"Slap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quite dumb. She fetched him a sharp slap on the face. He started, and his eyes widened. Then his face darkened ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... this caution, did watch his friend very closely, but he saw nothing to frighten him until, as they were about to start for home, Captain Eri suddenly struck his thigh a resounding slap ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... be the last that seen 'im alive. All told, 'tain't more'n 'arf-an-'our since 'e left. 'Good-night, O'Dell,' sez 'e. 'Miss Carryll's still working—don't lock 'er in,' sez 'e. Would 'ave 'is joke. Must 'ave gone round the corner an' slap inter the car. Wish to God ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... woman to-night, Mis Wilkins.' 'How so?' sez I, as ef nuthin' was the matter already. "'Why,' sez he, 'the spilins have give way up in the rayvine, and the brook 's come down like a river, upsot your lean-to, washed the mellion patch slap into the road, and while your husband was tryin' to git the pig out of the pen, the water took a turn and swep ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... banks out here are full of spies—-Chinese clerks and all hands—and they are watching day and night. The masters of the colliers and the blockade-runners into Port Arthur won't take checks or other money—they want it slap down in solid gold before they will sail, and this gold had to ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... that and Red called her his ghost sweetheart, although the slap had convinced him it wasn't a ghost. Red's getting slapped was the first indication that perhaps this thing did have matter of some sort, but its ability to remain invisible made it appear that the matter wasn't the ...
— The Minus Woman • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... horror; she came springing lightly down the castle wall; cried: "Don't do that, you naughty little boy!" and caught the prince a resounding slap on ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... adjourned, a hundred men crushed in to slap his back. He had never known a higher moment. He drove away in a blur of wonder. He lunged into his office, chuckling to Miss McGoun, "Well, I guess you better congratulate your boss! Been elected vice-president ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... presumed to mention marriage; but was always answered with a slap, a hoot, and a flounce. At last he began to press her closer, and thought himself more favourably received; but going one morning, with a resolution to trifle no longer, he found her gone to church with a young journeyman from the neighbouring shop, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... at short notice &c; immediately &c (early) 132; posthaste; by cable, by express, by telegraph, by forced marches. hastily, precipitately &c adj.; helter-skelter, hurry-skurry^, holus-bolus; slapdash, slap-bang; full-tilt, full drive; heels over head, head and shoulders, headlong, a corps perdu [Fr.]. by fits and starts, by spurts; hop skip and jump. Phr. [panic] sauve qui peut [Fr.], every man for himself [Fr.Tr.], devil take the hindmost, no time to be lost; no sooner said than done &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ole Hannah, my gun, I calls her Old Hannah, and come to de store to buy some shells. Y'all know whut went on at de store. Well, it made me feel lak I wuz gointergit dat ole gobbler if I had to follow him clean to Diddy war Diddy or slap into Ginny-Gall. But I didn't have to do nothin'. When I got out by de ole mule bones, I seen 'em flyin' round lak buzzards. So I loaded both barrels, squatted down on uh log where I had dead aim on dat big ole cypress pine where they roosts at. Sho nuff, soon's de sun ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... swim at the same time. For the Muskrats all had a warning signal that told everybody when there was danger. When one of them caught sight of Peter Mink he never failed—if he was in the water—to give a loud slap upon the surface ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... wore a wide-brimmed, high-crowned felt hat, old and battered, its brim curled disreputably at all angles. She perceived that, after a few words together, this fellow and De Launay appeared to be on the best of terms, shaking hands cordially, conversing with much laughter and an occasional slap on the back. Finally the man, in the shelter of a truck loaded with baggage, produced a bottle from his hip pocket and offered it to De Launay who, with a preliminary salute, lifted it to his mouth. After which he wiped the neck of it with ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers immediately turn their backs on him, and give a loud slap on their right thigh. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... first, but ever straighter and faster for the Cauldstaneslap, a pass among the hills to which the farm owed its name. The Slap opened like a doorway between two rounded hillocks; and through this ran the short cut to Hermiston. Immediately on the other side it went down through the Deil's Hags, a considerable marshy hollow of the hill tops, full of springs, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quieter up on deck now, for the sailors had ceased rushing about adjusting the canvas, though there was still plenty of noise. There was the rattle and bang of blocks, the whipping about of ends of ropes, the slap, now and then, of the storm jib, as it was whipped back and forth. Now and then a heavy sea would fall on deck with ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... this slap at her I do not know, but certain it is that she was satisfied with my father taking the responsibility of refusal on his own shoulders, and she therefore continued: "I often have told Mr. Saunders how happy ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... auf die Kongilich-Preussischen