"Ninepins" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that soft-'earted, I wouldn't keep 'im a day longer, not a day I wouldn't. 'E won't sleep in 'is bed like a Christian—lies on top all of a heap like. Last week, when I was a-cleanin' out his bottom cupboard, the brandy bottles was standin' up like a row o' ninepins. This mornin' they was lyin' down flat as your fyce—empty, m'm, every one of 'em. It did give me a turn. And 'e'll order 'is dinner for eight o'clock, and not come 'ome till two in the mornin'—if 'e comes 'ome at all. 'E's out ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... my friend," answered the professor. "No man could keep his feet among those breakers; we should be helplessly knocked about, like ninepins. And now, do you wish to see any more, or shall we be off ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... "I never saw anything like it. Here's a chap who has been in bed on and off for months coming out in this unexpected manner and knocking us about as if we had been ninepins. What's become of him, I should like ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... dignified, genial, with a veritable coronal of splendid grey hair—to watch the eternal bowling in the alley back of the restaurant. I have watched them fascinated for long periods and I have never learned what it is they are trying to do with those big "bowling balls." They have no ninepins, so they are not trying to make a ten-strike. Apparently, it is a game however, for now and then a shout of triumph proclaims that someone has won. He orders the drinks and they go at ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... as a bag of ninepins,' explained Cripplestraw in continuation. 'You can feel 'em quite plain, Mis'ess Anne. If ye would like to, he'll undo his sleeve in a minute ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... of the Foreign Legion in our hospital who had been to Cambridge, and had the "outside" eyes on all things French. In his view je m'en foutism has a hold of the French army. Strange if it had not! Clear, quick brains cannot stand Fate's making ninepins of mankind year after year like this. Fortunately for France, the love of her sons has never been forced; it has grown like grass and simple wild herbs in the heart, alongside the liberty to criticise and blame. The poilu cares ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... up-hill and the wind against us. John Glass, the clerk, came to meet us to offer his help. There were seven or eight present. Returning it was worse; the wind was at our backs, and at different times Ellen and I were blown down like ninepins. I have since been told by the people, "When you hear a puff coming, stand or duck till it is over and then go on." On these windy days the dust and litter that come from the thatch are ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... Durty December doe, Thou with a face as old as Erra Pater, such a Prognosticating nose: thou thing that ten years since has left to be a woman, outworn the expectation of a Baud; and thy dry bones can reach at nothing now, but gords or ninepins, pray goe fetch a ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches of similar style with that of the ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... destroyed. The dragoons in St. Paul's became so troublesome to the inhabitants by their noisy brawling games and their rough interruption of passengers, that in 1651 we find them forbidden to play at ninepins from ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... fascination reasserted itself over her; there seemed something inspiring in standing with him on the free heights that left all the clogging vapors and fogs of moral problems somewhere below; where the sun shone and the clear wind blew and talk was a game of bowls with Puritan ideals for ninepins. He went on amusing her till the curtain rose, with a pretended theory of Mohammedology which he was working at. Just as for the Christian Apologist the Old Testament was full of hints of the New, so he contended was the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... to be met by a blinding fire of Lee-Metford and revolver bullets their bravery vanished like breath from the face of a looking-glass. They hesitated, and a rain of bullets wrought terrible havoc amongst their ranks. On every side the fighting-men of Bekwando went down like ninepins—about half a dozen only sprang forward for a hand-to-hand fight, the remainder, with shrieks of despair, fled back to the shelter of the forest, and not one of them again ever showed a bold front to the white man. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a bunch not to be trifled with, a quiet group of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning with the anticipated joy of the combat they loved, some grim as death itself, each affectionately twirling a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the circus men, and down they would go like ninepins and they knew it—knew it so well that, within two minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... certain to send it assistance. These cities stood in a plain, but a few miles apart, and in a straight line on the banks of the river. The king had just sat down before the first, vowing that he would knock them down, one after the other, like a row of ninepins. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies |
