"Smashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... don't know," replied Haswell, shaking his white head. "Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her? Also I don't like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn't right, and it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he has left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good, honest stick to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired now, I really can't ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... of these soldiers was a white chief, whom they called Yellow Hair. He was a smashing, dashing, fearless soldier who understood the Indian ways and haunts, and then used this knowledge for the undoing ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... "Intermezzo" at his very ear, and that, without any apparent interval of time, he was surmounting a heap composed of a newspaper boy, a sandwich man, and a hospital nurse, while his hands held nothing save a red-hot memory of where the rope had been. The smashing of glass and the clatter of hoofs on the pavement filled in what space was left in ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... banks clear up into the cottonwoods and out on to the bottom, going down in a raging, muddy torrent, literally full of huge, grinding ice-cakes, up-ending and rolling over each other as they went, tearing down trees in their paths, ripping, smashing, tearing at each other and everything in their course in the effort to get out and away. The spectacle held us spellbound. None of us had ever seen anything to compare with it, for the spring freshets of other years had been mild affairs as compared to this. But there was something else that ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the biggest and fanciest lamp in the lot that was broken—a tall one with a frosted glass shade and a row of crystal prisms dangling around the bowl of it. It toppled over on to a pair of old brass andirons, smashing into a thousand pieces. Bits of glass flew in every direction, and "Grandpa," his fur electrified by his fright until he looked twice his natural size, shot through the door as if fired from a cannon, and was ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... many who did not get it by heart. There was no doubt in their minds of the poor shoemaker's innocence. Every one knew that he was incapable of hurting a fly. The crowd had gone into his shop and swept him away with them—all were in it; and some person seeing the hammer had taken it to help in smashing the machinery. And Mr. Ellerby had known in his heart that he was innocent, and if he had spoken a word for him in court he would have got the benefit of the doubt and been discharged. But no, he wanted ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... roof, moving higher and higher. The suspense was extreme. Then there was silence; even the myowling had ceased. Then a clap of thunder; and then, after that, a terrific clatter on the roof, a bounding downwards as of a great stone, a curse, a horrid pause, and finally a terrific smashing of foliage and cracking ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... ways of Lunnun town; and if he has not as merry a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a longer. But a merry one forever for such lads as us, Mr. Pepper! I say, has you heard as how Bill Fang went to Scratchland [Scotland] and was stretched for smashing queer screens [that is, hung for uttering forged notes]? He died 'nation game; for when his father, who was a gray-headed parson, came to see him after the sentence, he says to the governor, say he, 'Give us a tip, old 'un, to pay the expenses, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as he was bringing up the rear. When the forlorn hope reached the advanced barricade Arnold halted it till the supports had come up. The loss of the gun and the worrying his main body was receiving from the sailors along the Grand Battery spoilt his original plan of smashing in the barricade by shell fire while Morgan circled round its outer flank on the ice of the tidal flats and took it in rear. So he decided on a frontal attack. When he thought he had a fair chance he stepped ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... is usually made for him, and it's served up hot off the spider. The horse wrangler is the fellow who goes out and rounds up the ponies. Sometimes he does it in the middle of the night when the thunder and lightning are smashing about him like all possessed, and the cattle are on the rampage. He's a trouble-curer, not a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... was engaged in this second assault, with windows smashing to right of them and to left of them, with glass falling all around them, and the staves of old ash-barrels playing a devil's tattoo about them, the devoted band of editors, reporters, and copy-readers worked nobly on. They had confidence in ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... applied to the bladder of spirits, and offered some to me; I refused. I had had enough, and by this time she had had too much, and after an attempt to bale she dropped down in the stern sheets, smashing pipes and everything beneath her, and ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the tactics of a desperate leader. Though a bigot to his cause, Graham was not a madman. He was a thorough believer in the power of guerrilla troops, but he knew that in the end they would go down before the regulars. He hoped, by availing himself of the hot courage of the clansmen, to deal a smashing blow at his old rival, but unless the Lowlands and the regulars joined James's side, there was not the remotest chance of unseating William from his new throne. His words were high, but his heart was anxious, as he hurried with his little army to strike once at least for the king, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... Nicholas, who was declared on the highest German authority (and what higher?) to be annihilated twice, having turned a smashing tactical defeat into strategical victory, bobs up serenely in another and most inconvenient place. Absurd; particularly when "what I tell you three times is true." ... Neonapoleon didn't ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... due to morainic action in the parent glacier. Later in the day the easterly wind increased to a gale. Fragments of floe drifted past at about two knots, and the pack to leeward began to break up fast. A low berg of shallow draught drove down into the grinding pack and, smashing against two larger stranded bergs, pushed them off the bank. The three went away together pell- mell. We took shelter under the lee of a ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Queer screens; forged bank notes. The cove was twisted for smashing queer screens; the fellow was hanged for ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... please believe—that I should make you any sort of scene about it. Of course in the first place she knows perfectly that anything like a scene would be no use. You couldn't make out even if you wanted," Nanda went on, "that THIS is one. She won't hear us—will she?—smashing the furniture. I didn't think for a while that I could do anything at all, and I worried myself with that idea half to death. Then suddenly it came to me that I could do just what I'm doing now. You said a while ago that we must never be—you ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... burst out Daniels, smashing his hands together, "that Mac Strann beats you to a pulp! ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... wonderful paper, and how it was figured how many farms it would buy, what houses it would build and furnish, and how the boy who had been expelled from school for fighting had done it all! What a smashing of old theories it made, and how every wild boy in the neighborhood to whom the evil example of the bad Sedgwick boy had been held up as an illustration of total depravity and as proof that nothing ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... son as well as himself. He was quite sure of his little balance, though he had never had any head for figures of that sort. It was an easy affair in his eyes to handle the differential calculus, which will do anything, metaphorically speaking, from smashing a rock as flat and thin as a postage stamp, to regulating an astronomical clock; but to understand the complication of a pass-book and a bank account was a matter of the greatest possible difficulty. Newton would have done it much better, though he could not get to ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... tried a window. It was fastened. Without hesitation he pulled out some instruments. One of them was a rubber suction-cup, which he fastened to the windowpane. Then with a very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large section. It soon fell and was prevented from smashing on the floor by the string and the suction-cup. Kennedy put his hand in and unlatched the ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... saying, it was as easy to fall in love at Siwash as it was to forget to go to chapel. We got along all right in the fall. We liked the girls enormously and were always smashing up some football team just to please them. And, of course, we kept ourselves all stove up financially during the winter hauling them to parties and things in Jonesville's nine varnished cabs. It took about as much money to support those cabs as ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... House and asking inconvenient questions at public meetings. They had suffered a great deal of violence but had used none. From 1908 onwards, however, they began to use violence, stone throwing, personal attacks, sometimes with whips, on obnoxious members of the Government, window smashing, the destruction of the contents of letter-boxes—in one instance the destruction of ballot papers cast in an election. Later arson practised for the destruction or attempted destruction of churches and houses became more and more frequent. All this had an intensely ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... cried Rupert, smashing away at a handful of bees which seemed to be settling down on ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... that nothing counted so much as money. It made the world a nightmare, but she set to work to become her own heiress.... In this struggle she must at last lose faith. This can be brought about by long years, smashing blows and incredible suffering, but the result must be ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... out of each log, warped a chain around it, and made fast that chain to the steel hawser of the winch. As it was drawn to the deck a Senegalese soldier, acting for the Customs, gave it a second blow with a branding hammer, and, thundering and smashing, it ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... overtook the stream of fugitives, smashing them down despite ray pistols and even rockets that were shot against it. On and on I drove it, time and again battering it through detachments of fleeing Hans, while the distance register on my board climbed to ten, ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... hurried towards them through the twilight. Then, with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... Mar, smashing down the innocent torch on the floor in fury, as he rushed to the desk and saw his papers ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the porter would recognise and allow me to take up a position at one of the windows. Next door, the corner house, I found a shell had gone into a wine-merchant's shop there, who could very well have dispensed with such a visitor, and had behaved in the most unruly fashion, breaking the glass, smashing the tables and counter, but neither killing nor wounding anybody. The porter knew me quite well, and invited me to walk upstairs to the apartments of my friend, situated on the third floor. From the windows I could not see the bastion, which was hidden by the station; but to the left, in the ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... insanitary, an undeniable claim to a new home. Moderate and just and necessary to the national welfare as these claims were, it took us years of unwearied agitation before we were able to get them legislatively recognised. What we did, however, more promptly achieve was the smashing of the contract system by which the roads of the country were farmed out to contractors, mostly drawn from the big farming and grazier classes who, by devious dodges, known to all, were able to make very comfortable incomes out of them. We insisted—and after some exemplary displays of a resolute ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... make out his way with any kind of certainty, he proceeded, still under their direction, to the cottage adjoining, which was immediately surrounded by the troopers. After knocking at the door with violence, and demanding instant admittance, under the threat of smashing it in, and burning the house as a harbor for rebellious priests, the door was immediately opened by a gray-headed old man, feeble and decrepit in appearance, but yet without any manifestation of terror either in his voice ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the house, the old cook, under the impression that the cat had got into the pantry, and was smashing the crockery, entered the lobby in her nightdress, shrieked "Mercy on us!" on beholding the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... in winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing hither and thither, a coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they had come on a waterlogged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her empty, and her hull riven in two, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... round a confectionery window, and, as usual in such cases, there began an elbowing and scuffling contest for places, in which Fred was quite conspicuous. At last a big boy presumed on his superior size to edge in front of our hero, and cut off his prospect; and Fred, without more ado, sent him smashing through the shop window. There was a general scrabble, every one ran for himself, and Fred, never having been used to the business, was not very skilful in escaping, and of course was caught, and committed ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... see little but the black night, although there was a glow ahead cast by the searchlights of the car. Louise was weak and unnerved. She had no energy to find a way to combat her fate, if such a way were possible. A dim thought of smashing a window and hurling herself through it gave her only a shudder of repulsion. She lacked strength for ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... think of what that chap got me in for—scaling a man's walls, smashing in his locks, letting myself down the front of his house like a monkey on a rope! I might have been a dashed school kid again." Resentment and reluctant humor struggled in the young man's speech. "Why, the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... noteworthy artistic fruit; for within three years the roar and scream of the tempest, the smashing of heavy seas upon the ship's sides and deck, and (I dare say) the captain's curses, were to be translated into tone and take artistic shape in The Flying Dutchman. London reached in safety, Wagner stayed first near the Tower and then in Soho. He lost his dog, found it, and crossed the ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... fleecing their districts; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry; boys smashing the beautiful windows of cathedrals; Quakers riding naked through the market-place; Fifth-monarchy-men shouting for King Jesus; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag; all these, they tell us, were the offspring of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I had struck him. He came steadily on, and in another second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... intensity for the chance to close. And when that chance came he took it so suddenly and so unexpectedly that not one of the hard-breathing, silent crowd around him saw exactly how he gained his hold. One moment he was avoiding a smashing, right-handed blow; the next he had his adversary locked in a grip of iron, the while he bent and strained for ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... accession of fictitious strength he leapt out of bed, seized the full medicine bottles, and hurled them fiercely out of the window. Just at this moment Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni was entering the house, when two or three bottles came bang upon his head, smashing all to pieces, whilst the brown liquid ran in streams all down his face, and wig, and ruff. Hastily rushing into the house, he screamed like a madman, "Signer Salvator has gone out of his mind, he's become insane; no skill can save him now, he'll ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the human obstinacies of his new task intrigue him. I believe that, just as in peace times big business was his romance and the wealth which he gained from it was often incidental, so in France the job as a job impels him, quite apart from its heroic object. After all, smashing the Pan-Germanic Combine is only another form of trust-busting—trust-busting with aeroplanes and guns instead of with ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... to Kala Khan this time. Nels' smashing drive at the throat had carried the tusker from under the Arab's feet. His rumbling challenge had seemed to take up the scream of the horse; it ended in the piercing squeal of the ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... Billy with ardor, "I wish I could do something to show you how much I think of you for being so good to me. I don't know how. Would it make you happy if I was to learn a hymn for you—a smashing big hymn—six verses, long metre, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... can, and there was a flash from the muzzle as the heelplate touched his shoulder. Alton had not glanced along the barrel, but the curious thud which he heard in place of the explosion told him that the heavy bullet was smashing through bone and muscle. Then thin smoke drifted into his eyes, and there was ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... year there were not less than 40 machines all at work upon the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and smashing and overthrowing everything within their range. There were at least ten of those engines that shot stones so big and heavy that they weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Champagne; insomuch that nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... for rum going and coming it, Smashing and dashing, and tipping it prime, Eastward and westward, and sometimes back-slumming it, He's for the scratch, and come up too in time; For the victualling-office no favor he'll ask it, For smeller and ogles he feels just the same; ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... morning; the few Republicans at Plassans, seeing that they would be unable to make any determined move in the town, had resolved to join their brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx; the first group had left at about eleven o'clock, by the Porte de Rome, shouting the "Marseillaise" and smashing a few windows. Granoux had had one broken. He mentioned the circumstance with stammerings ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... more than a few sentences formally, when my brother drew back and struck him a smashing blow in the face. Dickson grappled with me, a little blinded, and I called to the boy to run—which he very wisely did. Dickson and I were at once surrounded, ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... each other, that they were out for what they could get from the old company. They have to keep up the pretence that they mean legitimate business. That's the way these things are always worked. But you'll find that they won't object to pocketing their cheques when the time comes for smashing up Tim's machine and ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... sure a fighting whale. The annals of whaling do not lack records of such old rogues, as witness the sinking of the Kathleen, of New Bedford on the "12-40 ground" east of the Barbadoes in 1901. A bad whale can do a lot of damage besides smashing whaleboats. Thus far we had suffered no loss from the monsters which the Scarboro was hunting; but as this old bull shot like an arrow for the scarred side of the bark, which was hove to less than half a mile away, it did look as though she was due ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... of her rages, had an ungovernable temper, and, left alone, she vented it by smashing everything she could. She upset the throne, tore down the decorations, and flew around ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... Shire Lane, once stood a block of disreputable, tumble-down houses, used by coiners, and known as the "Smashing Lumber." Every room had a secret trap, and from the workshop above a shaft reached the cellars to hurry away by means of a basket and pulley all the apparatus at the first alarm. The first man made his ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... with such words as "capitalism," "proletariat," "class-consciousness"—and he spoke with fluency of "economic determinism" and "syndicalism." It was quite wonderful! And from time to time, he would bring in a smashing quotation from Aristotle, Napoleon, Karl Marx, or Eugene V. Debs, giving them all equal value, and he cited statistics!—oh, marvellous statistics, that never were on sea ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... of the three hundred spectators. It was fine to see the deliberate way in which he picked his way among the ink bottles. As he sprang down from the last bench on to the floor, his opponent struck him a smashing blow full in the face. Cullingworth got his bulldog grip on him, however, and rushed him backwards out of the class-room. What he did with him I don't know, but there was a noise like the delivery of a ton ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... place under my bedding and placed it in readiness. Plainly I saw Don Juan come out of the wagon with the mischievous stone jug, as this happened in the bright light of our camp fire. That will never do, thought I, and quickly drawing my revolver, I persuaded the Don to drop the jug, incidentally smashing it with a 44 caliber bullet, taking care not to hurt anybody; and this was easily done, as the jug was a large one, it held three gallons. Instantaneously I grabbed my Winchester, and with my back against a wagon stood ready ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and the barrel of precious dishes was in the first one. And just as they were coming bumping and rattling down Arrow Hill, the hind wagon came untied and went crashing into the front one. And the tongue went straight through the barrel of blue dishes—from end to end—smashing everything except these few cups and saucers that ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... of Thanet with her screams. The accident might have been a fearful one, if the pony had not, thank Heaven, on getting to the bottom, pitched over the side; breaking the shaft and cutting her hind legs, but in the most extraordinary manner smashing her own way apart. She tumbled down, a bundle of legs with her head tucked underneath, and left the chaise standing on the bank! A Captain Devaynes and his wife were passing in their carriage at the moment, saw the accident ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... last consented, seeing that no good would come of these young men now; on the contrary, they would be more daring and riotous than ever from rage, when they found that Sidonia had been sent away; and that business of the window-smashing and the goat demanded severe punishment. So let Ulrich look out for a new household; these gay libertines ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... men would back Harris and Alden in their verdict. She nodded and watched them turn back toward the horses. She wanted to lead her men down in a wild charge on the stockade, shooting into it as she rode, avenging the sack of the Three Bar in a smashing fight. ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... I do go at it a bit rabidly, and feel a kind of pleasure in smashing anything. So would you if your only pleasure was in cruising about to find some new Cannibal Islands, and you had to stick on this muddy little rockery in a sort of rustic pond. When I remember how I've cut ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... made an excellent speech in the House of Lords in reply to Aberdeen's questions about Ancona, and Peel made another in the House of Commons on Irish Tithes, smashing Sheil, taking high ground and a strong position, but doing nothing towards settling the question. He forgets that the system is bad, resting on a false foundation, and that it has worked ill and been bolstered up by him and his party till now it can no longer be supported, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... such a thing as life, and it is more potent than theory as it also has a way of disregarding or even smashing the machine. It is this force of life that should be more regarded in education, and more relied upon. It is the living in a school or a college that counts more than a curriculum; the association with others, students and teachers, the communal life, the common adventures ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... expect Maea for a long while yet; and indeed I thought there was an off-chance he might go back on the whole idea and not come at all. I was the better pleased when, about an hour after daylight, I heard sticks smashing and a lot of Kanakas laughing and singing out to keep ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coating of ice and above their heads long icicles hanging from the roofing. Roger slipped and fell and came down with such a jar that a great icicle weighing at least twenty pounds came down close to his head, smashing into many pieces and scattering ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... supposed to describe," allowed to live among the troops in the front line. As a result of this unusual privilege, his pictures of the great fights in the last stages of the War have the reality of personal experience. The actual smashing of the Line, for example, is an epic of heroism and achievement still hardly realised by people at home, who cling to an idea that the final victories were gained over an enemy enfeebled and at disadvantage. There ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... to hear the noise alluded to, mingled with the breaking of glass and the smashing ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... done," said d'Aguilar in his soft voice and foreign accent. "I saw it all, and made sure that you were dead. The parry I understood, but the way you got your smashing blow in before ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... skirmishing line, preceded the guns, and their Enfield fire, as soon as they were within range, astonished the enemy. Then the artillery opened with shrapnel, and nearly at the first round silenced the enemy's guns by killing the majority of the gunners and smashing the sponging rods. Then the infantry advanced at a charge, and the enemy, who were massed to defend the bridge, at once lost heart and fled. They tried to blow up the bridge, but in their haste they blundered ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... the whole tomb disappeared. When this cleared away we saw that, instead of being pointed, it was now flat-topped. Other shells continued to strike it with like effect, some breaking holes in the dome, others smashing off the cupolas, all ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... I bumped into a figure on the other side of the portieres. I seized him. We struggled. Rip! The portieres came down, covering me entirely. Over and over we went, smashing a lamp. It was vicious. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... blanker countenance than he did on beholding the figure of Mr. Earnshaw above. It expressed, plainer than words could do, the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge. Had it been dark, I daresay he would have tried to remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton's skull on the steps; but, we witnessed his salvation; and I was presently below with my precious charge pressed to my heart. Hindley descended more leisurely, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Rushing below decks he besought Bering's permission to sound and anchor. The early darkness of those northern latitudes had been followed by moon-light bright as day. Within a mile of the east shore, {39} Steller ordered the anchor dropped, but by this time, the rollers were smashing over decks with a quaking that seemed to tear the ship asunder. The sick were hurled from their berths. Officers rushed on deck to be swept from their feet by blasts of salt spray, and just ahead, through the moonlight, could be seen the sharp edge of a ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... man to stand this unexpected miscarriage of his eloquence with equanimity. His first action was to throw his pipe at the head of his enthusiastic boy; without worse effect, however, than smashing it to atoms on the opposite wall. He then started up and rushed towards his son, who, being near the door, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the sofa a whole pile of books that he was sorting, and went out into the garden. On the top of the wall separating him from the Orgreaves a row of damaged earthenware objects—jugs and jars chiefly—at once caught his eye. He witnessed the smashing of one of them, and then he ran to the wall, and taking a spring, rested on it with his arms, his toes pushed into crevices. Young George, with hand outstretched to throw, in the garden of the Orgreaves, seemed rather ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... blue eyes and red hair. He walked about the room in silence, followed by Frank. Suddenly he stopped and, picking up one of the typewriting machines rented by Sam for the letter writing, raised it above his head and sent it smashing to ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... we gather that "We were in the trenches waiting for them, but we didn't expect anything like the smashing blow that struck us. All at once, so it seemed, the sky began to rain down bullets and shells. At first they went wide ... but after a time ... they got our range and then they fairly mopped us up.... I saw many a good ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... rush helplessly at monstrous obstacles. Anon Mr. Hoopdriver found himself riding out of the darkness of non-existence, pedalling Ezekiel's Wheels across the Weald of Surrey, jolting over the hills and smashing villages in his course, while the other man in brown cursed and swore at him and shouted to stop his career. There was the Putney heath-keeper, too, and the man in drab raging at him. He felt an awful fool, a—what was it?—a juggins, ah!—a Juggernaut. The villages ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... smashing the precedent that had made former Gold and Green squads have their training camp at Bannister College, had brought the Varsity and second-string stars to this camp on the shore of Lake Conowingo, in the Pennsylvania mountains. For two weeks, one of which had passed, they ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... why that fellow don't write to Ann. I couldn't believe that he has been fooling her but now I don't know what to think of him. Every day I have to deliver a blow that makes her a little paler and thinner. It hurts me like smashing a finger nail. I wonder what ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... four-and-twenty hours. That was off the coast of Africa, after passing the Cape of Good Hope. At the very height of it several heavy seas were shipped with no serious results, but there was a considerable smashing of breakable objects in the pantry and in the staterooms. Mr. Bunter, who was so greatly respected on board, found himself treated scurvily by the Southern Ocean, which, bursting open the door of his room like a ruffianly burglar, ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... judges let fall the scales and surrendered the sword. He fought as tenaciously as the ant which bites when it knows that it is going to be crushed, as does the fly which looks into space only through a pane of glass. Yet the clay jar defying the iron pot and smashing itself into a thousand pieces bad in it something impressive—it had ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... off the train before breakfast. One man in the Warwicks had twelve years' service, a wife and two children, but "when Kitchener wanted more men" he re-joined. This week he got an explosive bullet through his arm, smashing it up to rags above the elbow. He told me he got a man "to tie the torn muscles up," and then started to crawl out, dragging his arm behind him. After some hours he came upon one of his own officers wounded, who said, "Good God, sonny, ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... And still the rain fell. There were two dams to carry around, and they did this somewhat drearily, trudging along the muddy shores, climbing the slippery banks with difficulty, and with some danger of falling and smashing their canoe. ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... in the year 1902, when we started from Champigny for the great race across the Arlberg Mountains. That was the occasion, you will remember, when two of our little company did something by way of a record in smashing up their cars—but the story of one of these, Max, who drove for a French company, has so often been told that I shall certainly not re-tell it here. The other is a different story, and since it is the story of a good man, a good ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... he turned round to introduce Alderman Barney O'Toole, who, as a man and a gentleman, could do more off hand fighting than any other man in the board, and was the fourth of the flabby men. But that distinguished politician and gentleman, who had been seven times sentenced for smashing the skulls of his adversaries, was not at hand, having, while Mr. Blennerhasset was thickening the compliments, winked me down into the cabin, where he drew from his pocket a luminous bottle of old Bourbon whiskey, and in ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... along which she had passed out of his sight. People passed him in the dusk and greeted him, but he did not answer, nor was he aware when they turned to look at him. Once, he was conscious of a loud report and a clatter of feet, but he did not think of it or of what it meant. In his mind, smashing like the blows of a hammer, came ceaselessly the sound of Sheila's ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the time, but they didn't come off. Made me homesick to sing, "Here in cool grot" and "Blow, gentle gales." That reminds me, the wind's dropped since I got in here. Sorry for it. It was some company to have it smashing all round one. Now it's so quiet it makes a fellow quite creepy. They do talk of mountain-tops being haunted. I know Scafell Pike is, and I'm the haunter. Wonder if there's any chance of anybody turning up? ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... weather, a wind from the northeast bringing mingled rain and snow, not a gale, but a squally wind, with a "very grown sea" such as beat upon the coast at the beginning of this week, sending the white horses racing up the beach below Manomet Head, which has been named for them, and smashing in continuous thunder on the stern and rockbound cliffs between White Horse Beach ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... they sometimes dream queer dreams in which wild-eyed men went around smashing everything in sight and a little cottage stood lonely and desolate and ghostlike amid a ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... America and Europe by the ears to catch him. They have been hot on his trail for the past three years, and would have nabbed him a dozen times if only he'd had the grace to stay in one place long enough. The man who made off with the Bracegirdle diamonds, smashing a burglar-proof vault into scrap-iron ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... a sight been seen in London as when the prison gate fell and the crowd rushed from cell to cell, smashing the iron doors to release the prisoners, some of whom, being under sentence of death, had never expected to be free again. Rudge, the murderer, knowing nothing of what the uproar meant, suffered tortures, thinking ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... always coming his way. He chanced upon one that morning while busy in his storeroom, his attention divided between pricing and stacking new dry goods and smashing flies on the back of his superheated neck. And it served him with food for thought for ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... was coming up the garden, amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge, hauling the inanimate body with red-stained hands. For a moment he ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... but the last word had not passed his lips fully—ere the earl rose from his seat, and seizing the heavy brass lamp upon the table between them, struck the unfortunate man a tremendous blow with it, which prostrated him to the floor; smashing in a portion of his skull, and inflicting a mortal wound; the agent groaned and lay senseless; the servants rushed to the scene on hearing the fall, but the furious appearance of the murderer terrified them, particularly as he still held in his hand the weapon he had used; he burst ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja—whichever you prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his hospitals by smashing the windows—one had been a child again for a moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria—two scourges of Serbia—came in their ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... and nothing short of breaking up the bolt would give an entrance. It is lucky that we did not push it quite to; another quarter of an inch and that bolt would have fallen, and we could not have moved it unless by smashing the whole thing into bits. That was why they did not quite close the stone; they ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... through the forehead; I saw Eric go down beneath a crushing stroke, and roll under my feet. I stepped on bodies, fighting for my own life as I never fought before. Somewhere I had gripped a gun out of dead fingers, and swung it savagely, smashing the stock at the first blow, but retaining the twisted iron. The intensity of excitement seemed to clear my brain. I began to distinguish voices, to notice faces. I heard Grant yell safely in the rear; I heard Jones's roar, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... spavined screw. Well, I grant you, hunting men are sometimes narrow-minded fools; Ignorant of all worth knowing, save what's learnt in riding-schools; Careless of the rights of others, scampering over growing crops, Smashing gates and making gaps and scattering wide the turnip tops;— But I hold that out of all the hunting fields throughout the land I could choose for active service a large-hearted, gallant band; I could choose six hundred red-coats, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... audacity of the plan. "Your next great difficulty will be to satisfy audiences after you have got them together, as I dare say you will, by some brilliant system of advertising. I have heard—perhaps you have—of audiences breaking furniture, smashing chandeliers, and ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... a great noise, and also Lupin shouting to Sarah to fetch down his old hat. I went into the passage, and found Lupin in a fury, kicking and smashing a new tall hat. I said: "Lupin, my boy, what are you doing? How wicked of you! Some poor fellow would be glad to have it." Lupin replied: "I would not insult any poor fellow by giving it ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... the professor. "He may go on as Brassfield for anodder fife years or more. He may vake up as Amidon to-morrow morning. Propoply he vill geep on intefinitely, aggumulating spondulix, and smashing hearts, unless ve gan pinch him ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... The Beauteous Bessie Bilhook—"the Queen of Serio-Comics" was scandalously autobiographic, and the old plantation songster—looking unreal with his washed face—was with difficulty dissuaded from displaying his ability to dance on the table without smashing anything. The climax was reserved for the demure one-legged gymnast, who suddenly produced a pistol and discharged it in the air. When the panic subsided, he explained to the landlord and the company that he was ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... mower—a powerful fellow, big boned, big everywhere, and heavy fisted; his chest had been open since four o'clock that morning to the sun, and was tanned like his face. He took her in his mighty arms and kissed her before them all; not one dared move, for the weight of that bone-smashing fist was known. Big Mat drank, as all strong men do; he fought; beyond that there was nothing against him. He worked hard, and farmers are only too glad of a man who will work. He was rather a favourite with the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... velocity, and this is generally accompanied by a hollow bullet which is intended to serve two purposes— to lighten the bullet, and therefore to reduce the work of the powder, and to secure an expansion and smash-up of the lead upon impact with the animal. I contend that the smashing up of the bullet is a mistake, excepting in certain cases such as I have already mentioned, where the animal is small and harmless like the black-buck, which inhabits level plains in the vicinity of population, and where the bullet would be ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... at once to make myself at home by smashing up the furniture. One of your handsomest cabinets is now in ruins upon my ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... which she deposited in the bank as security, is only a blind after all, and they both intend to skip! What a wretched blunder it was to accept bail anyway! But I'll cage both birds this time, only what I do must be done quickly. They must have done a smashing big business in diamonds," he went on, musingly; "and there are evidently two women and one man associated. This Mrs. Walton is doubtless the old one who tricked Doctor Wesselhoff, and that red-headed Mrs. Vanderbeck, I am still confident, is none other than the Widow ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... ammunition was running low. Durwent's mood of reverie had passed, and he fought with limitless energy. Once, when the Huns had penetrated the road, one of their officers levelled a revolver on him, but discharged the bullet into the ground as the butt of Mathews's rifle was brought smashing on his wrist. The old groom followed his master with eyes that saw only the danger hanging over him. For his own safety he gave no care, but wherever Dick stepped or turned, the groom was by his side, with his large, rough face ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... he will argue when in the mood. "It is your impulsive, erratic, thoughtless fellow who goes smashing, trashing and banging about the field and woods with dogs and gun. Your true thinker slips quietly away with rod and line, and while his hook is down in the deep, still waters, or his fly is dancing over the foaming rapids and swiftly swirling eddies, his mind searches the true ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... seized the children, trembling and dazed, and hugged them close. Merciful God, would it never stop! Now the car was plowing through the earth—now falling end over end, straining, grinding, roaring, smashing into ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... and played on my freshman team in college. The next year I had to give it up, though. I'd like to come over some day and see you fellows play. I've always been intending to. I haven't seen a real smashing football game for years. That's funny, too, for I can remember the time when I used to think that if I could get on my 'varsity eleven I'd die happy." He laughed as he swept the searchlights around a corner. "A man's ambitions change, don't they? Now what I want to do is ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the live things they came upon by accident,—how Mrs. Earwig had a wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper, for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had a profound contempt for this nonsense of Maggie's, smashing the earwig at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it was very pretty make-believe. So now ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... onwards for the second one. It was a supremely dashing attack against a supremely steady resistance, for among all their gallant deeds the Boers have never fought better than on that February evening. Amid such a smashing shell fire as living mortals have never yet endured they stood doggedly, these hardy men of the veld, and fired fast and true into the fiery ranks of the Irishmen. The yell of the stormers was answered by the remorseless roar of the Mausers and the deep-chested shouts of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gavel, idle until now, and banged it on the table, smashing his spectacles thoughtlessly placed in front of him a moment before. This did nothing to appease his rising choler. "Silence, madam! We have perhaps been too lenient in deference to your, um, sex. I'll remind you that this body is vested with all the dignity of the state of California. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the whole of my travels who spoke disagreeably about England in this respect. Most people say they think we are quite right to keep out of it as long as we can; but others think our Government is foolish to miss such a splendid chance of "smashing the Yankees," with whom we must have a ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... fist smashing on the table again. And an ugly feeling rose in Hollis that the big fellow might put hands ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... she plunged over the shingle towards the wide, populous bay. He remained alone, grinning at the smashing turmoil, careless of her departure. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... captain, going up to the major; "he will not surrender. I know him! If it comes to smashing in the door he will strike down several of our men. Would it not be better if you ordered him to be shot? There is a wide ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... peals of laughter. Then the young lawyer jumped into the buggy. On the way back Mr. Lincoln told his companion such funny stories that the young man, convulsed with laughter, was unable to drive. The horse, badly broken, upset them into a ditch, smashing the vehicle. ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... drew up in the drive at Medlicote she could see the tennis courts. She could see Jerrold playing in the men's singles. He stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was turned to her ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... the score, and we went out. Near the door Kearny's elbow overturned an upright glass showcase, smashing it into little bits. I paid the storekeeper the price ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... he allow his father to maltreat his brothers and sisters. He acted upon this resolve when, on another occasion, as we have previously stated, he, with the assistance of his mother, had prevented him from smashing up the furniture; though, in order to do this, they had to overpower and bind him with ropes. Of course they could not have succeeded had he not been very drunk. Morris at other times in his wild frenzy acted as though he had ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... the captain was plunging through the scrub of huckleberry and bayberry bushes, bumping into pines and smashing the branches aside as he ran in ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dropped her grip of her husband's arm with a slight cry of fright and shame rather than of pain. Archie did not have to step forward to get at the mason, for with one bound Clark sprang from his seat on the box and dealt Archie such a smashing blow in the middle of the face that he fell crumpled in a heap on the ground between Adelle and the mason. He lay there gasping and groaning for a few moments—long enough for Adelle to realize completely how she ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... clouds of dust which soon became so dense as to blot out the entire landscape from our sight. The impression was that of a huge black cloud resting on the ground, a cloud incessantly rent and illumined by the red flashes of the bursting shells. Nothing, it seemed, could live under such smashing fire. In actual fact, as we saw for ourselves after the position had been taken, the enemy's casualties from it were appalling. The morale of the survivors must have been terribly shaken. The marvel is that, after such ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... and looked at it. "Yes, mates," he ses, "it's a ordinary flat-iron. You couldn't 'ave anything better for smashing a watch with." ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... where is this land of romantic tragedy and domestic infelicity?" questioned Davy. "How come that the movie people haven't taken it over to fit their verbiage: thrilling, stupendous, smashing, wondrous, and so forth?" ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... alcohol—if we could find opportunity for giving a vote on such a question—would be a formal expression of our desire to apply, through the agency of the paid servants of the State, that same physical compulsion which Mrs. Carrie Nation put into application in her "bar-smashing" crusades. ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... stood still. Over the howling wind and smashing sea, he heard thin voices shouting orders. Another mass of water swept over the deck. Near him a woman screamed piteously. Instinctively, the masculine desire to protect womanhood made him ache to help ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... that made its way from the factories to the freight-stations was guarded by a policeman, trying to look stoical beside the scab driver. A line of fifty trucks from the Zenith Steel and Machinery Company was attacked by strikers-rushing out from the sidewalk, pulling drivers from the seats, smashing carburetors and commutators, while telephone girls cheered from the walk, and small boys ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... sign of the boat; but Wolf Larsen held back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by unerring instinct. This time, though we were continually half-buried, there was no trough in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon the upturned boat, badly smashing it as it ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... flames broke out in various parts of the city, while a miscellaneous mob, inflamed by excitement and by the alcohol which had run freely in the gutters the night before, rushed from store to store, smashing in the doors and indulging all the wantonness of pillage and greed. Public spirit was paralyzed, and the whole fabric of society seemed crumbling to pieces, when the convicts from the penitentiary, a shouting, leaping crowd of party-colored demons, overcoming their guard, and drunk with ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... "What a smashing argument really is! You see that you really are not for peace, but for war. But won't you ask Partow to do one thing, if he still insists that he is for peace? I wonder if he will chuckle or laugh at my suggestion, or will he grin or roar? Though you know that he will do them ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... pig this Kollomietzev is!" he exclaimed suddenly. "At dinner I could scarcely keep from rushing at him and smashing his impudent face as a warning to others. But no, there are more important things to be done just now. There is no time to waste getting angry with fools for saying stupid things. The time has now come to prevent ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... too much to say that these men, and others like them, worked a complete revolution in the enforcement of the Federal laws, and made their offices organized legal machines fit and ready to conduct smashing fights for the people's rights and to enforce the laws in aggressive fashion. When I took the Presidency, it was a common and bitter saying that a big man, a rich man, could not be put in jail. We put many big and rich men in jail; two United States Senators, for instance, and among others two ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... sea close beside us, cleaving it asunder till we could nearly see the bottom. We had hardly time to draw a breath of relief before the other rock fell with a mighty crash right in the midst of our luckless vessel, smashing it into a thousand fragments, and crushing, or hurling into the sea, passengers and crew. I myself went down with the rest, but had the good fortune to rise unhurt, and by holding on to a piece of driftwood with one hand ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... never in my life read a better article than this of Froude on Copyright. It is incomparably good in force of argument, vigour of style, point, and truth, and, I think, will go far to settle the assailants of copyright. I confess I enjoy the smashing of the sages of the Board of Trade and old Trevelyan. They will see that if they attack literature, literature is able to ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... by the simple fact that I have nothing all day long before my eyes but you, Gammer Gurton—you, with your face like a full moon—you, sailing through the room like a frigate, and with your grappling-irons, your hands, smashing to pieces everything except your ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... his adversary's shoulder. Then something happened that made the cowmen gasp with astonishment. The slender lad lifted the big mountain boy clear of the ground, hurled him over his head, and still clinging to the wrist, brought him down with a smashing jolt, flat on his back in the middle of the village street. Phil Simms narrowly escaped being struck by the heels of the mountain boy's boots as they described a half circle in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... careworn. No news had yet been received of Tony or of Victor. In regard to the latter he felt easy; Victor could take care of himself, and was in good company, but his heart sank when he thought of his beloved Tony. What would he not have given to have had him smashing his pipe or operating on his scalp at ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... idol-smashing with an ax. He did not regard the feelings of the worshippers, and they, with similar indifference to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... not complain. Hired a hansom and find that considering the cab takes you up to door, it is really cheaper in the long run. If you use an omnibus, you get jolted, and run a chance of smashing your hat. If it rains you get splashed and having to finish your journey on foot, you might just as well ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... plexus. He sprang back with an astonished yelp—which sounded like 'Ow—er!'—and stood gasping and rubbing his abdomen. As he recovered, he broke out into absurd and disgusting speech and began cautiously to circle round me, balancing his club in readiness for a smashing blow. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... home again. If the fugitive could risk the passage of the ice, he could risk it, too. There was another sound that jarred across the hammering of the hoofs, a crash, and Breckenridge was alone, struggling with his horse. They reeled, smashing through withered bushes and striking slender trees, but at last he gained the mastery, and swung himself down from the saddle. Already several mounted men were clustered about something, while just before he joined them there was ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... resisting attack. He lacked the prevision of Winfield Scott and Lee, both of whom expected from the first that the war would last for years. His own expectation up to this had been that the South would collapse after the first smashing blow, and that its western armies were now about to be dealt such a blow. He was not unmindful of all precautions; for he knew the Confederates were stirring on his front. Yet he went downstream to Savannah without making sure ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... cowardly heart, Roarin' Russell opened his fingers wide, judging implicit obedience his greatest safety. Sandy did not move position, he hardly seemed to move wrist or finger as his guns spat fire, left and right, eight shots blending, eight bullets smashing their way through the door between the "V's" of the bully's fingers while the crowd held ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn |
