demands of Fort Clinch and the Quartermaster's Department for laborers, that Colonel Rich, commanding the fort, consented to only twenty-five men leaving. This was a sad disappointment, and one which some determined not to bear. The twenty-five men were carefully selected from among those not employed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... know it's not. It's like sitting at a Barmecide feast, very hungry, only the Barmecide's sitting opposite you eating all the time and talking about his food. I tell you it's maddening, perfectly maddening—" There was a fierce vehemence in her face, her voice, the clinch of her slender hands on the muslin frill. That strong vitality which before had seemed to carry her lightly as on wings, over all the rough places of life, had now not failed, but turned itself inwards, burning in an intense flame ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... assuming in these sketches no office of a teacher. I am seeking only to make a truthful analysis of the boyish thought and feeling. But having ventured thus far into what may seem sacred ground, I shall venture still farther, and clinch my matter ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... order to calm alarms, which might at any moment have disturbed the public peace. That Bill of Indemnity and Oblivion had to be shaped in accordance with the Declaration issued by the King from Breda. Personally, Hyde had endeavoured to restrain the impulse which tempted the King to clinch a promising bargain by over-lavish concessions. He always held that the dignity of the King could not be satisfied without vengeance on the murderers of his father, and that the security of the Crown rendered a severe example necessary. But if his caution led ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... is done—done and over—until you have nailed it fast. So you go back again, though perhaps you are so tired that you are fainting; but you fight yourself like a madman, you struggle until you feel a thing at your heart like a wild beast; and you keep on, you hold it fast and learn it, clinch it tight, and make it yours forever. I have done that same thing five times to-day without a rest; and toiled for five hours in that frenzy; and then lain down upon the ground, with ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... very uncertain to a looker-on. It might be the approaches of love, and quite as probably the wary beginnings of war, and the next feature of the programme was not explanatory; they rose together in the air ten feet or more, face to face, fluttering and snatching at each other, apparently trying to clinch; succeeding in doing so, they fell to the ground, separated just before they touched it, and flew away. O wings! most maddening ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... floriated richly and graduated with a precise symmetry, rises to an extreme altitude of 220 feet 6 inches. The extreme length is about 170 ft. The massive oaken front doors are carved handsomely, and contain the arms of the Stewart family, the Clinch family (Mrs. Stewart's maiden name), the Hilton family, and those of Bishop Littlejohn, the Episcopal head of the Long Island Diocese. The porch or tower entrance, which is the main entrance to the building, is paved ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... seem to win a share of its eternal sufferance. Your peasant will bow his back as soon as he can stand upright, and every year draws him nearer to the earth. The rheumatics at last grip him unawares, and clinch him in a gesture which is a figure of his lot. The scarred hills, the burnt plains, the trees which the wind cows and lays down, the flowers and corn, meek or glad at the bidding of the hour—the earth-born is kin to these, more plant than man. I have done ill if I have ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... Chin and Shoop knew what was coming, and Shoop decided to surprise the assemblage. The main issue was not the shooting contest, and if High-Chin Bob had not already seen enough of Shoop's work to satisfy him, the genial Bud intended to clinch the matter right there. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... Isaac Cutter and his wife, who had money to spend, and were not averse to showing it; there was Miss Eliza Clinch, who had spent her fifty years of life in looking for a bargain, which she had not yet found; and some others. But though the Skipper was courteous to all, he kept close to the side of Mr. Endymion Scraper; and the boy ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... was she actually born in wedlock? Lord Levellier's assurances regarding her origin were, by the calculation, a miser's shuffles to clinch his bargain. Assuming the representative of holy motherhood to be a woman of illegitimate birth, the history of the House to which the spotted woman gave an heir would suffer a jolt when touching on her. And altogether the history fumed rank vapours. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... bloody nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage. But the fighting blood of O'Connell was up. He beat Quinlan out of the clinch with a well-timed upper-cut that put the youth upon his back ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... I'm sorry not to be able to clinch the story, but the man recovered and is now a successful stockbroker in Drapers Gardens. The woman, too, is the mother of a considerable family. But ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... trifle to the police), this treacherous friend agreed to insert into the pamphlet three or four phrases which exposed it to seizure and caused its author to be summoned before the court of assizes. Now the way to make the explanation clinch the doubt in Thuillier's mind is to let him know that the next day la Peyrade, who, as Thuillier knew, hadn't a sou, paid Dutocq precisely that very sum ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... weak, seeming to be overtrained. The Cyclone waded in, using both hands effectively. The Battler fell into a clinch, but the Cyclone broke away and, measuring his distance, picked up a haymaker from the floor and put it ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... by the meaning of the very term 'needfire'. This word does not derive, as was formerly believed, from the word 'need', meaning a 'fire kindled in a state of need', but, as recent etymological research has shown, from a root which appears in the German word nieten - to clinch or rivet. 'Needfire' therefore means nothing less than a fire which was kindled for 'clinching' anew the bond between earthly life and the primal spiritual order at times when for one reason or another there ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... fastening to wood thin material, such as veneers, textiles, leather, matting, tin, etc. Tinner's tacks, which are used for clinching, are commonly called clinch-nails. Wire tacks, altho made, are not so successful as cut tacks because they lack a sharp ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... General Clinch, who commanded at Fort Brooke, having been reinforced with thirty-nine men from Key West, no time was lost in preparing two companies for the above service. On the 24th of December 1835, a force of one hundred men, and eight ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... it appeared that Coligny was paramount at court. Both English and French volunteers were fighting in the Netherlands. Small wonder that Burghley and Walsingham believed that a French marriage would clinch matters, make France a virtually Huguenot Power, and secure a combination which would bring the Pope and the King of Spain to their knees. The approaching marriage of the French King's sister, Margaret, to young Henry of Navarre—now ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... with the consciousness that on the one side he was really tired, and on the other that he could not sleep and, to clinch it, the knowledge that a twenty-mile walk lay before him. He began to tell himself that sleep was merely a question of will—of will deliberately relaxing attention. He rearranged his position a little; ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... As if to clinch the argument a dozen of the ruffians swung their cannikins of rum in the air and began to shout a song at the top of their lungs. All the words that reached Jeremy were oaths except one phrase at the end of the refrain, repeated so often that he began to make ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... will not tolerate banter and suggestive conversation among Christians, what would he say of the shameful backbiting which is heard whenever people meet, though but two individuals? Yes, what would be his judgment of those who in public preaching clinch and claw, attack and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... left for a stroll around the grounds they'd both got back to lookin' more or less nice and natural. They had gone to a close clinch and was sobbin' affectionate on ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... The fight was on: fast and furious. The followers of each leader, appalled at the fierceness of the combat, stood as though frozen in their places. The flag, clutched by both fighters, was in danger of being torn from end to end. Then came the clinch. Gripping, writhing, twisting, tangled in the colors, the lithe young bodies wavered to their fall. And when they fell the flag fell with them, into the grime and slush of the road. In an instant Pen was on his feet again, but Aleck did not rise. He pulled himself slowly to his elbow and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... sir; I have been on board a guardo. Top your boom, I say, and be off, or I'll have you hauled up and riveted in a clinch—both fore-tacks over the main-yard, and no bloody knife to cut the seizing. Sheer! or I'll pitch into you like a shin of beef into a ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... thing to do was to push Rosecrans's army to Chattanooga and beyond. With the valley of the Tennessee in our possession, and Chattanooga held as a new base of supply for a column in East Tennessee as well as another in Georgia, the occupation of Knoxville and the Clinch and Holston valleys to the Virginia line was easy. Without it, all East Tennessee campaigns were visionary. It was easy enough to get there; the trouble was to stay. Buell's original lesson in logistics, in which he gave the War Department a computation of the wagons and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... of it. Realising that the time had come for decisive action, the white man summoned the company, told them that his stick had revealed the plot to him and warned them of the danger they ran. To clinch his argument he offered to allow the ringleaders to return home, taking the stick with them; but told them that they would be dead within twenty-four hours, and the stick would come back to him. To his dismay they accepted the challenge, ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... vacant; an uncle of his was a very important person on the Council; that and other wires might be pulled. Constance, eagerly, began to count up her own opportunities of the same kind; and between them, they had soon—in imagination—captured the post. Then, said Falloden, it would be for Constance to clinch the matter. No man could do such a thing decently. Pryce would have to be told—"'The world's your oyster—but before you open it, you will kindly go and propose to my cousin!—which of course you ought to ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... same spirit, that the opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: 'Ah, so I thought when I was your age.' It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours.' And ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... exhibition of in front of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposed to go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dug Mr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expert to clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp barking ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... same divine Spirit, and has flung fiery questions at the Judaisers, which silenced them. Then, after the impressive hush following his eager words, Barnabas and Paul tell their story once more, and clinch the nail driven by Peter by asserting that God had already by 'signs and wonders' given His sanction to the admission of Gentiles without circumcision. Characteristically, in Jerusalem Barnabas is restored to his place above Paul, and is named ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... pretty suburb, inhabited by people of the middling class. U—— met me joyfully, but seemed to have had a good time with Mrs. Oakford and her daughter; and, being pressed to stay to tea, I could not well help it. Before tea I sat talking with Mrs. Oakford and a friend of hers, Miss Clinch, about the Americans and the English, especially dwelling on the defects of the latter,—among which we reckoned a wretched meanness in money transactions, a lack of any embroidery of honor and liberality in their ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... was strained to Manassas plains; every heart throbbed stronger at the mention of that name. All knew that there the giants were soon to clinch in deadly wrestle for the mastery; that the struggle was now at hand, when the flag of the South would be carried high in triumph ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... he did not quarrel with the compass; he merely became doubtful as to which was the north end of the needle—the white or the black. After a few moments' puzzling he was quite at sea, and could no more remember how he had been taught as to this than you can clinch the spelling of a doubtful word after you have tried on paper a dozen variations. But being a youth of sense he did ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... kiss her when we parted), until I was quite gone altogether, and did nothing but think of her all day and dream of her all night. Well, the last time that I was in the transport to Portsmouth, I had made up my mind to clinch the business, and as soon as the sails were furled, I dressed myself in my best toggery and made all sail for the old house. When I came in I found Peggy in the bar, and a very fancy sort of young chap alongside ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... well enough," cried Lapham; "but if I don't clinch this offer within twenty-four hours, they'll withdraw it, and go into the market; and then ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... you are a novelty in these particulars; keeping as true to education as if you had never left the settlements. With me the case is different, and I never want to clinch an idee, that I do not feel a wish to swear about it. If you know'd all that I know consarning Judith, you'd find a justification for a little cussing. Now, the officers sometimes stray over to the lake, from the forts on the Mohawk, to fish and hunt, and then the creatur' seems beside herself! ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... now on, it must take a lot of my thought and every moment of my spare time." He looked at the waiting canvas. "Clinch it to-day. Hurry ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... idea as mere silly talk. He admits, indeed, that the women were conveyed to the place of execution in carts; but he denies that there is any deep significance in the cart, and he is prepared to maintain this view by a chemical analysis of the timber of which the cart was built. To clinch his argument he appeals to plain matter of fact and his own personal experience. Not a single instance, he assures us with apparent satisfaction, can be produced of a witch who escaped the axe or the fire in this fashion. "I have myself," says he, "in ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... was refused, as contrary to precedent, but a hearing was granted before the Senate Judiciary Committee,[63] Friday morning, January 12. Not only the committee room but the corridors were crowded. Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker spoke grandly,[64] and as usual Miss Anthony was chosen to clinch the argument, which she did ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... girls out of the way, he would invite his father to smoke a pipe outside, during the companionship of which he intended taking old Zebedee decidedly to task, and, putting his intended marriage with Eve well to the front, clinch his arguments by the startling announcement that unless some reformation was soon made he would leave his native place and seek a home in a foreign land. Such words and such threats as these could not be uttered to a father by a son save when they two stood quite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... ever a place where a kind of growth does not go on? There is a moonrise in me that tells me that that fighting is to be scorned. But what shall I do, seeing that he is my foe?... Ah, I do not know—save haunt him, save bring and bring again my inner man, to clinch and wrestle with and throw, if may be, his inner man. And to see that he knows that I do this—that it tells back upon him—through and through tells back!... It has been a strange year. Now and then I am aware of curious ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... construct a machine which should pass between its fingers a broad belt of leather and a fine thread of wire, prick rows of holes across the breadth of the leather, bend, cut off, and insert the shank ends of the teeth clear through these holes, and clinch them on the back side, and pour out a continuous, uninterrupted stream of perfectly-teethed belt, all ready for carding,—this, I fancied, was the ne plus ultra of mechanical inventions. But it is quite surpassed by the lace-weaving looms of Nottingham, that work out, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... war against infidels, and for some time the issue remained in doubt. At length, about sundown, three squadrons of the Household Cavalry, and the 7th Dragoon Guards, together with four light guns, were hastily sent forward from the main body in the rear to clinch the affair. General Drury Lowe wheeled this little force round the left flank of the enemy, and, coming up unperceived in the gathering darkness, charged with such fury as to scatter the hostile array in instant rout[370]. The ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... was about to come out through the coroner's office, but I settled as soon as I read the first newspaper item—here it is." He handed to me a clipping which Smith had used to clinch the payment of what he (Smith) called ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... just in time, Stafford," he remarked. "You ran it close. We will clinch it instantly. Let us ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... murderess said nothing at all, but, unbalanced with her game hindleg, having no force to push or spring with, and being very weak, she knew she was done for directly they closed to the clinch. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... that the demagogues are babbling—and they don't know just what they mean themselves. He is an honest man. Have I known him all my life without finding that out? But he isn't going to start out and clinch any reputation for honesty by turning his back on his own party and its interests—not for the sake of having the cheap demagogues of the other side pat him on the back and pick his pockets at the same time. He knows politics too well. But we won't sit up here to-night and discuss that. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... his place. Bang! went an easel. "Nom de Dieu!" in French,—"Where in h—l are you goin'!" in English. Crash! a paintbox fell with brushes and all on board. "Dieu de Dieu de—" spat! A blow, a short rush, a clinch and scuffle, and the voice of the massier, stern ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... would, for I realized also what he would become after such a repulse—a cold, sneering Nemesis, revengeful, ready to crush even a woman remorselessly. And he possessed the power, the means to make that revenge complete. I felt my teeth lock, my hands clinch in sudden anger. Perhaps I could accomplish little in her defense, but I intended to be free to do that little. Whatever fate might be in store for us, that sneering, olive-hued devil should receive his deserts if ever he attempted ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... by the prosecution that the weakness of the bomb was a blunder on the part of the socialists, just as its premature explosion, caused by Ernest's losing his nerve and dropping it, was a blunder. And to clinch the argument, there were the several Congressmen who testified to having seen Ernest fumble and drop ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... not to be denied. They had caught the 'Varsity "off its stride," and they fought like tigers to clinch their advantage. Every ounce of strength and determination that they possessed was called to the front by the prospect of impending victory. A daring run around the left end netted them twenty yards, and they gained fifteen more on downs. An easy forward pass was fumbled by the regulars, who ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... must allure the conversation By many windings to their clever clinch; And secondly, must let slip no occasion, Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch, But take an ell—and make a great sensation, If possible; and thirdly, never flinch When some smart talker puts them to the test, But seize the last word, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... cleaned up, and he's in right up to his shoulderblades. No more convincing proof of America's determination to see the thing through could be had than a sight of Uncle Sam's big storage depot and all-around tool shop. And, to clinch the argument even further, as fast as the shops on the big reservation have been put up, the machinery has been shoved into them and the work in them started as soon as the machinery was in place ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction—a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as another ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... of the nails with a rather dull clinch cutter ("buffer") and drawing the nails one at a time, the old shoe is critically examined and laid aside. Remaining stubs of nails are then drawn or punched out and the hoof freed of dirt and partially detached horn. The farrier ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... Murray's solid jaw, scraping the skin off his knuckles, but Murray swayed to the blow, sapping its force, and came in to clinch. They rolled on the floor. Murray twisted Sime's head painfully, bit his ear. But in the next split second he ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... prayers in the churches for victory to the armies in the field are of no avail—and how absurd to expect them to be—but who shall say that the prayer of the soldier on the eve of battle may not steady his hand and clinch his courage? But the prayer for rain or for heat or cold, or for the stay of an epidemic, or for any material good, is as vain as to reach one's ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... newly-gained estates to Sir Wymonde Carew, but there seems reason to suppose that Lord Dudley remained in possession of the manor-house until his attainder in the reign of Queen Mary, because the manor then reverted to the Crown, and was regranted. Clinch gets out of this difficulty by supposing Lord Dudley to have parted with his estates and retained the manor, but in the deed of license for exchange all his "mansion place and capital house, late the house ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... rarely did business without the other. If a digger came to purchase a pair of trousers or boots the bargain was never completed to the satisfaction of both parties without a glass of spirits at the adjacent grog shop to clinch it; and at night, when the diggers would drop round the latter for a glass, many pairs of breeches, boots, or other articles were disposed of under the happy influence ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... existence. There is probably more human electricity, more population to make it, more business, more light-heartedness, than ever before. The armies that swiftly circumambiated from Fredericksburgh—march'd, struggled, fought, had out their mighty clinch and hurl at Gettysburg—wheel'd, circumambiated again, return'd to their ways, touching us not, either at their going or coming. And Washington feels that she has pass'd the worst; perhaps feels that she is henceforth mistress. So here she sits with her surrounding hills spotted with guns, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... of the highwaymen who ended their careers at the gallows appear to have been dandies. Swift gives us a picture of one in "Clever Tom Clinch." He says:— ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... and his left cheek displaying a bright patch of red, which looked as if it might have been the result of what is popularly termed a smart box on the ear. He was also heard by the shopman at Rutherford Street to use a very shocking expression in reference to Mrs. Yatman, and was seen to clinch his fist vindictively as he ran round the corner of the street. Nothing more has been heard of him; and it is conjectured that he has left London with the intention of offering his valuable services ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... still leave us beast-like; With unchangeable purpose we're men. We must drive the nail home—and then clinch it Or storms shake it loose again. In things of great import, in trifles, We our recreant souls must subdue Till the evil we would not we do not And the good that ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... the seconds. An over-sanguine pack-rat tried to scramble up the tar-paper covering on the outside and squeaked as he fell back with a thud, but the face of neither man relaxed. Smaltz took the full limit of the time. He saw Bruce's fingers work, then clinch. Suddenly he grinned—a sheepish, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... honour long life, which I wish you with all my heart!" concluded the worthy man, as if he doubted what reception the pious verses he had just recited might receive in heaven, and was determined to clinch the matter in prose ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... the purposes spines serve me. Which of you defies the fox or terrier in the open? I leave the fliers out—running away is not defence. To me a fight is child's play. The more inquisitive my foe, the tighter do I clinch myself together. They get more harm ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... who are hard up are "wasters." No one has any business to be hard up; "respectable" men live on what they've got. If any one were to ask him how people are to live within their means when they've not got any, he would reply with the word "bunkum" and clinch the argument with a grunt. It will be understood that conversation with Mr. Adolf Reiss is ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... d—d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge, and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at composure, but with a voice that trembled with ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... creatures might be traced, were it profitable. Down what a vale of little intricate follies should we be going, lighted by one ghastly conclusion! At times, struggling from the midst of her sophisms, Cornelia prayed her lover would claim her openly, and so nerve her to a pitch of energy that would clinch the ruinous debate. Forgetting that she was an 'ideal'—the accredited mistress of pure wisdom and of the power of deciding rightly—she prayed to be dealt with as a thoughtless person, and one of the herd of women. She felt that Sir Purcell threw too much on her. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... glad of your epigram. It is odd that we should both let our wits run away with our sentiments; for I am sure that we are both Queen's men at bottom. But there is no resisting a clinch—it is so clever! Apropos of that—we have a 'diphthong' also in this part of the world—not a Greek, but a Spanish one—do you understand me?—which is about to blow up the whole alphabet. It was first pronounced at Naples, and is spreading; but we are nearer the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... wishbone. First he'd swing her round with her head bent back until her barrette almost scraped the floor; then he'd yank her up, toss her in the air, and let her trickle graceful down his shirt front, like he was a human stair rail. Next, as the music hit the high spots, they'd go to a close clinch, and whirl and dip and pivot until she breaks loose, takes a flyin' leap, and lands shoulder high in his hands, while he walks around with her like she was something he was bringin' ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... was. A girl like that would not take seriously a "steamer friendship." She was only doing what all young people do on such trips, making pleasant acquaintances with whom to pass away the monotonous days. "Sure, sure," said he, as if to clinch the argument, but nevertheless, deep within his soul there was an undercurrent of protest against ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... years," replied Hyde, promptly. "I bought it when I was touring in the United States, at a town called Guthrie, in Oklahoma. And," he added suddenly and with a triumphant smile as of a man who is unexpectedly able to clinch an argument, "there is a gentleman there who was with me when I bought it—Mr. ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... of the axe had caused Cuthfert to drop the pistol, and as his lungs panted for release, he fumbled aimlessly for it among the blankets. Then he remembered. He slid a hand up the clerk's belt to the sheath-knife; and they drew very close to each other in that last clinch. ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... to the mayor with the plain intent of getting down to a working understanding, Mr. Daunt broke up what threatened to be an embarrassing clinch. As if carried away by enthusiasm in meeting one of his own kind in business affairs, Daunt grabbed Morrison's hand and pulled the mayor away with him toward the door, assuring him that he was glad to pitch in, heart and ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... his own hands. On the same day, Major Dade, leading a relief expedition from Tampa Bay, was ambushed and overwhelmed near Wahoo Swamp. Only four of his men escaped death. Within forty-eight hours, on the last day of the year, General Clinch, commanding the troops in Florida, won a bloody fight on the banks of ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... her own, and allowed to nurse freely. Thus a friendship sprang up between the kitten and the woodchuck, which lasted as long as the latter lived. They would play together precisely like two kittens,—clinch and tumble about and roll upon the grass in a very amusing way. Finally the woodchuck took up his abode under the floor of the kitchen, and gradually relapsed into a half-wild state. He would permit ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... a strawberry garden on your roof or even on a balcony. This need not be costly. Clinch all the nails on the inside of a stout barrel. Bore half a dozen two-inch holes in the bottom, or put in a layer of stones, for drainage. Bore a row of eight holes about eight inches from the bottom ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... held its position by reason of its recent success against the extreme demands of State sovereignty. The right of women to vote under national protection was but the logical result of the political guarantees of the war, and Republican leaders should have been anxious to clinch their war record ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... there. A hundred times I took the locket out of its hiding-place and wondered what to do, and at last it came to me that the first question the Judge would ask was why I had not told him at once. That was enough to clinch the matter; until to-night the secret has been my own and you can blame me or not, as ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... laid aside; an old Indian night-gown was wrapped about his rugged limbs; a red nightcap overshadowed his frowning brow; an iron-grey beard of three days' growth gave additional grimness to his visage. Thrice did he seize a worn-out stump of a pen, and essay to sign the loathsome paper; thrice did he clinch his teeth, and make a horrible countenance, as though a dose of rhubarb-senna, and ipecacuanha, had been offered to his lips. At length, dashing it from him, he seized his brass-hilted sword, and jerking it from the scabbard, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... attention. Luckily, I did not understand the import of what he said till he had taken himself off, with an unusually deep bow of thanks to myself. The only comfort we derived was the reflection that these lies were too audacious to be aught but inventions made up to clinch the wavering and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... the penitentiary for life? Had it been Worthington, striving to reproduce the murder of Tom Langdon as he evidently had reconstructed it, experimenting with his experts in the safety of a different city, for points of evidence that would clinch the case against the accused man beyond all shadow of a doubt? Instinctively Houston felt that he just had heard an unwritten, unmentioned phase of his own murder case. Yet—if that had been Worthington, if those experts had found evidence against him, if the theories ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... you, and that was all I cared about. If all this had not happened everything would have been all right. But, you see, nine-tenths of what that girl said to you was so perfectly true that it is humanly impossible for you not to believe the other tenth, which wasn't. And then, to clinch it, you hear Nutty consoling me. That ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... Major Talbot as one pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, raveling shirt front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the Major's supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment could have been designed from no ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah—'And God had prepared a great ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... never make the third!" 'Flower o' the pine, You keep your mistr. . .manners, and I'll stick to mine!' I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! {240} Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clinch my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do, and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... together, the very thing that must be religiously stifled and hid, emanated from her like fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond—were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that—or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal—for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... proposed that if a hundred families would pay him regularly 50 cents a week, he would undertake to supply them with garden truck, provisions and meats at wholesale prices. To clinch the demonstration he showed that an average family would save this 50-cent weekly fee ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... your happiness lay in your study and in society, and that any path which led you elsewhere was a departure from happiness." Through nine pages of gentle and friendly eloquence Deyverdun pursues his argument to induce his friend to clinch the bargain. "I advise you not only not to solicit a place, but to refuse one if it were offered to you. Would a thousand a year make up to you for the loss of five days a week?... By making this retreat to Switzerland, besides the beauty of the ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... the rail, riveted by the paralysis of fright, saw her champion stagger back and half crumple to the deck. Then she saw him make a brave and desperate rally, as, though torn with agony, he lurched forward in an endeavor to clinch with the brute before him. Again the mucker struck his victim—quick choppy hooks that rocked Mallory's head from side to side, and again the brutal blow below the belt; but with the tenacity of a bulldog the man fought for a hold upon his foe, and at last, notwithstanding Byrne's ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... looking to see me: you seem overcome By the unexpected pleasure. Your pardon, mistress, If I intrude. By crikes! But I'm no ghost To set you adither: you don't see anything wrong— No, no! What should you see? I startled you. Happen I look a wee bit muggerishlike— A ragtag hipplety-clinch: but I've been travelling Mischancy roads; and I'm fair muggert-up. Yet, why should that stagnate you? Where's the sense Of expecting a mislucket man like me To be as snod and spruce as a young shaver? ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

... fists up, worked in as close as he could, trying to get in under the big bully's guard for a clinch, so that Hal Hastings could finish the work of successful attack. Dan, fighting with the fury and strategy of desperation, kept them both ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... willingly assumed the additional task of assorting and recording them, verifying when possible the information presented, and extending the correspondence personally when this proved to be necessary either to trace a clew or clinch a fact. The information obtained in this way showed, first, that a very large number of colored inventors had consulted patent lawyers on the subject of getting patents on their inventions, but were obliged finally to abandon the project ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... if he elbowed in and tried to break up the Clinch, it would mean a Rope Ladder, a piece in the Papers, and a final Reconciliation, with Parent playing the usual role ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... crossed the mountains from North Carolina, and, building a cabin on the banks of Watauga Creek, began the settlement of Tennessee. James Robertson and a host of others followed in 1770, and soon the valleys of the Clinch and the Holston were dotted with cabins. In 1769 Daniel Boone, one of the grandest figures in frontier history, began his exploits in what is now Kentucky, and before 1777 Boonesboro, Harrodsburg, and ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... just a poor dumb brute, my Roderick Dhu, And our scientific brethren scoff at you. They "reason" and they "think," Then they set it down in ink, And clinch it with their learned "point ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and he'll rise up in the middle and look at 'ee. There was no one a patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back the Dane next time they clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like this—with a big job coming on, too, over ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... recognizing the fourfold—physical, mental, social and spiritual—life of the scholars, in planning for the work of the class. The tremendous opportunity of teachers for reaching adolescent boys for Jesus Christ, through their physical and social instincts, was emphasized. Luke 2:52 was quoted to clinch the argument. In the discussion that followed everybody seemed satisfied that a broader policy of work should be pursued. At this juncture a man in the audience arose, and, in a most uncompromising manner, attempted ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander

... hit. Don't butt nor trip. Don't clinch. Don't use knee, elbow, nor shoulder. When I call 'Break away,' break without hitting. If you do any of these things you will be jolly well disqualified. Fight fair and God have mercy on your souls." To Dam it seemed ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... the ground work for combining and working out the problems of the future. He was epigrammatic, terse, and gifted with a quaint humour, with which he was apt, even when in the driest philosophy, to drive in and clinch ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... staring at the schoolmaster and his cousin. "Gone to a clinch, have they? Huh! I guess it's time ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... Creek. This last name owes its origin to its valley having been resorted to by the herdsmen of the country, for the attainment of a good range, or choice pasture-ground, for their cattle. The creek rises in Powell's mountain, and is tributary to Clinch river, which it enters at the distance of between two and three miles below the tunnel. The aspect of the surrounding country, and especially of that to the northward of the tunnel, and constituting the southerly slope of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... was not lost upon Jube, who offered a culminating inducement to clinch the trade. He suddenly stood erect, teetered fantastically on one foot, as if about to begin to dance, and held out ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... strong p'int o' law, I've heerd tell, not that I know much o' law, Goodness knows, nor ever want to, but never mind, it's a strong p'int when there's two witnesses to a thing,—one to clinch what the t'other drives in; and you must have a show o' law to work on Alf. Barton, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... eight apprentices were unable to swim. The senior apprentice, a boy named Robert Clinch, seventeen years old, swam out, and brought back two of his young companions in safety to the keel of the upturned boat. Clinch was just starting to bring in the third lad, the youngest of them all, when there ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... a pair of legs if needed. Next make a T-rail, Fig. 4, of two boards, one 5 by 3/4 by 32 in., the other 3-1/2 by 3/4 by 32 in. Threequarter inch of the wider board projects over each of the smaller boards. Nail firmly and clinch nails, or screw together. Screw this rail on the machine board so that its center coincides exactly with the machine centers. Bore a number of 3/8-in. holes with centers 2-3/4 in. apart along the center line of this rail, beginning 6 in. from the end nearest the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... than prevent the opposing troops from being sent to reinforce the defence against the main offensive. For this purpose they were perhaps needlessly aggressive, for each resulted in the capture of ground which could not be held, and the forces engaged in these local enterprises were badly needed to clinch the nearly successful major operation. Later on in the war it was found that enemy troops could be contained along the line without such numerous and expensive precautionary attacks, and possibly these were really intended not so much to contain the enemy ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... of the first rush, ending in complete victory for the Freshmen, Haviland had been so unfortunate as to clinch with Cap Smith, and he was largely responsible for the ignominious tying up of that husky Sophomore. He would much rather have been carted off himself, if it hadn't been for the class. He saw his Beta Rho chances vanishing. Pellams evidently did not know ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... up till then that an actor lived like a god on praise and greasepaint and his photograph in the papers. "Another cup, won't you?" says Miss Gladys Cooper; "No, thank you," says Mr. Dennis Eadie—dash it, it's exactly what we do at home ourselves. And when, to clinch matters, the dramatist makes Mr. Gerald du Maurier light a real cigarette in the Third Act, then he can flatter himself that he has indeed achieved the ambition of every stage writer, and "brought the actual scent of the ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... laughed curiously. That brought his entreating back to them, and he assured them, looking in their faces, that he truly did need to be told why they wanted him. So they held up the gold and asked him whose that had been, and he made a wretched hesitation in answering. If anything was needed to clinch their certainty, that did. They could not know that the young successful lover had recognized Drylyn's strange face, and did not want to tell the truth before him, and hence was telling an unskilful lie instead. A rattle ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... fragmentary sentences, must have been a very curious and an interesting book. He mentions, among other similar cases, that our little fish phycis has a close outward semblance to the sea-perch; and this is enough to clinch the proof that Aristotle's nest-building fish was not a goby but a wrasse. The whole purport of Speusippus's book seems to have been to discuss how, or why, with all Nature's apparently infinite variety, certain animals have a ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... background of shelves laden with bright-coloured calicoes, and a line of tin pails hanging overhead, and stated his view of the case with vigour. He even pulled off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeve to show the knotty arguments with which he proposed to clinch his opinion. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke









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