unter dem Prinzen Heinrich geschehen (Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 362-364). Ausfuhrlicher Bericht von der den 15ten October, 1762, bey Brand vorgefallenen Action (Ib. iii. 350-362). Tempelhof, vi. 238.] Giving him, in this manner, what soldiers call a slap; slap which might have been more considerable, had those Stollberg people followed it up with emphasis. But they did not; so alert was Henri. Henri at once rallied beautifully from his slap (King's reinforcements coming too, as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... can't you—you young 'uns give me a minute's peace? Land knows, I'm almost gone up—washin' an' milkin' six cows, and tendin' you and cookin' f'r him, ought'o be enough f'r one day! Sadie, you let him drink now'r I'll slap your head off, you hateful thing! Why can't you behave, when you know I'm jest about dead." She was weeping now, with nervous weakness. "Where's y'r pa?" she asked after a moment, wiping ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour; and did at length become so acid, and did so pinch and slap and tweak the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, that she was by one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to bless some other spot of earth, in preference. It chanced at that moment, that the justices of the peace for Middlesex proclaimed by public ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... is dull enough without civilized man's efforts to reduce it to positive boredom, and although Chiquita's escapades had acted like a slap in the face, they had nevertheless done much to arouse the spirit of the otherwise sleepy old town. Her presence was fresh and invigorating as the north wind. Moreover, the very ones who criticised her most in secret, were usually the first to come to her for advice when in trouble. For ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... salicylate of soda for muscular rheumatism wakes one early winter morning with an aching neck. In the twilight she takes what she supposes to be her customary powder from a drawer, dissolves it in a glass of water, and is about to drink it down, when she feels a sharp slap on her shoulder and hears a voice in her ear saying, "Taste it!" On examination, she finds she has got a morphine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in this quasi-explosive way. A ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... but a man of mine own hand, and I take thy bidding, goodman, for this night, but as to thereafter we will look to it; but as to they youngling, I will look to him at once and teach him a little manners." And therewith he went up to Osberne and smote him a cheek-slap from behind. Surly John laughed, and made a mow at him, and said: "Ho! young wolf-slayer, feelest thou that? Now is come the end of they mastery!" But neither for slap nor for gibe did Osberne flinch one whit, or ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... confided to the pages of her diary. "She comes down here and is very uncomforterble. Well he is bringing me up good, in some ways better than she did. When he swears he always puts out his hand for me to slap him. He had enough to swear of. He can't get any work or earn wages. The advertisement business is on the bum this year becase times are so hard up. The advertisers have to save their money and advertising agents are failing right and left. So poor ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the fire gradually quickens to the full rate, the coaches urging the slow ones on, holding the hasty ones back. The fire slackens, and seems stopped, when as the targets sink at the ninety seconds, two last hasty shots slap out. The round is over. In the brief time the three dozen men have fired three hundred ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... beaten bare and white in the midst of a yellow mustard jungle. They saw some loiterers creeping home, carrying dinner-pail and basket, and taking a languid last tag of each other. The little girls looked up at the passing carriage from their sunbonnet depths, but the boys had taken off their hats to slap each other with: they looked at the strangers, round-eyed and ready to smile, and Robert and Corinne nodded. Grandma Padgett bethought herself to ask if any of them had seen a moving wagon pass that way. The girls stared bashfully ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... disgraceful and her langwidge a disgrace to her secks'—Well, I'll be hanged if she isn't a girl after a man's own heart, if she's handsome enough to dress like a lad, and has the spirit to ride and leap like one—and can slap a Chaplain's face for him when he plays the impudent goat. Aren't you of my opinion, Roxholm, for all you don't laugh as loud as the rest of us? ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... go on in this way for ever; dirty weather came on, and then worse weather, and when we least expected it we got into tremendous difficulties. Screw loose in the chart perhaps—something certainly wrong somewhere—but here we were with breakers ahead, my lads, driving head on, slap on a lee shore! The Skipper broached this terrific announcement in such great agitation, that the small fifer, not fifeing now, but standing looking on near the wheel with his fife under his arm, seemed for the moment quite unboyed, though ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... way—some screw, or cock, or lever failed to act. The boat became unmanageable, could not be stopped, or slowed, or done anything with. In short, she ran away. But Pirate Tom was not to be imposed on by any such feeble tricks. He immediately steered the Lily slap into the nearest bank and tied her up to a tree. Then the three went on shore, with a bottle of rum and a pack of cards, and sat down at a respectful distance to await the progress of events, and to enjoy ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... with any respect," whispered Miss Chim to the Insect, "or you'll get him riled. Sneer at him, and slap his face ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... the working class the doctrine of humility: tell them that if they get a slap on one cheek to turn the other, and, 'blessed are the poor.' They tell us to bear the cross and wear the crown, that we will get back in the next world what is stolen from us in this. In other words, ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... are round, thin plates of metal, Mr. Sears, with handles on one side to hold them by; and the player clashes them together, at certain parts of the music—as you would slap ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... And how does the dear Battist[8]? I long for some of his new compositions in the last opera. A propos! I have had the most happy invention this morning, and a tune trouling in my head; I rise immediately in my night-gown and slippers, down I put the notes slap-dash, made words to them like lightning; and I warrant you have them at the circle in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... I regained my power of speech, and inquired whether the phrenologist was ready. He replied affirmatively; whereupon my right hand discovered the bump of impudence with a tremendous slap on his left cheek, while my left hand detected the organ of blackguardism with equal prominence ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... down on his knee with a hard slap. "I reckon I can handle any ship that was ever built," he said, "but I'm a lubber on land, boys. Charley's our pilot from now on, an' we must mind him, lads, like ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and run her errands when young Pierre, the husband, was in camp. When the logging season was over, Lola's cottage vied with the Black Cat in popularity. Pierre was a noted card player, but, oh! Lola's song sounded above the slap of pasteboard and the click of glasses. How pretty she was—and how the women hated her! The men were eager to serve her. She had no need to command; her desires seemed granted before she voiced them—poor, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... the high-minded mountain filly seriously as a tragic heroine, and I confess I hold Finn equally suspect, disguised as a beggar though he is, when he speaks of himself to Grania as a hard man—"as hard as a barren step-mother's slap, or a highway gander's gob." After all, in heroic literature, we must have the illusion of the heroic. If we can get the peasant statement of the heroic, that is excellent; its sincerity brings its illusion. But ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... had got them? None of them would talk to her of anything but the things of love, and how foolish and fatiguing that became after a bit. It was as though a healthy person with a normal hunger was given nothing whatever to eat but sugar. Love, love . . . the very word made her want to slap somebody. "Why should I love you? Why should I?" she would ask amazed sometimes when somebody was trying—somebody was always trying—to propose to her. But she never got a real answer, only ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly, especially when the instruction is by the way of a ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... minor irritation to that officer, and he reacted—fast. He didn't just slap me for effect. He was infuriated at the insult to his authority. Not only that, but his men expected him to react in just that manner. I noted that, too. He'd have lost face if he'd acted in any other way. And the men-at-arms ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... time. Understand me straight. I can slap you into a lock-up, if I want to, and then bring in that evidence. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to use you as a trap and through you get some of the worst ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... after me: "Hey, boy, why so high and mighty?" And in my own country, where one turns more quickly to measures sharper than words, this loftiness brought upon me even fiercer attacks. A country lad imitated my proud bearing and pure Italian, getting for it a slap with a towel which I carried on my way to bathe in the sea. On my return the answer came - a stab in my back which for days forced me to assume ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... if we know it," said Fred. "Here, slap your arms about you this way as hard as you can, and jump up and down as if you were crazy. Never mind how it looks, if only you get the blood to circulating good. Bristles, it's up to you and me to start a fire ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... white corn-meal and add a teaspoonful of salt; pour on enough cold water to make a mixture that will squeeze easily through the fingers. Work to a soft dough. Mould into oblong cakes an inch thick at the ends, and a little thicker in the centre. Slap them down on the pan and press them a little to show the marks of the fingers. Bake in ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... back quivered perpetually as her minute body expanded and contracted in the effort of breathing. Her beady eyes were open and fixed furtively upon her mistress, as if in inquiry or alarm, and her whole soul was whirling in a turmoil set in motion by the first slap she had ever received in gravity at the hands of Cuckoo. Jessie's inner nature was stung by that slap. It knocked her world over, like a doll hit by a child. Her universe lay prone ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... to see them and kiss them and have them throw their arms about me, before going to bed. I get the best nurse I can for them—the present one is a Swede, the last one, Irish—but they seem to be such stupid, cranky things! However, one thing I insist upon—they are not to slap the children, and are to let them have their own way, as far as possible. And I make it equally plain to the children that if they have any grievance, they needn't mind about their father—all they have to do is come to me, and throw their arms about my neck, and I will do the best to straighten ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... won't do! Pechorin must be taught a lesson! These Petersburg fledglings always carry their heads high until they get a slap in the face! He thinks that because he always wears clean gloves and polished boots he is the only one who has ever lived in society. And what a haughty smile! All the same, I am convinced that he is a coward—yes, ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... finished, he gave the horse a slap on the neck with his hands. In a twinkling, up came the steed's hind heels, and poor Hans slid out of the saddle and down ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... mighty hunters of minks and musk-rats, whence came the word Peltry.—Then the Van Nests of Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers of birds'-nests, as their name denotes. To these, if report may be believed, are we indebted for the invention of slap-jacks, or buckwheat-cakes.—Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's creek. These came armed with ferules and birchen rods, being a race of schoolmasters, who first discovered the marvelous sympathy between the seat ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... on you," said Edwards. The sooner gathered up the reins. Miller turned the horse halfway round as though he was going to lead him under the tree, gave him a slap in the flank with his hand, and the sooner, throwing the rowels of his spurs into the horse, shot out from us like a startled deer. We called to him to halt, as half a dozen six-shooters encouraged him to go by opening a fusillade on the fleeing horseman, who only hit the high places ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... in battle that foremost of heroes, Vasudeva's son Krishna endued with great energy, wisheth to cross by his two arms alone the great ocean of wide expanse and immeasurable water. He that wisheth to split by a slap of his palm the high Kailasa mountain, is not able to do the slightest damage to the mountain although his hand only with its nails is sure to wear away. He that would conquer Vasudeva in battle, would, with his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... horse paused to breathe, heaving a great sigh, looking discouragedly at the climb yet before him. Lance came to himself and swung off, giving the horse an apologetic slap on the shoulder. "You ought to kick me cold, Sorry, for making you pack my hulking carcase up this hill. Why didn't you stop ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... swung upward, a man with a vicious slap on the animal's thigh, sent a horse bounding in. He followed the horse. Then after him came five other men, crowding in with every appearance of haste. Not a word had been spoken ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... touched with compunction at the thoughts of approaching loneliness. Ripton, his mouth drawn like a bow to his ears, brought up the rear to the carriage, receiving a fair slap on the cheek from an old shoe precipitated by Mrs. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Rhime; and among those who have the Latin Tongue, such as use to make what they call golden Verses. Commend me also to those who have not Brains enough for any of these Exercises, and yet do not give up their Pretensions to Mirth. These can slap you on the Back unawares, laugh loud, ask you how you do with a Twang on your Shoulders, say you are dull to-day, and laugh a Voluntary to put you in Humour; the laborious Way among the minor Poets, of making things come into such ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... injuries that can only be wiped out in blood. And, when a great country like ours has received a slap in the face like that of 1870, it can wait forty years, fifty years, but a day comes when it returns the slap in the face ... and ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... appetite, however. It is not surprising therefore, that his attention was drawn to the bills of a restaurant on the opposite side of the street. He crossed over, and standing outside, began to examine them to see what was the scale of prices. While in this position he was suddenly aroused by a slap ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... with a printer, to whom I carried a pamphlet in manuscript, that Mr. Secretary gave me. The printer sent it to the Secretary for his approbation, and he desired me to look it over, which I did, and found it a very scurvy piece. The reason I tell you so, is because it was done by your parson Slap, Scrap, Flap (what d'ye call him), Trapp,(5) your Chancellor's chaplain. 'Tis called A Character of the Present Set of Whigs, and is going to be printed, and no doubt the author will take care to produce it in Ireland. Dr. Freind was with ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... old Joe do but go right up and slap him on the back in that hearty way that old Worble went as near screaming as his weak state ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of elegant gossip, tell of strange and interesting events, the secrets of families, brave deeds of war, the miraculous discovery of crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her uncle would sit till the small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding the unexpected incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, more pleased with the narrator's eloquence and wise reflections; and then, again, days would follow of abstraction, of listless humming, of frequent apologies and long hours of silence. Once only, and then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he went over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... frightened in its timid youth; but if so, surely the robust self-assertion of its straight start for Gattrell's had in it something of contempt for the poor old board, coupled with its well-known intention of turning to the left and going slap through the wood the minute you (or it) got there. It may even have twitted that board with its apathy in respect of trespassers. Had the threat ever ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... door slammed shut Lovin Child looked after him, scowling, his eyes a blaze of resentment. He brought his palms together with a vicious slap, leaned over, and bumped his forehead deliberately and painfully upon the flat rock hearth, and set up a howl that could have been heard ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... class comes into play. The upper limbs are set in motion. Children frequently clap their hands in glee; by some adults the hands are rubbed together; and others, under still greater intensity of delight, slap their knees and sway their bodies backwards and forwards. Last of all, when the other channels for the escape of the surplus nerve-force have been filled to overflowing, a yet further and less-used group of ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... they say, my lord; but I wad hae a try at the haudin' o' 't thegither for a' that. I dinna see 'at the deil sud hae 't a' his ain gait, as gien we war a' fleyt at him. Fowk hae threepit upo' me that there i' the gloamin' they hae seen an' awsome face luikin' in upo' them throu' that slap i' the wa'; but I never believed it was onything but their ain fancy, though for a' 'at I ken, it may ha' been something no canny. Still, I say, wha 's feart? The Ill Man has no pooer 'cep ower his ain kin. We 're tellt to resist him ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... As they left the town behind; Merrily shouted they and gladdened At the slip-slap of the wind. But envious were those faint home-keepers, Faint land-lovers, as they saw How the Glory dipped and staggered— Envying saw Pass the ship while all ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... cast a longing and lingering look towards decimals. My answer and the smiles which he saw around, made him give a queer puzzled look, which seemed to say, "I may be out of my depth here!" His manner changed, and he listened. I saw both the slap-dash mode in which he dealt with subjects on which he had not thought, and the temperament which admitted suspicion when the means of knowledge came in his way. Having seen his two phases, I wonder neither at his more than usual exhibition of shallowness when shallow, nor at ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... had dropped into the dinghy, the Tremendous began to slap the water, shaking out ragged topsails as she slid out of the harbour, a misty rain ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Cap'n; I tol' you in ole Kentuck that I gwine to fight wid the niggers ef you don't lemme fight wid you. I don't like disgracin' the family dis way, but 'tain't my fault, an' s'pose you git shot—" the slap of the flat side of a sword across Bob's back ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... talked and walked and read the masterpieces of literature and played duets on the piano together. Sometimes (for he was the more brilliant performer, though as he said "terribly lazy about practising," for which she scolded him) he would gently slap the back of her hand, if she played a wrong note, and say "Naughty!" And she would reply in baby language "Me vewy sowwy! Oo naughty too to hurt Lucia!" That was the utmost extent of their carnal familiarities, and with bright eyes fixed on the music they would break ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... beatin's. Onliest thing I evah got was a li'l slap on de han', lak dat. Didn't hurt none. But I'se seen cullud men on de Bradley plantation git tur'ble beatin's. De whippin' boss was Joe Sylvester, a white man. He had pets mongst de wimmen folks, an' used t' let 'em off easy, w'en dey desarved a good beatin'. Sometimes 'e jes' bop 'em crost de ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... a bright child he is!' Is that right? You are to blame for all this. You should think of the salvation of your soul. Is that the way to do it? You say one unkind word to me and I will reply with two. You will give me one slap in the face, and I will retaliate with two slaps. No, my son; Christ did not teach us foolish people to act in such a way. If any one should say an unkind word to you it is better not to answer at all; but if you do reply do it kindly, and his conscience will accuse ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... right-down slatternly, and her children are coming up any how. If she'd just spend the time a-scouring as she spends a-chattering, her house 'd be the cleanest place in Oxfordshire. But as for the poor children, I'm that sorry! Whatever they do, or don't do, they get a slap for it; and then she turns round on me because I don't treat mine the same. Why, there's nothing spoils children's tempers like everlasting scolding and slapping of 'em. I declare I don't know which to be sorriest ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... hands upon portions of our dinner, was pounced upon by one or other of her family, roughly shaken or thumped, and banged down upon a hard wooden chair; while from some other loving relative came the remark, made between set teeth, "I'd slap her, I would!" Poor little thing! she did not seem "a' there," as the Scotch say; the frequent boxing and banging her poor head underwent probably increasing, if it did not occasion, ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... continued amazement Haines saw the Senator walk away with the old Union Colonel, slap him on the back, cheer him up and finally bid him good-by after extending a cordial invitation to come around to dinner, meet his daughters and talk over ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... me that Jane Fairfax, who plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole, I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of it; and there ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... that his poor old boat, scarcely sound enough for the men of Gotham, was already complaining of the uncouth manners of the strange place to which she had been carried in the dark. That is to say, she was beginning to groan, at a very quiet slap in the cheeks, or even a thoroughly well-meaning push in ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... saddle with its gay coloured Navajo blanket, and the bridle of plaited rawhide with its conchos and its silver bit. Now he rubbed the back of his horse where the saddle had been, ending with a slap that sent the beast off with head down and glad heels in ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... slap and flew straight for Sary's red head. She unceremoniously ducked and ran. But the insect buzzed after her with evil intent, so Sary ran for her sanctuary, slamming the screen door safely between herself and her ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... gave Master Appleditch a smart slap across the fingers, as the ultimate resource. The child screamed as he well knew how. His mother burst ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... of heavy machinery, which could suffer no injury from a blow of the head of a careless observer. Strong and simple, they rarely got out of order. It is said that an assistant who showed a visiting astronomer the transit circle some times hit it a good slap to show how solid it was; but this was not done on the present occasion. The little army had its weekly marching orders and made daily reports of progress to its commander, who was thus enabled to control the minutest detail ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... to life in Bob McGraw. His right arm shot out, his open palm landed with a resounding thwack on the side of Carey's head. As the land-grabber lurched from the impact of that terrific slap, McGraw's left palm straightened him up on the other ear, and he subsided incontinently ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... speculation; of the comedy in yourself there can be no doubt. When you get the essential humour out of yourself, you get the infallible touch, and you arrest and attract everyone. You are not the superior person. In effect, you slap your neighbour on the back and say, "We're all in the same boat; let us enjoy the joke"; and you find he will come to you with glistening eye. He may feel a little foolish at first—you are poking his ribs; but you cannot help it—having given him the way to poke your own. By ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... opportunity of sacrificing the main issue to pursue some subsidiary policy. Men whom De Wet loves, and whom he plays with, decoys, and bluffs until he achieves his object. Men whose heart will not take them, like Plumer, "slap-bang" along the course which must lead to heavy conclusions, if the enemy will fight; but who prefer to fritter away the morale and efficiency of their columns in pursuing a phantom enemy. Choosing a country in which an enemy as sagacious as the Boer would never operate, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... the glacier we were faced with two alternatives: either to march right round the icefalls, as we had done coming south, and thus waste three whole days, or to take our lives in our hands and attempt to get the sledge slap over the falls. This would mean facing tremendous drops, which might end in a catastrophe. The discussion was very short-lived, and with rather a sinking feeling the descent of the great ice falls was commenced. We packed our ski on the sledge, attached spiked crampons to our finnesko, and guided ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... attending Justice Field, against the will of the latter and in spite of his protest, in obedience to an order from the Attorney-General of the United States to Marshal Franks to detail a deputy to protect the person of Justice Field from Terry's threatened violence. A slap in the face may not, under ordinary circumstances, be sufficient provocation to justify the taking of human life; but it must be remembered that there were no ordinary circumstances and that Terry was no ordinary man. Terry was a noted pistol-shot; it was known that he invariably carried arms ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... Dorinda struck her palms together with a slap, as if her husband had been what she often called him, a parrot. Then, without another glance in his direction, she stepped backward and took her stand ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... full length the portrait of his own bedevilled soul, and of the bleak and blackguardly world which was the theatre of his exploits and sufferings. If the reader can conceive something between the slap-dash inconsequence of Byron's DON JUAN and the racy humorous gravity and brief noble touches that distinguish the vernacular poems of Burns, he will have formed some idea of Villon's style. To the latter writer - except in the ballades, which are quite his own, and can be paralleled from no other ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see the merchants standing gossiping on the sidewalk before the stores in an Ohio village where he had lived as a boy and in fancy saw himself again a boy, driving cows through the village street in the evening and making a delightful little slap slap with his bare feet in the ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... in,' said Robert, when he had groaned for some time; 'that's all. Don't mention it; I like it. The stairs just go right slap into the ceiling, and it's a stone ceiling. You can't do good and kind ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... appear and disappear like magic. I have seen "cured" (and have "cured") such patients, affected with paralysis, deafness, dumbness, blindness, etc., with reasoning, electricity, bitter tonics, fake electrodes, hypnotism, and in one case by a forcible slap upon a prominent and naked part of the body. Hysteria has been the basis of many a saint's reputation and likewise has aided many a physician ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... dead shot' Westerners call the slap-jacks—in silence. While the old man still pondered mazed and dumb, the Ranger dabbled the cups and plates in the River and recinched the pack saddle, the little mule blowing out his sides and groaning to ease the girth, the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... They would slap at one another, or snatch at any convenient ankle or hair, until Kokomo, the master of the kiva, would have to come and cuff them apart. Always he made believe that Tse-tse or I had started it, and one night he tried to ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... with unwonted enthusiasm, and nearly yielded to a laugh. Waldron went so far as to slap Herzog on ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... men!" shouted Gadsby, springing to his feet in the stern-sheets of the launch, and waving his sword above his head. "Give way, and get alongside before they can fire again. Gunners, fire slap at his bulwarks, and we'll board in the smoke. Marines, fire in through the open ports. Hurrah, lads, put your backs ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... There is such a comic dignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me" sort of air. Now, there is nothing haughty about a dog. They are "Hail, fellow, well met" with every Tom, Dick, or Harry that they come across. When I meet a dog of my acquaintance I slap his head, call him opprobrious epithets, and roll him over on his back; and there he lies, gaping at me, and ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... as the bar, wiped his watery eyes with his tremulous fist, as he saw Jack come swinging down, and, as he swept past with his open gait, powerful stroke, and stiffles playing well out, brought his hand with a mighty slap against his thigh, and said, "I'll be blowed if he isn't a ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... that back, and apologize. I cannot believe you knew. All the same, what you said was not the truth. No one asks you, nor does that letter ask you, to be a hypocrite. You said I did. That was not true. Now, if you wish to slap my face, go on." ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... know. Directly he was quite within reach she gave him a slap in the face that sounded like one plank falling upon another, and marched off with an air of royal dignity, as if she had done the most graceful and lady-like thing in ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... if needful, to make a sacrifice for the sake of the other. But that self-abnegation did not, after all, extend to Volodya, for when he heard that a certain diplomat was to marry the girl, he was disposed to slap his face and to challenge him to a duel. It happened that I had only spoken once to the young lady, and my love passed away in a week, as I made ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... week, that we did not work overtime at our table. When orders pour in and the mangle works every hour and extra folders are put on and the bundles of pillow cases pile up, then, no matter with what speed you manage to slap on those labels, you never seem to catch up. Night after night Nancy, Mamie, Margaret, and I worked overtime. From 7.15 in the morning till 6 at night is a long day. Then for sure and certain we did get tired, and indeed by the end of a week ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... pal that follows behind, Tip your bulk pretty soon; And to slap his whip in time, [4] For fear the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... said, "I don't call this place safe. It's right on the coast ... slap-up against the sea ... and you know, if a German cruiser was to drop a shell right in the middle of us, we'd look damn ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... I thought even more decisively as, when I opened the door of the little cafe, a burly, black-bearded figure with audacious eyes came at me with a grip and a slap and a roar of welcome, and dragged me to the quiet corner ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... matter? You look as sad as a low comedian by daylight!" Previous to this salutation came a ringing slap on ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... born in a log cabin, located at the confluence of "Richland Branch" and "Slap Swamp" in Bladen County, North Carolina, near the line of Columbus County, remote from cities and towns. His maternal grandmother was half-Indian and his paternal grandmother was Irish, full-blood. His other admixture is facetiously described as "mostly Negro." His early ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... waistcoat. When he was rolled up that way, all the little spears hidden in the hair of his coat stood right out until he looked like a great chestnut-burr. Bowser stopped short. Then he reached out his nose and sniffed at this queer thing. Slap! The tail of the stranger struck Bowser the Hound right across the side of his face, and a dozen of those little spears were left sticking there just ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... who has a long face with long, vertical lines, whose lips are rather thin, whose forehead is rather narrow and somewhat retreating, and whose back-head is only moderately developed or even deficient, is not a man to slap on the back. He will resent any familiarity or any jocular attempt to draw him down on a plane of equality with his employees. If such a man is also fine-textured, he is very sensitive and must be treated with deference ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb |
