"Knuckles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the other hand, stood upright and hit straight, with the result that he hurt his knuckles very much on his opponent's skull, without seeming to disturb the latter to any great extent. In the process he received one of the windmill swings on the left ear. The crowd, strong pro-Billites, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... thrust his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed them. Isbister talked for awhile while this rubbing continued, and then he had a fresh idea. "Come down to my room," he said, "and try a pipe. I can show you some sketches of this Blackapit. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... climb down. I did so, very slowly and stiffly, making the sad mistake of jumping down from the height of the step. How that did injure my feelings! The only catastrophe I can remember comparable to it was when a teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler after I had been making snowballs bare handed. My benumbed faculties next swung around to the proposition of proceeding up an interminable gravel walk—(it is twenty-five feet long!) to a forbidding flight of stairs—(porch ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... it any longer, slipped out of his chair, and crept under the table to comfort Joel. But it wasn't till Polly said, "Come, Joey," that he would show his face. Then he twisted his knuckles into his eyes, and hung ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... knife glitter where she gripped it, half concealed by a fold of her petticoat. Here one of the men muttered some unintelligible word and pointed scornfully at me, whereupon the old woman rapped him smartly over the knuckles and fixed her uncomfortably shrewd gaze on my person, scanning me over very keenly, more especially ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Peterkin could by no means brook the idea of the poor girl being converted into a long pig! As for Jack, he clinched his teeth, and shook his fist towards the sea, saying at the same time that he was sorry he had not broken Tararo's head, and he only hoped that one day he should be able to plant his knuckles on the bridge of that chiefs nose! After they had "pumped me dry," as Peterkin said, I begged to be informed of what had happened to them during my long absence, and particularly as to how they got out of the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... similar nature was played with the so-called astragaloi, dice of a lengthy shape made of the knuckles of animals. Two of the surfaces were flat, the third being raised, and the fourth indented slightly. The last-mentioned side was marked 1, and had, amongst many other names, that of "dog;" the opposite surface, marked 6. The Latin names of the two other sides marked 3 and 4 were suppus and ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of blue fire touched Dio's men. Bolts of it fastened on gun-butts, and knuckles. Men screamed and fell. Jill cried out as he tore silver ornaments from ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... hat in the closet, opened the incubator on his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work table with whitening knuckles. "Why?" ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... I suppose," said he, fretfully. And he stepped back and looked up at the house. Then he approached the door, and searched for a bell or knocker; but of neither of these appendages could the dwelling boast. First, he rapped with his knuckles, then with his cane. But no one responded to the summons. He looked up and saw lights in the window. So he knocked again, and louder. After waiting several minutes, and not being admitted, Mr. Grim tried the door and found it unfastened; but the passage into which he stepped ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... cried Elizabeth, rapping her knuckles with her stick, "and behave thyself, or theaw shanna go out to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... an alpacar one here, made a-purpose for some clipper built (individual) like you. I would n't 'a' speculated in her, on'y she was the last the hawker had left. She's never bin bent." He produced a slate-coloured alpaca coat, which, when I tried it on, extended down to my knuckles and knees, trailing clouds of glory where there was none before. "You'll do a bit o' killin' at the station, in that rig-out," continued my host, with a lewd reference to some person ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Yes. I daresay there are. It's the right place for them. But what I mean—" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort of thing always dreaming? Is it dreaming? Or is it something else? ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... changed. His hard knuckles were pressed upon the table, he leaned forward towards her. Even his tone was altered. His blandness had all vanished, his grey eyes were as ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into a vessel, with water enough to contain the head; boil the head in this, and take it off when boiled, leaving it to cool. Then make your sauce in the following manner: put into a stewpan a pound of ham cut into slices; put over the ham two knuckles of veal, two large onions, and two carrots; moisten with some of the broth in which you have boiled the head to half the depth of the meat only; cover the stewpan, and set it on a slow fire to sweat through; let the broth reduce to a good rich colour; turn up the meat for fear ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... hall, and a voice in which langour strove in vain against asperity—Melchard's voice, which he had heard for the first time while he clung with his fingers to the window-sill of the bedroom and with his shoe-tips to the string-course below it, sinking his head even below his defenceless knuckles. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... warrant?" exclaimed Duncan Cameron. "Hut-tut! We'll teach him to respect warrants issued under authority of 43d King George III.," and the dictator of Fort Gibraltar fussed angrily among the papers of his desk and beat a threatening tattoo with knuckles and heels. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... on Mr. Chamberlin's ample board. On the contrary, they partook of the good things of the table with a well-bred slowness, that would have been beyond his endurance to bear, had Mars been thundering with his iron fist at the gates of his fortress. But as it was Cupid, only tapping with his rosy knuckles at the casement of his heart, that dinner seemed no longer to him than, no, not half so long indeed as, the shortest snack he had ever eaten on horseback in the hurry of a forced march. The dinner over, Washington seemed in no haste ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... his chin on the knuckles of his hand. "Monsieur, you have heard of the Chevalier ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... assignation placed covertly by subsidised waiters into the serviettes of the Callot-adorned Thaises in the spectacularized haunts of the Bois. The piano in Le Caveau may be diabetic, senescent, and its operator half blind and all knuckles (as he is), but the music it gives forth is full of the romance of Sheppard and Turpin, of stage coach days and dark and nervous highways, of life when life was in the world and all the ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... at that moment on a stool. I rapped his knuckles gently with the butt of the revolver to let ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... sounded on the companion ladder and a bunch of horny knuckles rapped at my state-room door. "Come in," I cried, and as the door opened Jones poked ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... it!" she cried, "read it! Ah!" and she clenched her little hand, and in her passion struck the oak table beside her, so that a stain of blood sprang out on her knuckles. "Why did you not kill him? Why did you not do it when you had the chance? You were three to one," she hissed. "You had him in your power! You could have killed him, and you did not! Now ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... three hours with one-half of her registering 85 degrees and the other half frostbitten, and never sneeze once. But just let a bunch of ineligibles come around where I am, and she'll begin to swell at the knuckles and shriek with pain. And I have to take her to her room and rub her arms. To see mamma dressed you'd be surprised to know the number of square inches of surface there are to her arms. I think it must be delightful to be a hermit. That—cassock—or gabardine, isn't it?—that you wear is so ...
