"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gilbert, call. I have lost some strength with the passing of years, but I have never lost my ability to shoot straight," and he just showed him the butt of a pistol in the pocket ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... test Brunhild casts a spear with such force that both Gunther and his invisible companion stagger and nearly fall, but, just as she is about to cry victory, Siegfried sends back the spear butt-end foremost and brings her to her knees. Veiling her dismay at this first defeat, Brunhild hurls the stone to a great distance and lands beside it with a flying leap. In Gunther's place the invisible ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... of him, while Richard Tresidder had but scant courtesy paid him. When it became known that my father was disinherited, no matter how unjustly, these same folks discovered that Richard Tresidder was a very mine of wit and goodness, while my father was made a butt for fools' jokes. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... her? Give her back to me—or you die." He drew a pistol out of the breast-pocket of his coat. I seized the weapon by the barrel, and snatched it away from him. As the charge exploded harmlessly between us, I struck him on the head with the butt-end of the pistol. ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... Wilson was taking Sidney to Schwitter's, making her the butt of garage talk! The smiles of the men were evil. Joe's hands grew cold, his head hot. A red mist spread between him and the line of electric lights. He knew ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... corps' front, and then B Company passed through them and advanced the line to Rues des Vaches Farm. So rapid had been our advance that a party of Germans, still under the impression that they were behind their own lines, bumped right into a section of Mr Wood's platoon in a "grouse butt." On being challenged, the Bosche sergeant-major called out, "Welche Kompanie ist das?" (which company is that?) which seemed to annoy one Jock who replied "Welsh Company be damned. Take that, you ——, it's the Black Watch you're up against this time." Their carelessness cost them five ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... cussedness natural with the native horses, he abandoned all hope of instant success and gave way to brutality. Dropping the reins and reversing the whip in his hands, he began to beat the horse unmercifully, bringing the heavy butt down again and again, each mighty thwack echoing down the canyon. The result was inevitable. The horse began to kick—straight back at first, then, finding his hoofs striking the cart, he swung sideways to the tongue and kicked straight ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... I'd as lief her throat were cut! She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, Running amuck with horns well set to butt: Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: She's blown with grass, I ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... knight galloping towards me. All in black was he, and he rode a black horse. Not a word we spoke, but we dashed against each other, and at the first encounter I was unhorsed. Still not a word spoke the Black Knight, but passing the butt-end of his lance through my horse's reins, rode away, leaving me shamed and on foot. So I made my way back to the castle, and there I was entertained again that night right hospitably, none questioning me as to my adventure. The next morning, when I ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... the entrance of a narrow alley. And his shots seemed to be a signal for a general salvo of random musketry. I saw a woman cross the roadway with a rifleman close behind her; he swung up his rifle, holding it by the muzzle, and clubbed her between the shoulders with the butt. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... called me up to whip me; called me into his dining-room, locked the doors, then ordered me to pull off my shirt. I told him no, sir, I wouldn't; right away he went and got the cowhide, and gave me about twenty over my head with the butt. He tore my shirt off, after I would not pull it off; he ordered me to cross my hands. I didn't do that. After I wouldn't do that he went and got his gun. and broke the breech of that over my head. He then seized up the fire-tongs and struck me over the head ever so often. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... words followed, and then in uncontrolled rage Werner and Glutts attacked Jack and Gif. Half a dozen blows were exchanged, and then Glutts attempted to run away while Werner attempted to use the butt of his gun as a club. Andy tripped Glutts up, and Spouter caught Werner from behind, and as a consequence of the general mix-up the two bullies received a well-deserved drubbing. Then their weapons were discharged and their ammunition was ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... along upon the shore, keeping abreast of the boats as well as they were able, crying out taunts and imprecations; and one, more zealous in his passion, went to the top of a hill and struck the earth three times with the butt of his gun,—the registration of a mighty oath against the ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... third man jabbed the spike of his pole in, and they all lifted together, and the butt end of the log slipped a little ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... his large frame lurched closer. He wore a heavy gun and a knife in his belt. Also there protruded the butt of a pistol from the inside of his open vest. Allie felt the heat from his huge body, and she smelled the whisky upon him, and sensed the base, faithless, malignant animalism of the desperado. Assuredly, if he had any fear, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... had almost anticipated his thoughts, Laskar's right hand swept toward the butt of ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... culture, without opportunities for self-improvement, even if his bitter toil had left him energy or time for it. For this reason the dwellers in the towns looked down upon him as one belonging to an inferior race. In all lands, in all ages, the countryman has been considered a proper butt by the most loutish townsman. The starving proletarian of the city pavement scoffed at the farmer as a boor. Voiceless, there was none to speak for him, and his rude, inarticulate complaints were met with jeers. ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... a case of happenedicitis," said Poky Rodgers, fency rider of the Largo Verde /potrero/. "Somebody ought to happen to give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. I've rode in nine miles for some tobacco; and it don't appear natural and seemly that you ought ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... coffer, or buffet, about three paces each way, exquisitely wrought with figures of animals, finely carved and gilt. The middle is hollow, and in it] stands a great vessel of pure gold, holding as much as an ordinary butt; and at each corner of the great vessel is one of smaller size [of the capacity of a firkin], and from the former the wine or beverage flavoured with fine and costly spices is drawn off into the latter. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... velocities are very little lower, with Mark II. bullet. The Belgian Mauser perforates 55 inches of fir-wood at 12 metres distance. With regard to the penetration of bullets of smaller calibre that of the Roumanian Mannlicher (.256) may be taken as typical. When fired into a sand butt at 25 yards the bullet enters 9 ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... and spear to his left hand and laid his right hand on the butt of his pistol, looking sternly at Dorita. If any of them tried to dispute his claim, it would be she. But instead, she gave him the nearest thing to a real smile that had ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... into the road. He sprang at Pauline and wrested the gun from her. As Harry rushed him, he had no time to fire, but the butt of one revolver crashed on the young man's forehead. Harry sank unconscious in ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on. I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers. Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols. Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more room. The men were miners on a prospecting tour, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... ignorant of the language he held respecting the Bourbons, and in which he indulged as freely after he became the Minister of Louis XVIII. as when he was the Minister of Bonaparte. It was universally known that in his conversation the Bourbons were the perpetual butt for his sarcasms, that he never mentioned them but in terms of disparagement, and that he represented them as unworthy of governing France. Everybody must have been aware that Fouche, in his heart, favoured a Republic, where the part ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... I'm rattled, that's all. I've just got a cowardly desire to flee and butt my head against the nearest wall. That's what I ought to do. I don't know what possessed me. I don't know what you'll ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... a Hoplite.—The hoplites have donned their armor. Now they assume their offensive weapons. Every man has a lance and a sword. The LANCE is a stout weapon with a solid wooden butt, about six feet long in all. It is really too heavy to use as a javelin. It is most effective as a pike thrust fairly into a foeman's face, or past his shield into a weak spot in his cuirass. The sword is usually ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the things he carried in a closet partly filled with rubbish. Then he flashed his light around carefully. Adam Adams got down out of sight and placed his hand on the butt of his pistol. He was resolved to take no more risks than ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... their colleagues in the Cafe Cardinal across the way. Ambroise alone sat apart and patted and smoothed the salt in its receptacles. He was a young man from some little town in Alsace, a furious patriot, and the butt of his companions—for he was the latest comer in the Cafe Riche. Though he told his family name, Nettier, and declared that his father and mother were of French blood, he was called "the German." ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... At first the "bunch" laughed and made him the butt of many rude jests, then they laid plans to trap him. One day one of them stuck an open whisky-bottle under his nose, saying, "Smell it, Bill; ain't it a fine odor?" Bill stepped back, all smiles, and said quietly, "Well, Tom, drink was my master a long ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... some of the gentlemen urging him, perhaps rather mischievously, to answer, he retorted angrily,—"I'm master of mathematics as well as of other sciences; but I see there's an intention to make fun of me. I don't choose to be made a butt of, and I'll show you that I can be as savage as other people." This threat had the effect of producing a total silence for the remainder of the journey; but Mr. Latham took an opportunity of explaining to me that in ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... painful Sewel's ancient tome, Beloved in every Quaker home, Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint,— Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint!— Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, And water-butt and bread-cask failed, And cruel, hungry eyes pursued His portly presence, mad for food, With dark hints muttered under breath Of casting lots for life or death, Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... which Peterkin had cut was full twelve feet long, being a very strong but light and tough young tree, which merely required thinning at the butt to ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Kewa. Kalu-kalu may mean a species of soft, smooth grass specially fitted for sliding upon, which flourished on the inclined plain of Kewa, Kauai. One would sit upon a mat, the butt end of a coconut leaf, or a sled, while another dragged it along. The Hawaiian name for this sport is pahe'e. Kalu-kalu is also the name applied to "a very thin gauze-like kapa." (See Andrews's Hawaiian Dictionary.) If we suppose the poet to have clearly intended the first meaning, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... gravely on and on, till Alfred began to think he would butt the wall; but he put his hand out and opened a door that might very well escape a stranger's notice; for it was covered with looking-glass, and matched another narrow mirror in shape and size. This door led into a very long room, as plain and even sordid as the drawing-room ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... wide-awake in her, and, smiling at Uppy, she told him to hold up the end of his driving whip. He obeyed. The revolver flashed, and a muffled yell came from him as he felt the shock of the bullet as it struck fairly against the butt of his whip. In the same instant there came a snarling deep-throated growl from Wapi. From the sledge Peter gave a cry of warning. Uppy shrank back, and Dolores cried out sharply and put herself swiftly between Wapi and the Eskimo. The huge dog, ready to spring, slunk ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... distinguished visitors were often victims to the rough horseplay of the baser sort, and of the wanton young gentleman at court. The food was simple, boiled beef and pork, and mutton without sauce, ale served in horns from the butt. Roast meat, game, sauces, mead, and flagons set on the table, are looked on by Starcad as foreign luxuries, and Germany was ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... shirt, which I accordingly did. The boy was so fond of his new dress, that he went all over the ship, presenting himself before every one that came in his way. This freedom used by him offended Old Will, the ram goat, who gave him a butt with his horns, and knocked him backward on the deck. Will would have repeated his blow, had not some of the people come to the boy's assistance. The misfortune, however, seemed to him irreparable. The shirt was dirtied, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the slab; others with the butts of their muskets striking the slab with all their might to break it, while the priests remonstrated against our desecrating their holy and beautiful house. While thus engaged, a soldier, who was striking with the butt of his musket, struck a spring, and the marble slab flew up. Then the faces of the inquisitors grew pale as Belshazzar when the hand writing appeared on the wall; they trembled all over; beneath the marble slab, now partly up, there was a stair-case. I stepped to the altar, and took ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... painful scene the door opened, the clash of the butt ends of muskets brought sharply to the ground was heard, and a corporal and three soldiers ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... of newly-hewed wood, lit my pipe again without interference. But I was sorry to miss that conference outside in the open air. I wanted to hear, even if I could not understand. Holaf still remained by my side, and his hand did not leave the oddly-carved butt of the tapered tube-gun. ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... general sound, and are without branches for eighty or ninety feet, but the upper part is too knotty and hard to be useful; indeed, it frequently happens, that after twenty feet have been cut off from the butt, the trees becomes rotten and shaky, and is also very brittle; for which reason, no dependance can be put on them for masts or yards. The turpentine which exudes freely from the bark, is of a milk-white glutinous substance; but it is rather remarkable, that there ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... of this unbounded benevolence, and this exalted genius, deserve such honours as were never paid before; they deserve to bestride a butt upon every signpost in the metropolis, or to have their countenances exhibited as tokens where this liquor is to be sold by the license which they have procured. They must be at least remembered to future ages, as the happy politicians who, after all expedients ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... you mean bring him up here?" Philip cried. "If you wouldn't butt in at all I intended to take him to my sister's a ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... humble a demeanour as he could assume, Felix doffed his cap and began to speak to the guard at the gateway of the entrenchment. The nearest man-at-arms immediately raised his spear and struck him with the butt. The unexpected blow fell on his left shoulder, and with such force as to render it powerless. Before he could utter a remonstrance, a second had seized his boar-spear, snapped the handle across his knee, and hurled the fragments ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... street,—where we can look into each other's faces. So much has happened the last two days that here in the dark I begin to feel as if it all were a nightmare. Ah! how cosey and home-like this room seems after prowling in the dangerous streets with my hand on the butt of a revolver! Come now, Marian, sit down quietly and tell the whole story. I can't trust Merwyn at all when he is the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... hadn't eaten a good meal, and felt almost as low as the derelicts whom he had for companions. He would have enjoyed a smoke, but turned away as two men dove for a cigarette-butt; discarded by ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... was not locked. Laramie rose, his fingers resting on the butt of his revolver, and stepping lightly into the dining-room, turned down the lamp. He stood in the shadow and beckoned Kate to him. His ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... only wait a little until I can make me a pair of horns like you. So the goat waited, and away went the Ghoul to make her horns. She made two horns of dough and dried them in the sun until they were hard, and then came to "butt" with the goat. At the first shock, when the goat butted her with her horns, the horns of dough broke all to pieces; then the goat butted her again in her bowels and broke her in twain, and out jumped Sunaisil and Rabab, frisking and leaping and calling out "ya imme," oh, my mother, Oh, my mother! ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... that might serve to confirm their suspicions as to the purpose of their cruise. As Harry stepped up to the door and brought the man's entire body into view, he noticed with amazement that he wore a cartridge belt and pistol holster from which the butt of a revolver peeped. ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... about ordinary people. I should think the Duke of Clarence must even have found malmsey nauseating, when he choked and went purple and was really asphyxiated in a butt of it. And ordinary people are no malmsey. Just ordinary tap-water. And we have been drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual floods of ordinariness, that tap-water tends to become a really hateful fluid to us. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... hand on the butt of his revolver at his hip, meaning to whip out the weapon and fire before the miscreant had finished his high-sounding tomfoolery. His daughter had also grasped hers, intending to obey to the letter the command of her parent, when the Ghoojur ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... be doubted if Byron would have made a good husband to any woman; his wife and he were even more than usually ill-assorted. A model of the proprieties, and a pattern of the learned philanthropy of which in her sex he was wont to make a constant butt, she was no fit consort for that "mens insana in corpore insano." What could her stolid temperament conjecture of a man whom she saw, in one of his fits of passion, throwing a favourite watch under the ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... then, with brutal and unreasoning violence, they were hauled and pushed down the steep, winding path to where the camels were waiting below. The Frenchman waved his unwounded hand as he walked. "Vive le Khalifa! Vive le Madhi!" he shouted, until a blow from behind with the butt-end of a Remington ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... St. Peter's, and a government mail route to St. Eleanor's, there was nothing but bridle-paths and rough trails through the woods. Men came to market with horses in straw harnesses, dragging carts with block-wheels sawn from the butt of a big pine; and often when twenty or thirty of them were drinking into old Katty Frazer's, the beasts would get hungry, and eat ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... he was swimming in red wine he really looked as though murdered. Both the flunkeys wanted to throw themselves on the murderer, and one of them, a burly fellow, tried to grasp him, when M. Coignard gave the fellow such a butt that he rolled in the stream ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... forehead; fawn skin hair, a fawn's nose, a fawn's mouth, a fawn's eyes. You saw her at Lena's garden parties, staring at Hippisley over the rim of her plate while she browsed on Lena's cakes and ices, or bounding about Lena's tennis court with the sash ribbons flying from her little butt end. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... The "Scuttle Butt Navigators," or, as the "Yankee" boys called them, the Rumor Committee, were very busy that bright day in May. According to them we were to sail seaward and discover Cervera's fleet, the whereabouts of which was then unknown. We were to sail south and bombard Havana. The older, wiser heads laughed ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... ground, which required him to devote earnest attention to the badger-holes, he could not manage this. Without knowing very well what to do, he continued the chase, meditating as to whether it were better to try to ride over the bear, or to attempt the breaking of its skull with the butt end of his gun. As, however, it was all he could do to keep pace with the brute, he ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... under water. He likewise sprung his main-mast, and the ship made so much water that she could not be freed by four pumps assisted by bailing. On the 9th the wind became calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship, in rolling, opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt ends of her planks, and the greatest part of her top-timbers, the bolts being drawn by the violence of the roll. In this condition, with additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating westward to the 12th, when they were in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... placed, even when he was a brute and his guilt far from doubtful. How much more, then, must he feel the claims of this surly but chivalrous-hearted boy, son of a good father and pious mother, who had been made the butt of circumstances, and of whose innocence he was hourly becoming more and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... shall have been so developed as to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not very charitable ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... one to learn hog-Latin, hog-wash, and how much the neighbors are worth. Of course, the rich children are going to say that they're pushing little kids, but they've got to learn to push and to shove and to butt right in where they're not wanted if they intend to herd with the real angora billy-goats. They've got to learn how to bow low to every one in front of them and to kick out at every one behind them. It's been my experience that it takes ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... pretensions of modern criticism that it must not be criticised. Although to buffet an anonym is to beat the air, still the very effort does good. A well-known and popular novelist of the present day was a favourite butt for certain journalists who, with the normal ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... yards, of the Austrian front line. Here every one spoke in a low whisper or by signs. They warned me to keep well down, as the Austrians hated khaki worse even than "grigio-verde," as one is always apt to hate third parties who butt in against one in what one conceives to ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him in the malmsey-butt in ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... nought again until I was close to the spot whence the spark shone, and then I caught it once more, and hastily I cleared aside the rank grass with my spear butt, and lo! even as she had seen it in dreams the sword of Owen was there, and it was the gleam from the gem in its hilt, which no damp could dim, which had caught my eye. But a little while longer and we should never have seen even that, ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... this afternoon. Charley and I made our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out at the top, and ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... John Bedell was speaking, he tore and flung away a letter, reached for his long rifle on its pins above the chimney-place, dashed its butt angrily to the floor, and poured powder into ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... being in such close quarters to me, and my holding my rifle with one hand, while I endeavoured to free myself with the other, I could not point the muzzle at my assailant, and my only way of clearing myself from his hold was by battering his head with the butt end of the weapon with my right hand, while he still clung round my left side. At last I disengaged myself, and he let go suddenly, and slipped instantly behind one of the thick acacia bushes, and got away, just as the army in front was wavering. All this did not occupy many ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... to butt in after all," I said. "He'll meet Edwin there, and they can fight it out in the smoking room. You've only to drop him a ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... what happened to either. If they were pitted against each other, my bet would be laid on the tiger, though my sympathy might be with the lady. I am not a prophet. I cannot tell you the end of the story. Maybe the fool moose-calf will butt its brains out against the trunk of the tree. That would be no fault of the tree. The tree was there first, and was minding its own business. Maybe the calf will butt and get hurt, and scamper for home. Maybe it will succeed in eluding the fangs of ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... it was he—the last-comer. And once more Fred suffered all the pangs of jealousy. It seemed to him that in his loneliness, between sky and sea, those pangs were more acute than he had ever known them. His comrades teased him about his melancholy looks, and made him the butt of all their jokes in the cockpit. He resolved, however, to get over it, and at the next port they put into, Jacqueline's letter was the cause of his entering for the first time some ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the Revolutionary War Committee, who escorted us, entered the quarters of the General Staff, noisily dropped his rifle-butt to the floor and resting upon it, announced: "General Krassnov, you and your staff are prisoners of the Soviet authorities." Immediately armed Red Guards barred both doors. Kerensky was nowhere to be seen. He had again fled, as he had done before from the Winter ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... some kind; that America was so new, and crude, and spick and span, that it was obnoxious to any aesthetic soul; that our tendency to erect hideous public buildings and then keep them in repair afterwards would make us the butt of ridicule among future generations. I even proposed the founding of an American Ruin Company, Limited,—in which the stockholders should purchase favourably situated bits of land and erect picturesque ruins thereon. To be sure, I said, these ruins wouldn't have any associations at first, ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are many ways butt down upon this, and they are crooked and wide. But thus thou mayest distinguish the right from the wrong, the right only being straight and narrow ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... did the company feel the moody growing youth to be one of themselves. He would sit with his pint before him, silent, his great black eyes roving round the persons present. His tongue was sharp on occasion, and his fists ready, so that after various attempts to make a butt of him he was generally let alone. He got what he wanted—he learnt to know what smoking and drinking might be like, and the jokes of the taproom. And all by the help of a few shillings dealt out to him this winter for ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... muster up fresh energies for a blow—with a heavy head sea, that prevented our sailing even when we got aslant. On the afternoon of the day we quitted Stornaway, I got a notion how it was going to be; the sun went angrily down behind a bank of solid grey cloud, and by the time we were up with the Butt of Lewis, the whole sky was in tatters, and the mercury nowhere, with a heavy swell ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... connected with some curious results. One of the favourite objects of ridicule of the past essayists was the virtuoso. There was something to them inexpressibly absurd in a passion for buying odds and ends. Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay made a special butt of Dr. Woodward, possessor of a famous ancient shield and other antiquities. Equally absurd, they thought, was his passion for fossils. He made one of the first collections of such objects, saw that ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... in Shakspeare; yet he is always in measure here; never what Johnson would remark as a specially 'good hater.' But his laughter seems to pour from him in floods; he heaps all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the butt he is bantering, tumbles and tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you would say, with his whole heart laughs. And then, if not always the finest, it is always a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty; never. No man who can laugh, what we call laughing, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... right-angled triangle, with a parallelogram below its base; the hypothenuse or head of the sail is secured to a yard, like an enormous fishing-rod; the halyards are secured to it about a third of the way from the butt-end, and it is hoisted close up to the head of the mast. A tackle brings down the lower end of the yard to the deck, and serves to balance the lofty tapering point, while the sheet is secured to the ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... time to think o' trifles. I gave the butt an extra bang on the pommel to send the ball home, shoved the muzzle right in among the hair an' pulled the trigger. There was a bang that sounded to me as if the ship's magazine had blown up. It ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... just a here-a-wa man, by your tongue," said she; "an', if I'm no mista'en, ye've seen better days; for, when I was bringin butt your wet claes to get them dried, though your bit jacket an' your breeks were just corduroy, I couldna help noticin that there is no a bit bonnier linen inowre our door than the sark ye ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... opinions. His career in parliament was marred by his irregular habits, which resulted in pecuniary embarrassment, and between 1865 and 1870 he returned again to his work at the law courts. The result, however, of the disestablishment of the Irish Church was to drive Butt and other Irish Protestants into union with the Nationalists, who had always repudiated the English connexion; and on 19th May 1870, at a large meeting in Dublin, Butt inaugurated the Home Rule movement in a speech demanding an Irish parliament for local affairs. On this platform ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... I dyd. Ande of alle foulishnesse, thys playe dyd beare away ye prize. Conceive ye Absuerditye of laying ye Sceane in Italy, it ys welle knowne that Awdiences will not abear nothyng that is not sett neare at Home. Butt woarse stille, thys fellowe presumes to kille offe Boath Heroe ande Heroine in ye Laste Acte, wch is Intolerabble toe ye Publicke. Suerley noe chaunce of Success in thys. Ye awthour dyd reappeare in ye aufternoone, and dyd seeke to borrowe a crowne ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the man had the narrowest possible escape from being stoned to death—as he richly deserved to be; what business had he to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation? ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... boy; then came up straight at close quarters. Benson's sudden grapple deprived the driver of a chance to use the butt of his whip in the manner ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... prayer was not unmixed with a desire for action of a very vigorous and immediate variety, seized an old rifle hung from a nail on the wall. She had no idea whether there were any loads in it, but she had made up her mind to use the butt-end on the first man who entered the room. In the meantime, the axe had crashed through one of the thick, hardwood panels, making a slit broad enough ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... for Ben, nothing more would have been done or said about, the matter. Butt it was not in his nature to be sensible of an inconvenience without using his best efforts to find a remedy. So, as he and his comrades were returning from the water-side, Ben suddenly threw down his string of fish with a ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... little chaps had been worked out with ears and kernels of corn. One class in arithmetic calculated the percentage of inferior kernels at tip and butt to the full-sized grains in the ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... unusually busy," I said, "and there is a long queue of clients waiting for me in the ante-room. An extremely long queue—almost a half-butt in fact." ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... one of the horses. Another followed him, and in twenty seconds the line was broken and they were upon us. One wolf jumped at the rear of the sleigh and caught his paws upon it. Rasloff struck him with the butt of his gun, and at the same instant he delivered the blow, Paul let the horses have their way. Rasloff fell upon the edge of the vehicle and over its side. Luckily, his foot caught in one of the robes and held him for an instant—long ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... it when I sit Among the broadcloth'd heirs of BUMBLE! But Foreign Minister too humble Were butt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... battle, to his somber eyes. "Send Arnold up here," he shouted to the men below, and Arnold came, clambering past rock and bowlder until he reached the captain's side, took one look in the direction indicated, and brought his brown hand down with resounding swat on the butt of his rifle. "Treed 'em!" said he exultantly; then, with doubtful, backward glance along the crouching file of weary men, some sitting now and fanning with their broad-brimmed hats, he turned again to the captain ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the field, but, as just stated, it had better be delayed until the heads are carried to the place for packing. To trim them, take hold of a head near the butt with one hand, holding it upright against you, then with a turning motion, cut clear around the head, leaving the cut ends of the leaves projecting about an inch above the edge of the head. This ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... he began presently. "This has been goin' on fer days. Ther's Injuns out most every night, an' they are lyin' this side o' the fort. They're all about it, an' them soldier-fellers ain't wise to it. What's more we darsen't to put 'em wise. They're li'ble to butt right in, an' then ther' won't be any stoppin' them pesky redskins. Y' see ther's only a handful at the fort, an' ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... the same spirit, Nelson went into Aboukir with six colours flying; so that even if five were shot away, it should not be imagined he had struck. He too must needs wear his four stars outside his Admiral's frock, to be a butt for sharpshooters. "In honour I gained them," he said to objectors, adding with sublime illogicality, "in honour I will die with them." Captain Douglas of the Royal Oak, when the Dutch fired his vessel in the Thames, sent his men ashore, but was burned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on my hip through thick and thin, stranger. Three years she's shot close an' true. There ain't a butt in the world that hugs your hand tighter. There ain't a cylinder that spins easier. Shoot? Lad, even a kid like you could be a killer with that six-gun. What ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... a boulder, from which vantage ground he would stand looking down at the herd. In a moment several of the flock would rush forward, butt him from the rock, and one of them would take his place, only to be driven down and succeeded by the next victor. The sheep often played this for ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... functionary the flour was obtained, and the raisins; the beef-fat, or "slush," from Old Coffee; and the requisite supply of water from the scuttle-butt. I then went among the various cooks, to compare their receipts for making "duffs:" and having well weighed them all, and gathered from each a choice item to make an original receipt of my own, with due deliberation and solemnity I proceeded to ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... simply could not see the beautiful schoolgirl of sixteen, the blonde gipsy who had bent forward, cigarette in mouth, to his match, who had leaned back and blown rings to the moon above Drouva. Had she ever set the butt of a gun against her shoulder? Something in this woman's eyes made him suddenly feel as if he ought to leave her alone. Yet her arm still lay on his, and ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... abuses; it was in vain to think that he would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary and violent in the extreme. His prompt reply to all complaints and remonstrances was—the butt-end of a handspike, so convincingly administered as effectually to silence ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the front door, a capped and uniformed urchin with a special delivery letter. "Miss Clare Crosby live here?" he inquired. Behind his back, in his other hand, the butt of a cigarette sent up a ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... crossing the open ground at his full speed to gain the main body of his comrades. A ball struck him just as he had arrived within a few feet of the spot where Henry stood, yet still leaping onward, he made a desparate blow at the head of the officer with the butt end of his rifle. A quick movement disappointed the American of his aim, yet the blow fell so violently on the shoulder that the stock snapped suddenly asunder at the small of the butt. Stung with pain, Henry Grantham turned to behold his enemy. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the file behind the Empress and held him there; the Grand Duchess Olga was flung bodily after him; the other children, in their hospital dresses, were shoved brutally toward their places, menaced by butt ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... right close along after him. Every time he looked around, he would see them, and he could hear the creature's feet pat in the road, too, as it ran after the wagon. He kept the horse trotting along pretty fast and held the butt of his whip all ready to strike, if the creature jumped into the wagon. It didn't jump in, but kept near the hind end of the wagon; and it followed father for as much as two miles, till he met a man with an ox team. He was so taken up watching for those eyes, back there in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... friend of his own to whom he may impart the delightful intelligence. A woman (with more or less skill) buries her secret away from her kind. For days and weeks past, had not this old Maria made fools of the whole house,—Maria, the butt of the family? ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... instead of being praised to the skies would have sunk into oblivion under the heap of public scorn. Sometimes it happens that a man accidentally becomes a hero, but it was no accident that he was able to become one. He must have had initiative—he must have had self-reliance. Archibald C. Butt was such a man. He went down on the Titanic. The last act of his life was to help women and children into the boats and calm their minds as they were lowered away. Astor was of the same metal—both sublimely oblivious to the terrible fate which hung over them. Here was initiative and self-reliance ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... way—adventures which the soldier endures in silence as part of his everyday life. On this occasion, however, the episode was all our own, and had a sporting flavour in it which made it dramatic. I know now the feeling of tense expectation with which the driven grouse whirrs onwards towards the butt. I have been behind the butt before now, and it is only poetic justice that I should see the matter from the other point of view. As we approached Ronchi we could see shrapnel breaking over the road in front of us, but we had not yet realised that it was ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... twelve tons, now I come to think of it—in exactly the same place as you are. He pulled out in a bit of a bobble of a sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends on the same butt-strap, and the plate opened like a furnace door, and I had to climb into the nearest fog bank ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... grandmarm used to say my tongue was loose at both ends and hung in the middle, and I guess she wa'n't fur off the course. Good-by. Take care of yourself. You can put what's left of that mock mince pie on the top shelf in the butt'ry and you'd better heave a dish towel or sunthin' over it to keep the ants out. There's more ants in this house than there is dollars, a good sight. Betsy B., she's got a plan for keepin' of 'em out by puttin' sassers of brimstone round the shelves, but I told her, s' ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the fire started into activity. A hasty glance round the encampment showed that their captives were not within its circle. With an exclamation of fury, the captain seized his gun, and with the butt-end struck the sentry to the ground. Then in furious tones he ordered every man off in instant pursuit. Snatching up their arms, some hurried off one way, some another, shouting threats of vengeance as ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... exclaimed, growing angry with her, too. "Do you know what time it is? Three o'clock, you write me, and it's now a quarter past five. I have sat here doing nothing for over two mortal hours. It seems to me that's enough, without being made the butt of your friends' wit into the bargain. I'm sick of the whole ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... countries; but a ewe-sheep is not worth milking under those circumstances, as her yield is a mere nothing. Goats are very mischievous—they make their way out of all enclosures, and trespass everywhere. They butt at whatever is bright or new, or strange to them; and would drive an observer, who employed astronomical instruments on stands, to distraction. In an open country, where there are no bushes for a kraal, nets must ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... He brought the butt of the rifle smashing up. It struck the man under the chin and there was a sharp cracking sound as his jawbone snapped. For a fraction of a second there was an expression of stupefied amazement on his face ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... victims. His muscles seemed benumbed, as the huge head swayed from side to side and mesmerised him with its uncanny power. The gun almost dropped from his nerveless fingers. But with a fierce effort he regained the mastery of himself, brought the butt to his shoulder, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... a German soldier was seen to fire three times at a little girl 5 years old. Having failed to hit her, he subsequently bayoneted her. He was killed with the butt end of a rifle by a Belgian soldier who had seen him commit this murder from ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... When it reached the second path it stopped, briskly moved itself its own width sidewise, and rolled back. On the way it competently manicured the lawn. It picked up leaves, retrieved a stray cigarette-butt, and snapped up a scrap of paper blown from somewhere. Its tactile units touched a new-planted shrub. It delicately circled the shrub and went on ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... of their party, (which, till he found attractions elsewhere, was generally the case,) their more elevated subjects of conversation were almost always put to flight by the strange sallies of this eccentric young man, whose vanity made him a constant butt for Lord Byron's sarcasm and merriment. The son of a highly respectable Italian gentleman, who was in early life, I understand, the secretary of Alfieri, Polidori seems to have possessed both talents and dispositions which, had he lived, might have rendered him a useful ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not be your boon companion, and drink and generally conduct myself in a way unworthy of an English officer in the high position I hold in this country, I have been constantly marked out as the butt for your offensive sarcasm, even as far back as the time when, if you had possessed a spark of manliness or feeling, you would have respected me and shown consideration for one who was passing through such an ordeal as I pray Heaven ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... outburst, she was quiet—the quiet that is deliberative, threatening. Then she slowly closed her fingers about the whip butt. Fixing her gaze in passionate anger upon him, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various |