— Options • O. Henry
... Alonso, blinking. "I only had a little stick in my hands, and I defended myself against the lobster by hitting him in the knuckles; but he, roaring with rage, and eyes shining, continued climbing. I couldn't get any farther, and I was thinking of coming down; but as I made a movement, biff!... The son of a sea-cook grabs me with one of his ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... as near the threshold as they could be and still be felt as two. At each successive putting down of the instrument I would bring the points a little nearer together and a little lower down on the hand. By the time a dozen or more stimulations had been given I would be working down near the knuckles, and the points would be right together. From that on I would use only one point. It might be necessary to repeat this a few times before the illusion would persist. A great deal seems to depend on the skill of the operator. It would be noticed that ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... too staggered to laugh. But the girl filled the staid place with gay peals. Then she leaned over and patted the wrinkled and bony worn black knuckles. "Bless your dear heart," she said; "no, he isn't, Aunt Basha. He's awfully important and good to us all, and he knows everything. ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... of poor Northcliffe. He thinks he's saved the nation from its miserable government, and the government now openly abuses him in the House of Commons. Northcliffe puts on his brass knuckles and turns the Times building upside down and sets all the Daily Mail machine guns going, and has to go to bed to rest his nerves, while the row spreads and deepens. The Government keeps hell in the prayer-book because without it they wouldn't know what to do with ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... he answered, scarcely even glancing down at her. "They'll make it this time, though," he added, and she could see his knuckles whiten with the strain as he gripped a rough limb of the tree ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... I hope he will leave his ferrule behind. Whew! My knuckles ache now with the mention! Still he seemed to get some pleasure ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... agreed Fanny with that joyous, bubbling, luxurious note that Grandma knew so well. "I saw Mary Hagley polishing her very knuckles off on that second-hand stove Mert bought from that watery-eyed man from Spring Road who drives through here with the lame buckskin horse and pieced-out harness. Lutie Barlow's got her fall tinting and painting all done. She's painted the inside of her chicken coops a bright yellow, ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... with a straight right. The Nipe moved his head aside, and Stanton's knuckles merely grazed the side of the alien's head, just below ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... vibrant with the cadence of the song You might have been.... 'Twas a great night... With never a waste look over a shoulder Curved to the crook of the wind... And a great word we threw For memory to play knuckles with... A word the waters of the world have washed, Leaving it stark and without smell... A world that rattles well ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... any man could do, without making them so small as to be invisible, save under a microscope: and the result was, that he had caricatured every wrinkle, as his friend has in those horrible knuckles of Shem's wife. Besides, I deny utterly your assertion that one is bound to paint what is there. On that very fallacy are they all ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... singled out for show seemed neither resentful nor distressed, ready enough most times to exhibit his merits, anxious only for the chance of a good master and the momentary avoidance of the lictor's flail. At the praefect's bidding he cracked his knuckles or showed his teeth, strained the muscles of his arm to make them stand up like cords, turned a somersault, jumped, danced or stood on his head if ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... downward to her breast. Always a strong man he seemed now transformed into some ruthless, degraded, maddened animal. Apparently she was entirely at his mercy, but she was strong and young, and angry disgust gave her unusual strength. She caught the man's throat in both her hands, working her knuckles inwards on his windpipe with such force that he was almost choked, and instinctively put up his hands to hers endeavouring to remove her grip. But she held him, and, half-throttled, he sank down sideways on the arm of the chair. In an ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... and some little things to eat along. I say it do help out. I got rheumatism and big stiff j'ints (enlarged wrist and knuckles)." ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... who wears a high collar is not the one that knuckles down to hard work. Perspiration and high collars do not go well together. The dude employe does not like perspiration, so he sees to it that he does not exert ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... shoregoing institutions are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles. The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as laid down by the pious and immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, "Sham drunk. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... cried McNally with comical disgust. "The matter's with us." He rapped his knuckles on his head. "Solid, all the way through!" said he. "Why, save from nat'ral born human imbelicity, should horses be living like gentlemen while gentlemen ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... invitation. He knew that the first two rules of battle are to strike first and to strike hard. His brown fist moved forward as though it had been shot from a gun. The other man crashed back against the wall and hung there dazed for a moment. The knuckles of that lean fist had caught him ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... you hit it with your knuckles, didn't it?" prompted Zerkow, eagerly, his lips trembling, his ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... time was called. The Jam-wagon was bleeding about the knuckles. Several of Locasto's teeth had been loosened, and he spat blood frequently. Otherwise he looked as fit as ever. He pursued his man with savage determination, and seemed resolved to get in a deadly body-blow that would ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... and degrees. Some have been sent for repair, but have nothing apparently wrong about them. The little note sent with them is simply to the effect that "they do not go well" and the owners would like them put in order. A tap is given here and there with his knuckles, and this kind of test is sufficient in one instance to get an acknowledgment from the violin itself that its ribs do not adhere to the back as they should. Another betrays no looseness anywhere, and there is no fracture perceptible ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... arms, and his strong fingers grasped his tensed biceps until the knuckles stood out, as he ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that of his smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, and he held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin upon their thinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with sparse, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... timidly and gave it a little shake, not daring to meet her eyes. Alice put out her hand stiffly. Cashel immediately stepped forward with his right foot and enveloped her fingers with the hardest clump of knuckles she had ever felt. Glancing down at this remarkable fist, she saw that it was discolored almost to blackness. Then she went in through the gate, followed by Lydia, who turned to close it behind her. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... on," said the iron-grey giant, rubbing his knuckles together sheepishly. "You don't know Sis ef you go on that away. Many's the time that chile 'ud foller me up an' say, 'Pap, ef you see my shawl a-haugin' out on the fence, Puss'll be asleep, an' don't you come a-lumberin' in an' wake her up, nuther.' An' many's the time she'd come out an' ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... so I just lost patience with his foolishness and took a crack at him standing where I'm standing now, but he ducked and you can still see, ma'am"—turning to the embarrassed Mrs. Ferris—"where my knuckles made a dint in the door-jamb. I got him ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... breath, he leaned forward, and dug his sculls into the water, pulling them through with all his strength. The consequence of this feat was that the handles of the sculls came into violent collision in the middle of the boat, the knuckles of his right hand were barked, his left scull unshipped, and the head of his skiff almost blown round by the wind before he could restore order ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... down, and much too tight for him; and yet, when he had taken up the ring (as it turned out to be), and was carrying it to his mistress, she thought he looked like a little cupid. He gave the ring to her; it was a trumpery little thing enough, but too small for any of her old knuckles, so she put ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out of his box. His suit looked like blue skin. He walked with grandeur down the alley between the rows of coops. Stopping in front of his friend's door, he rapped on it with passionate knuckles. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... me to ask the way to the house of the commandant. Between them on a Boer pony sat a man, erect, slim-waisted, with well-set shoulders and chin in air, one hand holding the reins high, the other with knuckles down resting on his hip. The Boer pony he rode, nor the moonlight, nor the veldt behind him, could disguise his seat and pose. It was as though I had been suddenly thrown back into London and was passing the ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... history of the Kovner house had the electric bell been in working order. Hence Glaubmann knocked with his naked fist and left the imprint of his four knuckles on the wet varnish just as Mrs. Kovner flung wide the door. It was at this instant that Glaubmann's well-laid ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... suggested it and had a rap over the knuckles for my pains. The fellow is getting us a very ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... from; another with a round ring, whose line formed the base; and another with holes, three or five, hollowed in the earth at equal distances from each other, which was called knucks. You could play for keeps in all these games; and in knucks, if you won, you had a shot or shots at the knuckles of the fellow who lost, and who was obliged to hold them down for you to shoot at. Fellows who were mean would twitch their knuckles away when they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... me feel that these gaudy colours I have burst into are not so famous as I supposed; and on the eighth day I find myself insulted in twenty-seven places by an angry mosquito, whom in the small hours of the morning I had occasion to rap over the knuckles and turn out of my billet. And I've got a nasty cold, and nobody loves me or cleans my buttons, and if I want to go anywhere there are no more motor cars and they make me pay a penny for the tram, and my wife doesn't think I'm a hero any longer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... on the physical plan. On the lecture platform he stood erect and unadorned, his hands hanging folded in front, save when he changed the leaf of his manuscript, or emphasized his words with a gesture: his customary one, simple but effective, was to clinch his right fist, knuckles upward, the arm bent at the elbow, then a downward blow of the forearm, full of power bridled. It was accompanied by such a glance of the eyes as no one ever saw except from Emerson: a glance like the reveille of a trumpet. Yet his eyes were not ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... and spent the whole night singing and dancing to the music of a long drum (gamba) and the caracasha. The drum was a hollow log, having one end covered with skin, and was played by the performer sitting astride upon it, and drumming with his knuckles. The caracasha is a notched bamboo tube, which produces a harsh rattling noise by passing a hard stick over the notches. Nothing could exceed in dreary monotony this music and the singing and dancing, which were kept up with unflagging vigour all night long. The Indians ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Pete was not drinking and insisted that he drink and refill his glass. Pete downed the raw red wine and presently complained of feeling sleepy. Flores grinned. "I do not sleep," he asserted—"not until this is gone"—and he struck the jug with his knuckles. Pete felt that he was in for a long session, and inwardly cursed his luck. Flores's eyes brightened and he grew talkative. He spoke of his youth in Old Mexico; of the cattle and the women of that land. Pete feigned a heaviness that he did not feel. Presently ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the loveliest string of knuckles Which dear Father gave to me, And a pair of shin-bone buckles Which I so wish ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... traveller said that all that the woman had related was perfectly true. Taking her to one side of the room, he told her to tap gently with her knuckles all over a wooden pillar. At one part the pillar gave forth a hollow sound. The traveller said that the money spoken about by the poor woman lay hidden in this part of the pillar. Then advising her to spend it only gradually, he went ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... compunction in lifting the second, and this being replaced, he began to sound others with his knuckles, to find that they all gave forth the ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... back to Harvey. "He looks ill," he said, which is true. His honestly-painted knuckles make diagnosis easy. My friend thought that this great man would probably have dosed him well, and, as he added, would not have bothered him about too much sugar, nor forbidden champagne. I had to reply that whatever ills were in the England of that day,—and ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... Mauchberg that evening and proceeded on the following day to Devil's Knuckles, down the steep Mauchberg road (known as Hell's Gate), where the two Boer big guns again narrowly escaped capture, and so on to Spitzkop, just north of Nelspruit on ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... hand, like a human hand." The disc changed into a human hand, the fingers slightly bent, the soft, white fingers of a woman with the pink of the flesh and the wrinkles at the knuckles visible. The wrist seemed to fade gradually into nothingness, the end of the hand was as indeterminate as are things in a dream, but ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... on tiptoe. We paused at a door near the head of the great staircase, and L'Amour knocked timidly with her rheumatic knuckles. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... cheek, and a cruel grin about the muscles of the mouth; to say nothing about rusty hair protruding through the holes of a brown hat, not made for the wearer—long, sinewy arms, all of one thickness, terminating in huge, hairy, horny hands, chiefly knuckles and nails—a shambling gait, notwithstanding that his legs are finely proportioned, as if the night prowler were cautious not to be heard by the sleeping house, nor to awaken—so noiseless his stealthy advances—the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... of the chimney-piece delivered himself of his persuasive allocution, he took up his little groups successively from the table, held them aloft, turned them about, rapped them with his knuckles, and gazed at them lovingly, with his head on one side. They consisted each of a cat and a monkey, fantastically draped, in some preposterously sentimental conjunction. They exhibited a certain sameness ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... Head-knuckles?" McTurk echoed. At the twentieth repetition—no boy can stand the torture of one unvarying query, which is ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... side door and the thumping overhead blended in a travesty on the anvil chorus, the staccato tapping of somebody's knuckles rising flute-like above the hammering of Joel's cane. TO some temperaments the double summons would have proved confusing, but Persis Dale dropped her sewing and moved briskly to the door, addressing the ceiling as she went. "'Twon't ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... jaw, the ear, and the temple, are the three weakest points which you present. However, I took particular care that my man did not get home; but, on the other hand, I fear that I did not do him much harm either. He bored in with his head down; and I, like a fool, broke my knuckles over the top of his impenetrable skull. Of course, theoretically I should either have stepped back and tried an undercut, or else taken him into chancery; but I must confess to feeling flurried and rattled from the blow I had ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... bake-shop on the Main Street of the town of Coal Creek Pennsylvania and then went quickly inside. Something pleased him and as he stood before the counter in the shop he laughed and whistled softly. With a wink at the Reverend Minot Weeks who stood by the door leading to the street, he tapped with his knuckles on the showcase. ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... the game is up; we are two old fogies. [They groan in unison; then she raps him sharply on the knuckles.] Tell me, sir, what are you ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... and the moon was shining brightly in the sky overhead when Bumpus, being awakened by some sort of dream, suddenly sat upright, digging his knuckles into his eyes, as if hardly able to believe that he was not safe and sound in his own ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... to the public to-morrow—to the public, mind you. My English customers and friends, if they come to the little door in the Arcade, and give two knocks, and then three little ones with their knuckles on the door, will find it open, and can be served as long as there is any liquor left; but for the last three days I have been clearing out nearly all my stock. The demand has been tremendous, and I was ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... a ram's blow is dealt: And foul fall the knuckles that strike below the belt. Nor brave the inventions that serve to replace The openness of valor while ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... looked behind us, and then at each other. Margaret was now like the rest of us. She had lost her statuesque calm. All the introspective rigidity had gone from her; and she clasped her hands together till the knuckles were white. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Tommy bored his knuckles into his red eyes, and began to whimper. Again it was hard for Tommy! He had followed Clare, thinking to supply what was lacking to him; to do for him what he was not clever enough to do for himself; in short, to make an advantageous partnership with him, to which he should furnish ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... decided that his sheep should go through, since the free range was his as well as another's. On that long night march, when the men were behind the sheep, driving them, contrary to the usual custom, he told Sims of his interview with Beef Bissell, and the herder cracked his knuckles with rage at the position taken by ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Rubber Collar got one from me that made him remember home and mother, I'll bet. Anyhow, my knuckles ached for two days afterwards. And Jonadab was just as busy. But I cal'late we'd have been ready for the oven in another five minutes if the door hadn't bu'st open with a bang, and a loud dressed chap, with the sweat pourin' down his face, come ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... loudest, tears streamed down its scarlet face, and it dug its clenched knuckles furiously into ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... the history of mathematics are the calculations published by the weather-prophet of the Express. Arithmetic turns pale when she glances at them, and, striking her multiplication table with her algebraic knuckles, demands to know why the Express does not add a Cube-it to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... into his middle, there to mix uncomfortably with the viands he had eaten. Weeks' thin face looked very white, and Dane noticed with malicious enjoyment, that Ali had an unobtrusive grip on the table which made his knuckles stand out in polished knobs—proving that there were things which could upset the ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... lad, with the desperation of a cornered rat. "But I got a right to live. And I've lived worse'n a dorg on this bloody schooner. I'm fair striped an' bruised wi' boots an' knuckles an' ends o' rope. I'd 'ave chucked myself over long ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... study Alexey Alexandrovitch walked up and down twice, and stopped at an immense writing-table, on which six candles had already been lighted by the valet who had preceded him. He cracked his knuckles and sat down, sorting out his writing appurtenances. Putting his elbows on the table, he bent his head on one side, thought a minute, and began to write, without pausing for a second. He wrote ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... They were hazy—a little—to the eye, but here and there he caught a face clearly and did not forget it again—a baby in a blue-and-white blanket coat, that had bright red cheeks and that smiled and showed two brand-new teeth; a boy with bare hands and red knuckles (the Poor Boy sent him a pair of warm mittens from the village store), and ears (one bigger than the other) ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris
... might take to caves and the vampires to outhouses and dark crevices in the rocks, but most of the monkeys and apes would soon become extinct, while a chimpanzee or orang-utan would become a cripple, swinging ever painfully along between the knuckles of crutch-like forearms, searching, searching forever for the trees which gave him his form and structure, and without which his life and that of his race must ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... among the scholars, familiarly slapping first one and then another on the shoulder, saying "Nice ('ic) nice old boy!" and smiling a smile of elaborate content. Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put his left arm akimbo with his knuckles planted in his hip just under the edge of his cut-away coat, bent his right leg, placing his toe on the ground and resting his heel with easy grace against his left shin, puffed out his aldermanic stomach, opened his lips, leaned ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... day before. His hair was rather long and a toss of dark curls. His face was as tenderly pretty as his sister's, whom he strongly resembled, although he was somewhat fairer of complexion. But it was full of the utmost bravado of rage and defiance, and his two small hands were clinched, until the knuckles whitened, in the faces of the little crowd who confronted him. The color had not left his face, for his cheeks burned like roses, but his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed. The boys danced ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... state when we had well beheld, With tender ruth on him, and on his feres, In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held; And, by and by, another shape appears Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers; His knuckles knob'd, his flesh deep dinted in With tawed hands, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... ashtray wasn't a sharp pain any longer. It had developed into a nice, dependable ache that had spread all over the side of his head. And his right eye was beginning to swell, probably from the same cause. He'd skinned the knuckles of his right hand, too, probably on Sam's face, and they set ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... equal to all the diplomacy of thrust and parry to be gained by living in society. Her stepmother, who was apparently as good-natured as she seemed brainless, was prepared to be gushing, but that was nipped in the bud by the way Dawn extended her pretty, firm hand with the dimpling wrist and knuckles and exquisitely ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard and sent him sprawling on ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more than I can devoutly live, pricked through the very reins and kidneys with that skewer. Alas! he is my goad, my thorn in the flesh, the messenger of satan sent to buffet me. He is the mosquitto that stings my knuckles; the little, black, abominable fly that will insist to assail my nose; he is my bruise, my blain, my blister, my settled, ceaseless source of irritation: the cause, the cause—of what is he the cause? Alas! that I should ever have been the cause of such a foul effect! But let it ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... it was none other than the subject of my late reverie with whom I had come in collision. "I don't know whether I have scratched your varnish, as you call it, but I have knocked the skin off my own knuckles against the tree in ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... tight hold of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and swore, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... Lucille, reappearing from behind the flagon. "I hate them myself, even on the funny-bone or knuckles—but on the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... wrote to Bob. He had been reading his contract over. There had come to him a strong temptation to quit. Several fellows had gotten bruised in practice. Jimmy Blackwell had the skin taken off his knuckles when someone stepped on his hand; Harry Knowlton got a clip over one eye; Tom Barley had his wind knocked out. It would be but a matter of time before something happened to him. In the letter to Bob, he wrote: "I don't know why I'm so timid. ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... that was the law: a hard fight—the best man to win. In war, favors might be shown; but in life, with a man's own at stake, it was every one for himself. Peter himself would agree to that. He was not one to ask favors. A fair fight was all he demanded. Then let it be a clean, fair fight with bare knuckles to a finish. Let him show himself to Marjory as the grandson of the man who gave him his name; let him press ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... heard steps behind, and turned in time to guard his head with his right arm. It felt numb and he was half dazed by a shock of pain, but he struck savagely with his left hand and his knuckles jarred on bone. The other's stick dropped, and when they grappled Festing was relieved to feel his arm was not broken. His muscles were hard and well trained, his blood was hot, and a struggle of the kind was not altogether a novelty. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... got scruples," I says, and not a bit did I know what I was talking about. Captain Clyde rapped the table with his knuckles. ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... to his mother's memory with his knuckles. "And that's for your friendship," he said, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... the 'cup-and-ring' markings on which are thought by the surrounding peasantry to have been made by the knees and elbows of St Roch, who fell upon this stone when he landed from Ireland. When the natives desire a wind they knock upon the depressions with their knuckles, murmuring spells the while, just as in Scotland in the seventeenth century a tempest was raised by dipping a rag in water and beating it on a stone thrice in the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... of the clearing below her, clearly visible in the bright moonlight, she saw fully twenty huge, manlike apes—great, shaggy fellows who went upon their hind feet with only slight assistance from the knuckles of their hands. The moonlight glanced from their glossy coats, the numerous gray-tipped hairs imparting a sheen that made the hideous creatures almost magnificent ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Marion, though he did not want to be mayor, and was chairman of the State Water Storage Commission because he particularly wanted to be the chairman; he was, by reason of that office, in a position where he could rap the knuckles of those who should attempt to grab and selfishly exploit "The People's White Coal," as he called water-power. These latter appertaining qualifications were interesting enough, but his undeviating observance of the mill rule of the Morrisons of St. Ronan's served more ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... looked a little gruffer than of old; and left him to find his own way to Maurice's room. In accordance with the new state of things, Dove knocked ceremoniously at the door. While his knuckles still touched the wood, it was flung open, and he stood face to face with Maurice. For a moment the latter did not seem to recognise his visitor; he had evidently ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Mr. Vandam into my imitation hall of the Vandam mansion. I want each of you in turn to tiptoe up that hall to a spot indicated on the wall, back of the cabinet, and strike that spot several sharp blows with your knuckles." ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... in fancy? You answer, So be it! Imagine yourself then, good Sir, in a wig, Either grizzle or bob—never mind, you look big. You've a sword at your side, in your shoes there are buckles, And the folds of fine linen flap over your knuckles. You have come with light heart, and with eyes that are brighter, From a pint of red Port, and a steak at the Mitre; You have strolled from the Bar and the purlieus of Fleet, And you turn from the Strand into Catherine Street; Thence climb to the law-loving summits of Bow, Till you stand at ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... child!' cried the nurse, and hit him over the knuckles. Now, no one had ever hit Philip before. He grew paler than ever, but he did not cry, though his hands hurt rather badly. For she had snatched up the yard-stick to hit him with, and ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... at the sound of a footstep behind him, and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who was digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but well-made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... not with such. ease. Here and there they were rapped over the knuckles. But nowadays they could cart ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... and remembered how he had kept his eyes fixed on it the evening that he had sat with her in the little Twenty-third Street drawing-room. All the beauty that had forsaken her face seemed to have taken refuge in the long pale fingers and faintly dimpled knuckles on his sleeve, and he said to himself: "If it were only to see her hand again I should ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... stood over the blaze, rubbing his bony old knuckles, he was a depressing figure indeed. His gloomy eyes had no reflected glow in them; his long, stooped frame suggested nothing so much as a weather- worn scare-crow about which a thousand storms had thrashed. There was no joy in ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... dry tree knuckles, buttressed roots rising three feet from the soil, and discussed the situation gravely. After a short time Peter got up with a start and began prancing about the little free space ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... He was dressed in a long black topcoat, high collar and string tie. The clicking noise was explained when he rubbed his long white hands together, making the knuckles pop like ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... know the man whose demeanour is "always calm," but whose passions are strong. How do you know that his passions are strong? Because he "gives them away" by some small, but important, part of his demeanour, such as the twitching of a lip or the whitening of the knuckles caused by clenching the hand. In other words, his demeanour, fundamentally, is not calm. You know the man who is always "smoothly polite and agreeable," but who affects you unpleasantly. Why does he affect you unpleasantly? ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... accounts, there is an end of confidence; but I must say his last letter appears to me a sort of exuberance of anger, which spends itself on many subjects rather than the one which first caused it, and therefore I suspect he has received some rap on the knuckles at home, which he resents here, or on the first person who is not of the same opinion as himself; but it is a curious anomaly that he should quarrel with Normanby in support of arbitrary and absolute Government. All is quiet here now, and will, I hope, continue so till ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... replaced the volume on its shelf. He gave the glass cylinder of his electrical machine a turn or two, and was for the moment gratified to elicit a faint spark, a feeble snap of blue fire, which clicked from the "receiver" to his knuckles. His eye dwelt fondly for a few seconds on the air-pump, but wandered from that to the telescope, and finally took cognizance of an apparatus for weighing heavy articles. This was provided with a small platform, upon which the recluse philosopher stepped, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... you know it. Shorthand typists are not wanted these days, the schools are turning out thousands of 'em, all more or less bad; but I—I ain't talking about that, dear—" He took a step towards her, and then recoiled, seeing her knuckles shine whitely as she gripped the ruler. ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... said Grant doggedly. His knuckles were bleeding and his forearms were sore from the treatment he had received from Sam's boots. The pain made him angry and more determined than ever to ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... brings it up to him, puts it irritatingly in front of him; he seizes it, they struggle for it, trying to take it out of each other's hands; she screams, he tries to get it; there is a scuffle round the room; he tries to rub her knuckles; she makes a little feint to bite him; in the struggle the box drops on the floor a little below the ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... I've a notion, some folks will never have to boast of—so trot, and fetch the bowl for me, do you hear, and set up the nine-pins. You've sense enough to do that, have not you? and as for your lesson, I'll drive that into your head by and by, if I can," added he, rapping with his knuckles upon the ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... 'bus that meets the 4.52. He'd a handbag and a sort of hamper: it looked to me like a linen-basket. He wouldn't let the Boots touch the hamper, but carried it up into his bedroom himself. He carried it in front of him by the handles, and grazed his knuckles at every second step. He slipped going round the bend of the stairs, and knocked his head a rattling good thump against the balustrade; but he never let go that hamper—only swore and plunged on. I could see he was nervous and excited, but one gets used to nervous and ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... dipped sixteen adult converts in a day—which he did a fortnight since; no wonder Barraclough, scamp and hypocrite as he is, should attract all the weaver-girls in their flowers and ribbons, to witness how much harder are his knuckles than the wooden brim of his tub; as little wonder that you, when you are left to yourselves, without your rectors—myself, and Hall, and Boultby—to back you, should too often perform the holy service of our church ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... look a great deal better out of their integuments than in them. Not from this class, however, do your all-the-year-round bathers come. The Arab is an exotic—a child of the Sun, loving not to disport himself in water the temperature of which shocks his tentative knuckles, as he dips them in the unaccustomed element. His wardrobe, again, is too much after the fashion of that pertaining to Canning's needy knife-grinder to make an al fresco toilette other than embarrassing. From the all-the-year-round bathers, as a nucleus, there has grown up, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... into the Custody of a professional Laddie with large staring Knuckles and a Dialect that dimmed all ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... flash old Wat's arrow had sped, and the Butcher sprang back with a howl of pain, his hand skewered by a cloth-yard shaft. As he shook it furiously at his enemies a second grazed his knuckles. With a brutal kick of his metal-shod feet he hurled young Alspaye over the edge, looked down for a few moments at his death agonies, and then walked slowly from the parapet, nursing his dripping hand, the arrows still ringing loudly upon his ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... secrets of their souls confidentially to her, and offered gracious mediations on their behalf with any of the flitting Newport fair ones. When they, as in duty bound, said that they saw nobody whom they cared about now she was married, that she was the only woman on earth for them,—she rapped their knuckles briskly with her fan, and bid them mind their manners. All this mode of proceeding gave her ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... handsome woman she was when I saw her first! Well, lads, let's join the ladies: I'm none of your steady-going old topers. Enough's as good's a feast—that's my motto. And I can't write my name on a slate with my knuckles, either." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... him down, and churn his head against the ground; to gouge out his eyes; to bite off his ears; to kick him, carve him, mutilate him in various and unsportsman-like and unspeakable ways. But it was the high crime of the code to slug him with brass or steel knuckles, commonly called knucks. The man who carried this reenforcement for the natural fist in his pocket and used it in a fight was held the lowest of all contemptible and namelessly vile things. So, these Texas cowboys ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... his hands were moist, and there was a strange, tight feeling about his chest, as if his lungs were full and could not be emptied. After a moment's hesitation, he rapped firmly on the door with his bare knuckles. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... of laughter greeted the play and stirred the sleigh-bells on the startled horses beyond the door. The programme over, somebody called for Squire Town, a local pettifogger, who flung his soul and body into every cause. He often sored his knuckles on the court table and racked his frame with the violence of his rhetoric. He had a stock of impassioned remarks ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... much resemblance to actual warfare. Still they demanded of the performers skill of a peculiar kind, great physical endurance and ceaseless activity. The combat-sword was an unlikely-looking weapon, very short in the blade, with a protuberant hilt of curved bars to protect the knuckles of the combatant. The orchestra supplied a strongly-accentuated tune, and the swords clashed together in strict time with the music. The fight raged hither and thither about the stage, each blow and parry, thrust and guard, being a matter of strict pre-arrangement. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... over his knuckles, and immediately opened it again over her half-embarrassed face. "I comprehend not anything to 'ekalkilate.' WILL you go, Don Fantastico; or is it for me to ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... melted. It seemed impossible that rubber and gutta-percha could withstand such heat as had come sizzling from the Santa Fe. From what the lady had said it required no great inductive powers to reason that the rate clerk had told all. Coming victorious to Miss Lackawanna's door to have his knuckles collodionized he had made known in coarse, triumphant language the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... open, and reached the front door of the Vicarage. But her troubles were not over yet, for she found that, even by standing on the very tips of her toes, she could reach neither bell nor knocker. She rapped as hard as she could with her soft little knuckles, but they made no more noise on the great door than a bird's beak would have done; and then she tried some little kicks, but ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... the desk beside him with the back of his hand, using all his strength, skinning his knuckles so that the blood dripped from them, unnoticed. He waved both arms continually, bending his body almost double and straightening up again, in crucial efforts for emphasis. All the old jingo platitudes that he had learned from campaign speakers ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... faces lighted up as they saw him. The old sailing-master, who seldom indulged in more than a scowl since he lost his right ear by the stroke of a cutlass in capturing the tender to the "Plantagenet" seventy-four off the Hills of Navesink; the rigid old major of marines, who pipe-clayed his very knuckles, and wore a stiff sheet-iron padding to his stock to encourage discipline in the guard; the dear, kind old surgeon, who swallowed calomel pills by the pint, out of pure principle, and who lopped off limbs and felt yellow fever pulses all through the still watches of the hot nights with ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... have. But the cloth on the table yesterday was a sight to behold, with big spots of dirt all along one side and dirt on top. Findlay came in the room just as I reached the table, and I said, "Findlay, what has happened here?" He gave one look at the cloth where I pointed, and then striking his knuckles together, almost sobbed out, "Dot tamn dog, mum!" Faye and Lieutenant Golden quickly left the room to avoid hearing any more remarks of that kind, for it was really very dreadful in Findlay to use such language. This left me alone, of course, to pacify ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... dreamed he was dead, and on his way to heaven. When he got there, he knocked loudly at the door. "I wonder," said he to himself, "that they have no knocker on the door,—-one knocks one's knuckles sore." The apostle Peter opened the door, and wanted to see who demanded admission so noisily. "Ah, it's you, Master Pfriem;" said he, "well, I'll let you in, but I warn you that you must give up that ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... busy thumping the green balls with his knuckles, and feeling of the stems, and when he had tested each in turn, he answered, "Yis, I'll sell thim for you, but ye'd better wait a week or two. They aren't ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the Bad Hand nudged me gently with his knuckles, and I nudged Jed Smith, and Jed passed it on, and it went around from one to the other, so we all knew. Somebody was coming! We could hear a stick snap, and a little laugh, off in the timber; it sounded as though somebody had run into a branch. We waited. The enemy was stealing ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... turned to Dade amiably, his knuckles pressing lightly upon his hips that his palms might be saved immaculate for the next little corn cake which he would presently slap into ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... too late. It fell to the ground and bounded away, with its proprietor in passionate chase. Arthur snorted and gently chafed his knuckles. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... lowly, but none the less viciously. It was quite by accident that when his patience was strained almost to the breaking point, he struck his hand against a board that formed part of the partition between his building and the courthouse next door, and tore a huge chunk of skin from the knuckles. He paid little attention to the injury, however, for the agitating of the board disclosed the glittering recreant, and he pounced upon it with the precision of a hawk upon ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... said the husband with a look of almost fierce determination, pressing his fist as he spoke rigidly on his desk, as though he had Mr. Slope's head below his knuckles and meant ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... stood, puzzled and scared, something brushed very lightly,-even coquettishly,—against his knuckles. He started in nervous fright. An instant later, the same thing brushed his knuckles again, this time more insistently. The man, in a spurt of fear-driven rage, grabbed at the invisible object. His fingers slipped along the smooth sides of the bewitched bag that Lad ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... watched the result with great anxiety; after an interval of painful suspense, he saw the filaments of the string exhibit by their motion signs of electrical action; he drew in the kite, and, presenting his knuckles to the key, received a strong spark, which of course decided the success of the experiment. Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial was charged, a shock given, and the identity of lightning with the electric fluid demonstrated beyond ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... trickling rush of a little mountain stream that flowed through the grounds. Some what surprised, though not abashed, at the evident "not-at-home" look of the farm-house, Mr. Dyceworthy rapped loudly at the rough oaken door with his knuckles, there being no such modern convenience as a bell or a knocker. He waited sometime before he was answered, repeating his summons violently at frequent intervals, and swearing irreligiously under his breath as he did so. But at last the door was flung ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... vengeance. I saw the blood bathing the torn ear of my antagonist. It looked beautiful. I was no longer afraid of anything. Yelling my uncle's name I came on ... I beat the knife out of the other's hand and bloodied his knuckles with the next blow. I beat him down with rapid blows, threshing at him, shouting ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... up his huge paws, and as I stared at the battered, malformed knuckles I understood the ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... in hopes that by his jesting, among his merry Companions, he may from them understand what is best, upon such occasions, to be done or avoided; and they seriously jesting say to him: O friend, wean yourself from your wife and Tobacco, and drink Chocolate, and eat knuckles of Veal, or else you'l become like one of Pharaohs lean Kine. Oh ho, thinks he, if that be true, I have spent my ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... Sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle Toby—and you have crush'd all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly. 'Tis your own fault, said Dr. Slop—you should have clinch'd your two fists together into the form of a child's head as I told you, and sat firm.—I did so, answered my uncle Toby.—Then the points of my forceps have ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... visited Wuthering Heights, my nearest neighbours to Thrushcross Grange. On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. As I knocked for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled, vinegar- faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... from outside. But the hand became instantly tense. It fell upon the sill and clutched it so hard that the knuckles stood out, white, strained and garish. Banneker's own strong hand descended upon the wrist. A voice ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... beg pardon. But this is no time for explanations. Come, come"—he rapped his desk with his knuckles—"don't you know what getting out an extra is? Every second is worth half your lifetime. Out with ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... up as he struck. He had been hit squarely on the jaw with a force that made even Tom Reade's hardened knuckles ache. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... letters from the left side of his desk to the right, staring at them thoughtfully; rearranged his pencils in a pile before his ink-well; glanced at the point of an indelible pencil with a manner of startled examination; tapped his desk-blotter with his knuckles; then raised his eyes. He studied Mr. Wrenn, smiled, put on the look he used when inviting him out for a drink. Mr. Guilfogle was essentially an honest fellow, harshened by The Job; a well-satisfied victim, with the imagination clean ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... stock indeed. Five black pieces of muslin, each with two peep-holes, several sets of false whiskers, two pairs of brass knuckles, three metal rings from each of which dangled more than a dozen keys of varying sizes, a box of revolver cartridges, a formidable knife, some twine and a number of ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... month of the year. Herewith is illustrated a very simple method to determine the number of days in any month. Place the first finger of your right hand on the first knuckle of your left hand, calling that knuckle January; then drop your finger into the depression between the first and second knuckles, calling this February; then the second knuckle will be March, and so on, until you reach July on the knuckle of the little finger, then begin over again with August on the first knuckle and continue until December is reached. Each month as it falls upon a knuckle will have ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... great blow with his thin fist, and shook the damaged knuckles in the air. "I just want to tell you, whatever I did feel, I don't feel MEAN any more; not to-day, I don't. There's a meaner man in this world than I ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... the deaf, my ears; to the shyster lawyers, my tongue; to the cow-herds, my intestines; to the sausage makers, my thighs; to the ladies, my tenderloins; to the boys, my bladder; to the girls, my little pig's tail; to the dancers, my muscles; to the runners and hunters, my knuckles; to the hired man, my hoofs; and to the cook—though not to be named—I give and bequeath and transmit my belly and appendage which I have dragged with me from the rotten oak bottoms to the pig's sty, for him to tie around his neck and to hang ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... own knife, and showed it pointing towards Conroy in a damp, swarthy hand, whose knuckles bulged above the haft. His rough, spatulate thumb rasped along it, drawing from it the crepitation that proves an ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the skin-flap of her father's lodge. Two men sat with him, and the three looked at her with swift interest. But her face betokened nothing as she entered and took seat quietly, without speech. Tantlatch drummed with his knuckles on a spear-heft across his knees, and gazed idly along the path of a sun-ray which pierced a lacing-hole and flung a glittering track across the murky atmosphere of the lodge. To his right, at his shoulder, ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... Will Jones's knuckles had won a degree of peace for him. He had lived a sort of armed truce, so to speak. Now he was subjected to petty persecutions by mean boys who took advantage of his new stand. He did not put on ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... shot into the air, with the vow, and his fist clenched until the knuckles stood out ridged against the bloodless ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball |
