"The boot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... advantage; and from the unavoidable circumstances of the position, it also showed one of the most beautifully formed feet that ever was seen, together with the whole of the exquisite little bottine that clothed it, a beautifully turned ankle, and perhaps as much as two inches of the silk stocking above the boot. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... same propriety insist on blacking your face. I heard of one man who complained that somebody had stolen his boots in the night; and when he found them, he wanted to know what they had done to them,—they had spoiled them,— he never put that stuff on them; and the boot-black narrowly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... River, twenty-eight miles to McConnelsville. When the stage arrived at my mother's house it was rather full, but there was still room enough for me. All the family, and my comrades, had gathered to see me off. My baggage, all new, was thrown into the boot, and I took my seat in the stage. My heart sank a little as the stage rolled over the hill and down the valley beyond, but the passengers wanted to know who I was, where I was going, and what I was going to do, and I think they got all ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... man endeavored vainly to open his door; not far away there was a scuffle, and the sound of a body falling down stairs. In some distant apartment a fellow was struggling to draw off his tight boots, skipping about on one foot amid much profanity. That the boot conquered was evident when the man crawled into the creaking bed, announcing defiantly, "If the landlord wants them boots off, let him come an' pull 'em off." Across the hall was a rattle of chips, and the voices of several men, occasionally ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... bent down for a closer inspection of the diamond-shaped gray seal on the boot's sole. It was not one of his own; but it was so similar that it would unquestionably pass muster. The red crept to Jimmie Dale's cheeks and burned there, as a sudden, merciless anger swept upon him. Who was the man ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... bailiffs are really without hearts, or manners either, mademoiselle," added Pipelet, in an angry voice, flourishing the boot he was repairing, in which he had thrust his ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... me into the house, and laid me down on the lit de fouaille—a wooden frame forming a sort of couch, and filled with dried fern, which forms the principal piece of furniture in every farm-house kitchen in the Channel Islands. Then he cut away the boot from my swollen ankle, with a steady but careful touch, speaking now and then a word of encouragement, as if I were a child whom he was tending. His mother stood by, looking on helplessly and in bewilderment, for he had not had time to explain my accident ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... appealing to Nurse Guinness]. Here: where's the way to that gravel pit? The boot-boy says there's a cave in the gravel pit. Them cellars is no use. Where's the ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... and one of those people with whom it is (as they say) a word and a blow, and the blow first—made a dash at Snap, and Snap taking to his heels, the gentleman flung his carpet-bag after him. The bottle of shaving-cream hit upon a stone and was smashed. The heel of the boot caught Snap on the back and sent him squealing to the kitchen. And he never ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... birthday, as you retire at night, take off your slipper or boot. Stand with your back to the door and throw it over your head. If the toe points to the door, you go out of the chamber a bride before the year is out. You must not look at the boot until the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... one, I suppose. No doubt Miss Lincoln is well accustomed to schoolgirls' careless ways. You can keep your brooches inside it, and your locket and chain. Now give me your serviette ring and your collars, and don't forget that I've put the boot laces ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... diet) would touch an insect, even with the tips of their bills. Ha! ye scribblers of closet conceits! you have been sneering at "Chaw-bacon" long enough. He may turn and scoff at you; for, in very truth, the boot (of ignorance) is upon ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... "The boot is on the other leg, sir," cried the man of law. "I pick my company, and I refuse to drink with a swashbuckler and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... station was clean and well furnished, but heated to a high temperature. The captain made his bed on a sofa, but I preferred the tarantass where the air was cool and pure. I arranged my furs, fastened the boot and hood of the carriage, and slept comfortably in a keen wind. At daylight the yemshicks attached horses and called the captain from the house. He complained that he slept little owing to the heat. Boika was in bad humor and opened the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Howard was struck in the face by that young 'gentleman,' 'because,' as he says, 'the d—d nigger didn't get out of the way when I was going into the boot-black's shop.' For that offence Mr. McCord was confined to his room, but was never punished, as in a few days thereafter he failed at the preliminary examination, and was sent away with all the ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... contemptuously. "I fancy the boot has been on the other leg. Who you are, my dear young lady, I do not know, but upon my word you are the most welcome companion a ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hiding in his shirt, up his own chimney, and turned traitor to his friends. Holloway too—a merchant of Bristol, and a friend of Mr. Ferguson—was executed, and several in Edinburgh, of the Scottish plotters under Argyle, among whom the principal was Baillie of Jerviswood. The torture of the boot and the thumbscrews was used there, I am sorry to say; for they had plenty of evidence without it. Of the others some evaded altogether, of whom a good number went to Holland, which was their great refuge at this time, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the cold feet among the damp rushes, the cold hand still upon the arm of the chair, the cap pulled forward over his eyes, the long black gown hanging motionless to the boot tops that were ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... there were a great many apartments in the house where people had been living for a long time. One cabinet-maker with his men, and a boot-maker with his journeymen, had lived there for ten years. The boot-maker's quarters were very dirty and confined, but all the people at work were very cheerful. I tried to enter into conversation with one of the workmen, being desirous of inquiring into the wretchedness of his situation and his debt to his master, but the man did not understand ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... fashionable design; nearly 100 are engaged in the crinoline department. In the same long room, about fifty are weaving wire for sifting cotton, making wire sieves, rat-traps, gridirons, flower baskets, cattle noses, etc. The principal work, however, is carried on in the boot and shoe department. The labor of the boys is let out to contractors, who supply their own foremen to teach the boys and superintend the work, but the society have their own men to keep order and correct the boys when necessary, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... after the holidays. One thing I knew for certain, and this was that Augustus would not fail to tell them how I had spent the time since they left; in fact, he had more than once hinted at their interest in my proceedings. The dismissal of the boot-boy made me more and more apprehensive that I should still continue to be degraded after the beginning of the term, while I felt humiliated by the conviction that, even in the present circumstances, Mr. and Mrs. Turton were ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... to show you fellers from Missouri," pursued Walker; "but you show them! That's the old man's way, from the boot-heels up." ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... passenger. At the driver's call Judge Mott swung himself out, clambered to the box and seized the reins of the team, and away they plunged, through the racing mob of skeletons and under a hurtling storm of missiles. The stricken driver had sunk down on the boot as soon as he was wounded, but had held on to the reins and said he would manage to keep hold of them ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... told Button before Foster could reach him went far to strengthen Fitzroy's position. Snaffle said that so far from Fitzroy's corrupting the coachman, the boot should be on the other foot, were Fitzroy corruptible—that Foster would find his coachman a double-dyed liar when he came to the truth of that runaway the night of the dance—that Foster's sleigh and carriage and driving horses had no right in a Government stable anyhow—were ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... walking continually in the snow, and getting wet in the feet daily. My boots hardened and softened, hardened and softened, my left foot swelled, and I still forced the boot on; sat in it to write, half the day; walked in it through the snow, the other half; forced the boot on again next morning; sat and walked again; and being accustomed to all sorts of changes in my feet, took no heed. At length, going out as usual, I fell lame ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... go to sleep he told us; for he would have to go on deck to take the middle watch at midnight, which was as close-handy as the boot he had sent at our heads ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... feet stir slightly but with sinister persistence. She presently saw the toe of a boot insert, itself between the door and the jamb. The pressure increased; the space between the door and the jamb widened. Suddenly the boot vanished, the door closed, and the plank fell. Immediately thereafter Karlov stood inside the room, ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... timorous actions of the strangers in Thieves' Alley brought a fantastic smile to the lips of the smoker. He watched them as they looked up at the boot and compared notes in rather ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... See—lots of it! Mountains of it!" yelled Eleanor, trying to drag her nuggets from the boot without untying ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... George the Fourth were wont to favour. And the surtout, single-breasted, was thrown open gallantly; and in the second button-hole thereof was a moss-rose. The vest was white, and the trousers a pearl gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gave little heed. We drove first to Kingsley's, and took him up; then, to my office, where I got out, and, entering the office, wrapped up my pistol-case carefully in a newspaper, so that the contents might not be conjectured, and bringing it forth, thrust it into the boot ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... which time they were in a dirty tumbling sea, with the Nore lightship, a brown, forlorn-looking object on their beam, the soldier, who had been breathing stertorously, raised his heavy head from the boot, and with glassy eyes and tightly compressed ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... of the smallness of the number, the professor's customers were volunteers, and it is not to be supposed that under-sized persons would put themselves forward on such an occasion. It may be added, that even the height of the boot-heels of young collegians of twenty-five would tend ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... were already seated in the stage, and their luggage was securely stowed away in the boot. The postmaster—the village storekeeper filled that responsible position—was busily engaged in making up the mail, and old Jerry, the fat good-natured old driver, was laughing and joking with the by-standers, as he awaited ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... Italians seemed to preempt was the boot-blacking business. It may seem odd to dignify so menial an employment as a business but there is many a head of such an establishment who could show a fatter bank account than two-thirds of his clients. The next time you go into a little nook containing say fifteen chairs, figure out for yourself ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... Haberdashers, continued my friend the boot, are wonderful people; they make the greatest show out of the smallest stock—whether of brains or ribbons—of any men in the world. A stranger could not pass through the village of Ballybreesthawn without being attracted by a shop which occupied the corner of the Market-square and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... tortured to-morrow; accordingly he was called before them, and being urged to confess, he solemnly declared, that he knew no more than what he had already confessed; whereupon they ordered the executioner to put his leg to the boot, and to proceed to the torture, to the number of ten or eleven strokes, with considerable intervals; yet all did not move him to express ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... When do we find the hawthorn, with its breath sweet as a milch-cow's; or the wild rose, with its exquisite attar and its petals of hollowed pearl—when do we find these decking the tables of the great? or the purple bilberry, or the boot-bright blackberry in the entremets thereof? Think what that 'common dog-rose' would bring in a limited edition! And new milk from the cow, or water from the well! Where would champagne be if those intoxicants were restricted by expensive licence, and sold in ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... the interesting phases of the Austrian capital. The Vienna humorist, Poetzl, quickly formed his acquaintance, and they sometimes stood there together. Once while Clemens was making some notes, Poetzl interested the various passers by asking each one—the errand-boy, the boot-black, the chestnut-vender, cabmen, and others—to guess who the stranger was and what he wanted. Most of them recognized him when their attention was called, for the newspapers had proudly heralded his arrival and his picture was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was alarmed by an alleged increase in the export of footwear to Switzerland, and particularly to villages on the German frontier. He yields to none in his desire to give the KAISER the boot, but not in any surreptitious manner. Lord WOLMER comforted him with the statement that the bulk of the exports consisted of women's and children's shoes, quite useless to the Germans until they get down to their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various
... burglar a rousing whack on the head if within reach. He stuck his head out of the window for a better view of the exterior world, and his curiosity was rewarded with a stinging blow on the cheek. The pain aroused all the Pomeroy French Huguenot fighting blood in his veins. Viciously he swung the boot at the unseen foe, only to hear it crash through tree branches. Laughing softly, in his enlightenment, he reached out into the night, grasped a branch, broke it off and turned on the gas and lit it. On the twig were two ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... mind of Harriet that they were going to pass her without discovering her. Instead a heavy boot came in contact with her own feet. There followed a muttered exclamation, the man pitched headlong, the girl having stiffened her limbs to meet the shock the instant she felt the touch of the boot against ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... for rest and sleep, the "peace of God which passeth understanding" came down and settled in his heart. Presently he seemed to come to another difficulty, for he sat down with one boot in his hand and one still on his foot. This question, however, was settled promptly: he pulled the boot on again in a hurry, then picked up his jacket and put that on, seized his ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... the green While I slip in the tavern and get your carbine!" The outlaw drank of the whiskey deep, Which the tipsy landlord, half asleep, Brought to his side, and his broken foot He raised from the stirrup and slashed the boot. "Lloyd," he cried, "if some news you invite— Old Seward was stabbed in his bed to-night. Lincoln I shot—that long-lived fox— As he looked at the play from the theatre box; And it seemed to me that the sound I heard, As the audience fluttered, like ducks round ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... of these tests were adopted, torture was used. There was the boot—a frame of iron or wood in which the leg was placed and wedges driven in until the limb was smashed. A variation of this was to place the leg in an iron boot and slowly heat it over a fire. There was the thumbscrew, an instrument ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... indeed advantageous, mein Herr," said the landlord, addressing my father, who walked about in slippers, "as time will thereby be gained for a thorough investigation of the boot question." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... followed the servant, to prevent them from being tossed into the boot. Heathcock stood still in the middle of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... to all customers as the most impertinent individual I ever encountered, was arguing, in a blustering manner, with a gentleman who had brought a message from the general, desiring some alteration in the boot: and wound up by muttering, as the messenger left the shop, "He shall either wear it as it is, or review the troops next Sunday ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... instructions about covering my soles with bars was specially impressed on the old man's memory, and every detail was carried out to the letter. When we were completed, my brother and I, you would have admired us. If it were possible to have anything handsome in the boot line, except, perhaps, a tiny, fur-lined lady's slipper, it was us. We were sewed with substantial rosen-end, the division between the inseam and soles was filled up with real leather skivings, and not the trashy "jump" which makes up the bulk of the ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... boot which has a hole in the sole, hang it up on a nail in the hayloft, and pour water into it. If it holds water I will marry again, but if it doesn't I won't.' The girl did as she was bid, but the water drew the hole together and the boot filled up to the very top. So she went and told her father the result. He got up and went to see for himself, and when he saw that it was true and no mistake, he accepted his fate, proposed to the widow, and ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... had lately come up, and beckoning to me with a despairing smile. The young man, I must note, was the most amiable of Ticinese; though he wore no buttons he was attached to the diligence in some amateurish capacity, and had an eye to the mail-bags and other valuables in the boot. I grumbled at Berne over the want of soft curves in the Swiss temperament; but the children of the tangled Tessin are cast in the Italian mould. My friend had as many quips and cranks as a Neapolitan; we walked together for an hour under ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... was rainin' in tons all this time an' I fancy the Left'nant's opinion o' the Am. Col.'s job had reined back another pace or two, especially as he'd slipped an' come down full length in the mud when haulin' on the drag-rope, an' had also slid one leg in the ditch well over the boot-top in reachin' out for a ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... the boot-cupboard, among the gaiters and goloshes and cricket-stumps and old rackets, and they kissed and cried and hugged each other, and he said he was sorry he had been naughty. But in his heart that ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... saw the whole, and the next moment the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow. "Brown, you rascal! What do you mean by that?" ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... pillow, or into his boot, when he went to bed at night. He had an odd way of sticking his pocket-handkerchief into his boot, 'that he might be sure to find it in the morning.' I suspect the handkerchief was carried down in the boot when it was taken to be cleaned. He was, however, perfectly certain that these two losses were not to be imputed to any carelessness of mine. He often said he was obliged to me for the attention ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... road scheme was the outcome of a device suggested by a medical officer at Romani in 1916, when infantry could not march much more than six miles a day through the sand. This officer made a sort of wire moccasin which he attached to the boot and doubled the marching powers of the soldier. A sample of those moccasins should find a place in ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... about the room, had overturned the boot, which had fallen in such manner that the top pressed against the wall, thus effectually barring the way to the nest. I righted the boot, thereby restoring the children to their parents, much to the delight of all parties concerned. Ever since this episode ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... petitioners by Mrs. Crowley and for the "antis" by Mr. Saunders. He was so impressed by the crowd that his usual sneering and jeering manner was wholly changed. The suffrage speakers were Dr. Shaw, John F. Tobin, president of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union; Rabbi Charles Fleischer, Miss Josephine Casey, secretary of the Women's Trade Union League; Henry Abrahams of the Central Labor Union; Miss Rose Brennan of Fall River, Miss Blackwell, Miss Eleanor Rendell ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... I; "but if she marries his lordship's son, the boot will be on the other leg. You'd better think of that, ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... "You think you're goin' ter use me when the boot's on t'other foot. You shall pay me fer doin' my work. I couldn't wish the gal nuthin' worse than ter marry you. That ud satisfy my grudge agin her, but ef I get my claws on that nigger en dom'neerin' Yank of a master"—his teeth came together after the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... at the door, and Mary's trunk strapped up in the boot before she came down. In the porch stood her father and mother, and her younger brother and ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... and you discover that it's the old story of the sugar over again. Your wife is an adulterated article. Her lovely yellow hair is—dye. Her exquisite skin is—pearl powder. Her plumpness is—padding. And three inches of her height are—in the boot-maker's heels. Shut your eyes, and swallow your adulterated wife as you swallow your adulterated sugar—and, I tell you again, you are one of the few men who can try the marriage experiment with a fair chance ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... past. After all, this is the twentieth century, not the twelfth. What does it matter whether my ancestors murdered yours or not? Both would be dead now in any event. What does it matter whether yours were the saints and men of letters and mine the savages, or whether the boot was on the other leg? That's all over and done with. Imitate me. Let bygones ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... but a drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth-Jane having now changed her orbit from one of gay independence to laborious self-help, thought the weather good enough for such declined glory as hers, if her friend would only face it—a matter of doubt. She went to the boot-room where her pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis; took them down, had their mildewed leathers blacked, and put them on as she had done in old times. Thus mounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she went off to the place of appointment—intending, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... foot was certainly not so compressed as the right. Though it could not be raised, it was possible to move it ever so slightly forwards and backwards. Might it not be possible, by never-ceasing friction, to so abrade the edges of the sole of the boot that it might be reduced to such dimension as would permit ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... we have been hunting and the boot remained stuck in the mud. I am sure of indulgence from you. As to the others, even with only one shoe ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... snug and warm; But hearing, as she thought, her name, Sprang up, and to the rescue came; Beheld the scene, and thus she thought: "If now a kitchen chair were brought, And I could reach the lady's foot, I'd draw her downward by the boot, Then cut the rope, and let him go; He cannot miss the pile of snow." He sees her moving toward his wife. Armed with a chair and carving-knife, And, ere he is aware, perceives His head ascending to the eaves; And, guessing what the two are at, Screams from beneath the roof, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... here on your horse with your rifle in the boot and your six-gun swinging low in the scabbard, and riding the fastest bit of horseflesh on the ranges," explained Wilbur, "I get to thinking that you're pretty much king of the mountains; but in certain respects, Pierre, ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... Nebraska and Iowa combined. It has roughly the outline of a huge boot and could one slide it eastward until Port Arthur was at Washington, Shanhaikwan would fall well toward Pittsburgh, both at the tip of the broad toe to the boot. The foot would lie across Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and all of New England, extending beyond New Brunswick with the heel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Harbin, at the instep of the boot, would lie fifty miles east of Montreal and the expanding leg would reach ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... the husband first was placed in the 'lang irons'—some accursed instrument; I know not what. Still the devil did not yield. She bore this; and her son was next operated on. The boy's legs were set in 'the boot,'—the iron boot you may have heard of. The wedges were driven in, which, when forced home, crushed the very bone and marrow. Fifty-seven mallet strokes were delivered upon the wedges. Yet this, too, failed. There was ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... his morning in his head, and been but a Dumfriesshire hog into the boot, he would have spoken more like a gentleman. But you cannot have more of a sow than a grumph. It's shame my father's knife should ever slash a haggis for ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... he said. 'Miss Peterkin has fainted, and get off the boot as soon as possible. Don't you see how ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... close of the action, when Colonel Hambright alighted from his horse, the blood was running over the top of the boot on the wounded leg. He was then conveyed to the cabin erected on his own land, as previously stated, before the war, where he was properly cared for until he was partially recovered. Although the wound, in process of time, seemed to have healed, yet its deep-seated injury ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... his pocket, and went to work on the heel of his boot. The boys were not near enough to see what tool he was using, but his movements were those of one who draws out screws, and they clearly saw the heel of the boot come loose ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... they must be patient and cool, avoiding every provocation, but if attacked, the aggressor must be punished on the spot. In the second case, the man who drew his weapon was instantly shot down. There was now a demand for the soldier to be tried by the local civil court; but I said that the boot was on the other foot. The charge against the soldier was for an act performed in the line of his military duty, and of this our military courts had cognizance. The case was investigated by a military tribunal and the man justified. The result was every way satisfactory. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... or other of the intertarsal joints. It is usually smaller, flatter, and more tense than that met with over the wrist, so that it is sometimes mistaken for a bony tumour. It rarely causes symptoms, unless so situated as to be pressed upon by the boot. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... the table. Of these, although the lads were ignorant of their uses, they entertained no doubt, whatever, that they were the instruments of torture of which they had heard—thumb screws, iron gags, the boot, the rack, and other devilish inventions. They made no reply to the address, and were taken away, this time, down several winding stairs to a black and noxious dungeon, far below the general ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... board in uniform. Her nurse's dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney's, in Woodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse was finished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to some boot-and-shoe people: at least the boot-and-shoe people had the house. They had given four thousand pounds for it—which was above the lawyer's estimate. On the other hand, the theatre was sold for almost nothing. It all worked out that some ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... with the assistance of his two fellow-servants, removed all the packages from the boot, etc., etc., and by the help of the numerous bystanders propped up the carriage, and assisted his master to descend, the skirts of whose coat bore evident marks of the course the claret had taken when it escaped from its imprisonment ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... lives, and have no life of their own—so, though in a less degree, must the non-protoplasmic parts of the body. Allow an overflowing aroma of life to vivify the horny skin under the heel, and from this there will be a spilling which will vivify the boot in wear. Deny an aroma of life to the boot in wear, and it must ere long be denied to ninety-nine per cent. of the body; and if the body is not alive while it can walk and talk, what in the name of all that is unreasonable can ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... particular sizes. Many of the reservists who presented themselves on mobilisation were found to have increased considerably in figure, and consequently much fitting and alteration was necessary. This caused delay. At that time the boot for foreign service differed in pattern from that for home service, and an issue of the former was made. The supply on hand was only sufficient to allow a complete issue to men of the mounted services, while dismounted soldiers had one pair of each pattern, reservists ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... acquisition of knowledge, should have delighted and edified me - Yes! for that there was no room in his explanation, as little as for his own embarrassment while imparting it. And therefore, without any sentimentality, these toes must be lopped off so that the boot would fit. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... production has increased wages in general 12.9 per cent, while in certain selected trades they have run as high as 34.9 per cent and 38 per cent. Even in the boot and shoe shops the increase is over 5 per cent and in woolen mills 8.4 per cent, although these industries have not prospered like others. As the rise in living costs in this period is negligible, these ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... mother. I was refused with insult and scorn. "Do you think," shrieked the irate virago, "that I will allow my daughter who is studying French, Latin, Greek, and German to wash your dirty dishes?" I was driven from the house at the point of the boot. That daughter is to-day shaking and twitching with St. Vitus's dance, a physical and mental wreck from overstudy, causing nervous exhaustion ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... tipped over, man and gun and mast and bulwark. The air was full of smoke, but near me I could see a topsail of the enemy. Balls were now plunging in the water alongside, the spray drenching our deck. Some poor man lying low among the dead caught me by the boot-leg with an appealing gesture. I took hold of his collar, dragging him to the cockpit. The surgeon had just finished with D'ri. His arm was now in sling and bandages. He was lying on his back, the good arm over his face. There was a lull in the cannonading. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... safely deposited on the ground. Two young ladies, and a gentleman seeming not far from young, stood at the end of the coach to watch the success of the driver and Mr. Cowslip in disinterring sundry trunks and boxes from under the boot and a load of other trunks ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... the use of torture to extract information was a return, under Fletcher, the King's Advocate, to a practice of Scottish law which had been almost in abeyance since 1638—except, of course, in the case of witches. Turner vainly tried to save from the Boot {208} the Laird of Corsack, who had protected his life from the fanatics. "The executioner favoured Mr Mackail," says the Rev. Mr Kirkton, himself a sufferer later. This Mr Mackail, when a lad of twenty-one (1662), had already denounced the rulers, in a sermon, as on the ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... it on the great nail and then pour water into it. If it holds the water, I will again take a wife; but if it runs through, I will not have her." The girl did as he bid her, but the water drew the hole together and the boot became full to overflowing. So she told her father how it had happened, and he, getting up, saw it was quite true; and going to the widow he settled the matter, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... thought Mr. Dunkelsbaum would offer me violence. His mouth worked uncontrollably, and there was a suspicion of foam upon the thick lips. A sudden violent tug at the boot, which was still in his right hand awaiting replacement, mercifully diverted his attention, but the savagery with which he launched a kick at Nobby, who was once more in possession and already out of range, was ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... tall man Running desperately and slowly, pounding Like a machine, so evenly, so blindly; And regularly his trotting body wagg'd. Only one foot clatter'd upon the stones; The other padded in his dogged stride: The boot was gone, the sock hung frayed in shreds About his ankle, the foot was blood and earth; And never a limp, not the least flinch, to tell The wounded pulp hit stone at every step. His clothes were tatter'd and his rent skin showed, Harrowed with thorns. His face was pale as putty, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... memory, and his doglike fidelity. I have said that his greatness is only reflected. But that is hardly just. It might even be more true to say that Johnson owes his immortality to Boswell. What of him would remain to-day but for the man who took his scourgings so humbly and repaid them by licking the boot that kicked him? Who now reads London, or The Vanity of Human Wishes, or The Rambler? I once read Rasselas, and found it pompous and dull. And I have read The Lives of the Poets, and though ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... to the 46th Midland Division that the order of assault was given on October 13th, and into the trenches went the lace-makers of Nottingham, and the potters of the Five Towns, and the boot-makers of Leicester, North Staffordshires, and Robin Hoods and Sherwood Foresters, on the night ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... stealthy, apparently innocent movement, the knife was out again, sliding along the leather of the boot. ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... as he had, from foreign shores. Some of them were of Greek origin, and others had emigrated from countries just north of Italy, though, as we now know that Asia was the cradle of our race, and especially of that portion of it that has peopled Europe, we suppose that all the dwellers on the boot-shaped peninsula had their origin on that mysterious continent at ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... publisher so severe a beating that it was the proximate cause of his death, but called out the Doctor, who manfully avowed the authorship. Each, it is understood, fired five shots, without further effect than that one ball struck the whisker of Mr. Berkeley and another the boot of Maginn, and when Fraser, who was Maginn's second, asked if there should be another shot, Maginn is reported to have said, "Blaze away, by ——! a barrel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... hands were thrust through holes in a boardfence, and nothing of the attached bodies seen, I can easily imagine that some would attract and others repel us: with footprints the impression is weaker, of course, but we cannot escape it. I am not sure whether I wanted to find the unknown wearer of the boot within my precious personal solitude; I was afraid I should see her, while passing through the rocky crevice, and yet was disappointed when I found ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... will, and if she happen on the boote wherein the money is, she hath not onely the money for her labor, but is also at such choyse, as she need not euer from that day forth to pul off his boots, but if she misse the boot wherin the money is, she doth not onely loose the money, but is also bound from that day forwards to pull off ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... the hands of a dead soldier on the field near Souchez; a little nickel boot, which was taken from the pack of a Breton piou-piou who was found dead by a trench in Vermelles—one of our men who obtained this relic carried it about with him for many weeks until he was killed by a shell and then the boot fell into my hands. I have two percussion caps, one from a shell that came through the roof of a dug-out and killed two of our boys, the other was gotten beside a dead lieutenant in a deserted house in Festubert. In addition to these (p. 265) I have many ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... it was?" he replied. "I left one of my socks and took the boot in my hand. It was all the gun or anything o' that kind I had. I left my ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... her and dallied with her a little, but I could not overtake her. Then calling at Unthank's for something of my wife's not done, a pretty little gentlewoman, a lodger there, came out to tell me that it was not yet done, which though it vexed me yet I took opportunity of taking her by the hand with the boot, and so found matter to talk a little the longer to her, but I was ready to laugh at myself to see how my anger would not operate, my disappointment coming to me by such a messenger. Thence to Doctors' Commons and there consulted Dr. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... she walked in the Prater, ermine from head to foot, and behind her two by two trailed twelve little Southern darkies in red-velvet coats and caps, grinning sociably. When she drove a pair sat on the boot. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... rivalry of Robert Warren by Jonathan's representatives, the cousins George and James, was carried to wonderful extremes in the way of advertisement; and they were all very proud, he told me, of the cat scratching the boot, which was their house's device. The poets in the house's regular employ he remembered, too, and made his first study from one of them for the poet of Mrs. Jarley's wax-work. The whole enterprise, however, had the usual end of such things. The younger cousin tired of the concern; ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... case of rattlesnake wound to which I was called occurred in 1885. A cow boy was bitten on the foot, the fang penetrating through the boot. He was brought forty miles to Fort Fetterman, where I was then stationed. I saw him about twenty-four hours after he was struck. There was an enormous swelling, extending up to the knee. The whole ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... compartments. One set was located in the extremely thick soles of the heavy boots; the other rested on the top of the helmet. He saw why this was. The gravity-plates for repulsion were those in the helmet; for attraction, those in the boot-soles. This kept the wearer of the suit always in an upright, ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... hours.' He signed the book (I saw the signature in the book afterwards), stood up, saying he would put on his uniform, ran to his bedroom, loaded his double-barreled gun with a service bullet, took the boot off his right foot, fixed the gun against his chest, and began feeling for the trigger with his foot. But Agafya, remembering what I had told her, had her suspicions. She stole up and peeped into the room just in time. She rushed in, flung ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... true, With things, as often is, of weight undue; Yet still's enough, when sifted to the most, To make the trade rejoice, and as a toast, Now, as is wont, and ever to be given, Hail to the memory of our friends in heaven! CRISPIN and CRISPIANUS—they, the two, Who, like ourselves, have made the Boot ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... depose on oath their knowledge of persons worshipping as Dissenters, on penalty of fine, imprisonment, banishment, transportation, and of being sold as slaves. Persecutions of former times were surpassed, the thumbscrew and the boot were used as mild punishments, the rack dislocated the limbs of those who respected conscience, and the stake consumed their bodies to ashes. Villagers were driven to the mountains, and eighteen thousand Dissenters perished, not counting those who were accused of rebellion. ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... that such would be the case?" I replied, with assumed sternness of voice and manner. The boot was on the other leg, and I was not ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... Kirk. He took Sprot out of his dungeon, gave him a more wholesome chamber, secluded him from gentlemen who came and threatened him (or so he said) if he made revelations, and Dunbar provided him with medical attendance. The wounds inflicted in 'the boot' were healed. ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... Chihuahuan desert is a boot too; a larger boot than Italy. The leg of it is in Mexico, the toe is in Arizona, the heel in New Mexico; and the Jornado is in the boot-heel. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... often held by special commissions issued by the privy council, on the petition of a presbytery or general assembly. It was here that those terrible instruments of torture, the caschielawis, the lang irnis, the boot and the pilliewinkis, were used to wring confessions from the wretched victims. It is all a strange and gruesome story of horrors told in detail in the state trial records, and elsewhere, from the execution ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... beech grove this very minute to fetch Wiseli to our house. She can have my bed," said Pussy, decidedly. But quite as decidedly old Trine stalked over to Pussy, at these words, lifted her up, placed her firmly on a chair, while she pulled off the boot that was half on; but said, in a pacifying tone, to the kicking ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... of that," murmured Margaret, while Helen said, "Our human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people because they're unemployed. The boot man, for instance." ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... six or seven miles across the toe of the boot. Dominated by hills, the city is flanked by the Pacific on the west and by the Bay on the north and east. To the northwest, joining ocean and bay, is the Golden Gate, the only gap in ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... ones. As he spoke he was looking straight at me with the kind eyes I had noticed first of all—gray and yellow and brown mixed up together into hazel. I suppose it must have been some quality in that look which made me decide instantly to tell him everything. I'd have suffered the torture of the boot (anyhow, for a minute or two) before I would have explained ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... man, who seen before Bothwell with a musket, and afterwards, for a continuance of months, delved the garden at Montroymont. Matters went very ill with Ninian at the Council; some of the lords were clear for treason; and even the boot was talked of. But he was spared that torture; and at last, having pretty good friendship among great men, he came off with a fine of seven thousand marks, that caused the estate to groan. In this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a blow at Ben, but the boot-black dexterously evaded it, and, slinging his box over his back, darted ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... not yield the boot; he went out and searched the hill-side until he found a smooth stone of suitable size, with which and a pair of tongs, he beat down the nail. Christina put on the boot, and they left the place. The chief stayed behind the rest for ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... peasants who were a gentle, superstitious, ignorant race, devoutly subject to their priests and trained to the letter of their religious rites, came in from the mountains and the neighboring villages in numbers but rarely seen in the city: a motley throng—yet no shepherd among them was too poor to wear the boot of dark-green leather reaching to the knee—the bodine roughly fashioned and tough enough to protect them from the bites of the serpents ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Lincoln, region of fens and enterprize, of fat land and jolly yeomen. The mail is just ready to start; we pay our fare, and, after seeing our luggage carefully deposited in the recesses of the boot, we mount beside the red-faced, much-becoated individual who is flickering his whip in idle listlessness on the box; the guard gives a triumphal shout on his short tin horn, the flickering of the whip ceases, the horses snort and paw, and finally, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... motto: A lion (wild beast) trying to unseam the boot made by the Lion (shoemaker), and powerless before the task! What a humiliation for the lion! What a triumph for the shoemaker! The lion, in this case, was For The Regeneration of Footwear, which, as the saying goes, had been compelled to ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... not to let you,—you've been so long,—but you may do it." She got on to the bedside. "Oh! for God's sake don't move,—that attitude is exquisite." One leg was well on the bed, the petticoats were squeezed up, and the leg on the ground from the boot-heel to about four inches above her garter was visible. She was half turning round, her lovely breasts, or rather one of them showed half-front, and with her head looking round at me as she was moving, it altogether ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... from the east to inspect the camp and business, and everything was to be in readiness to depart on their arrival. Our conveyance was a full sized Concord coach with six good mules to draw it. The boot of the coach contained the best of everything to eat and drink—the latter being just as essential in that country as gun and ammunition. The partners were detained en route, and did not arrive until the second day, when they wished ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... do a great deal, Mr. Queed. On the other hand maybe I can do some little trifle for you. Which leg the boot is on nobody on earth can say at this juncture. I have ventured to call," said he, "as an ambassador from the morning Post ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... not hold with doctors, ma'am. I don't remember one ever crossing the threshold since poor Miriam had typhoid fever. The foot is swelling already, and it will be a job to get the boot off. Ah, I thought so"—as Mr. Gaythorne winced and motioned her away—"he will be afraid of one ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to me; but noticing that the other was diving down into the ditch, I sprang forward to catch it. Trusting to my boots, which came high up the leg, I put one foot forward; it sank in the oozy ground; and so, although I got the goose, the boot of my right leg was full of water. I lifted my foot and let the water run out; then, when I had mounted, we made haste for Rome. The cold, however, was very great, and I felt my leg freeze, so that I said to Felice: "We must do something to help this leg, for I don't ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... door, do you know what I was watching myself, while I appeared to be solely occupied digging out the caviare? The fresh print of boot-nails which left the carpet near the table, where someone had spilled beer (the beer was still running down the cloth). Someone had stepped in the beer. The boot-print was not clearly visible excepting there. But from there it went to the door of the servants' stairway and mounted the stairs. That boot was too fine to be mounting a stairway reserved to servants and that Koupriane told ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... the boot of the cart after the vehicle had made one or two turnings. When he did this he dropped flat in the middle of the road and remained there until Jem had made another turn, when he was up and away, again on the trail of ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... of all are armed, though their armature is as varied as the costumes. There are spurs of silver and steel, some plated, and some with the plating worn off; some strapped, and others screwed into the heel of the boot; some light, with small rowels and tiny teeth, while others are seen (the heavy spur of Mexico) of several pounds' weight, with rowels five inches in diameter, and teeth that might be dashed through the ribs of a horse!—cruel weapons of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... Thames as it finally leaves the county, of which it has formed the northern boundary for more than one hundred miles. The sweet river—for in spite of all pollution it is still sweet at Windsor—has run all along the top of the boot and down the instep, and along the toes, taking Oxford, Abingdon, Wallingford, Henley, Reading and Maidenhead in its way, with other places historically interesting in a small way over here, but which would scarcely be known by name even in the best-drilled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... the situation on the surface. When we motor, the Stormy Petrel submits himself for the present to the boot of the tyrant in the Grayles-Grice. When we leave the motor, Peter is left, too, and chained to his duties. But, so long as he gets through his tasks at the appointed time, no questions can be asked as to how he spends the extra hours. And the ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... Columbia; this will never do. But let's have another bid; now, come," he added, coaxingly and soothingly. "What is it? One dollar, one dollar then—one dollar; going at one dollar; going, going—going. Just see how it vibrates"—swinging the boot to and fro—"this superior pair of sea-boots vibrating at one dollar; wouldn't pay for the nails in their heels; going, going—gone!" And down went ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "Darling!—dearest!—you haven't—you've never!... The boot's on the other leg, though wild horses wouldn't get you to own as much!" His strong left arm was round her slight waist, her wet cheek pressed against her Major's bulldog jowl. Bingo cleared his throat in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was getting ready to go with the boy, Owen made him sit on a chair, and having removed the boot from the foot that was bleeding, washed the cut with some warm water and bandaged it with a piece of clean rag, and then they tried to persuade him to stay there with Frankie while Nora went to see his mother, but the boy would not hear of it. So Frankie went with them instead. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... now obtain footwear, it is reported, without a permit card. Nevertheless we know a number of them who are assured of getting the boot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... combination with a reciprocating polisher, substantially as described, I claim the pivoted sliding frame to support the boot or shoe constructed, arranged, and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the sort of musings that lay heavily upon the soul of Merlin Grainger, as he stood by the window putting a dozen books back in a row after a cyclonic visit by a lady with ermine trimmings. He looked out of the window full of the most distressing thoughts—of the early novels of H. G. Wells, of the boot of Genesis, of how Thomas Edison had said that in thirty years there would be no dwelling-houses upon the island, but only a vast and turbulent bazaar; and then he set the last book right side up, turned—and Caroline walked coolly ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... return home one evening after the family had gone to rest, Mr. M'Intyre could not find his boot-jack; upon which he said, "Dandie, I cannot find my boot-jack; search for it." The dog scratched at the room-door, his master opened it, and going to a distant part of the house Dandie returned with the boot-jack in his mouth; where Mr. M'Intyre recollected to have left it under ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances present converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... penniless in a great city, and with no way open, that he could think of, to earn money. Even the business of the boot-black, humble as it is, required a small capital to buy a brush and box of blacking. So, too, a newsboy must pay for his papers when he gets them, unless he is well known. So Sam, sitting on the door-step, felt that he was in a tight place. Where was he to get his dinner from? He did not care ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... "We might put the boot on the other leg," he said. "He's for informing. But what if we inform, my girl? It's the first in the field that's believed. He's his tale of the Spanish ship, and you know who. But what if we tell it first, and say that he came with them and stayed behind to get us to move? Who's to say ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... the boot of the ubiquitous white man leaves its marks on all the fair places of the Earth, and scores thereon an even more gigantic track than that which affrighted Robinson Crusoe in his solitude. It crushes down the forests, beats out ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... wore none but white silk stockings, his shoes, which were very light and thin, being lined with silk, and his boots lined throughout inside with white fustian; and when he felt an itching on one of his legs, he rubbed it with the heel of his shoe or the boot on the other leg, which added still more to the effect of the ink blotches. His shoe-buckles were oval, either plain gold or with medallions, and he also wore gold buckles on his garters. I never saw him wear ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... appeared determined to revenge himself on the boot; and for some seconds continued to tear it—both with teeth and claws—till nothing of its original shape remained. Then, scattering the fragments over the ground, he desisted from this idle employment; ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... again to-night. There was hymn-singing, and general religious controversy till eight, after which talk was secular. Mrs. Sutherland was deeply distressed about the boot business. She consoled me by saying that many would be glad to have such feet whatever shoes they had on. Unfortunately, fishers and seafaring men are too facile to be compared with! This looks like enjoyment! ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gonna do it without bustin' the wall down?" demanded an aggrieved voice from the top of the stairs. "There ain't no knob, no handle, no nothin' to work it from this side. And these guys what stored their stuff here in the boot-leggin' days never ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... possible," he asked, "to put the boot on the other foot, and to consider me as the person to whom the favor is shown in being allowed ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... trade were foreigners. In the lower classes of goods a considerable fall of price has occurred during the fast few years, and perhaps the most degraded conditions of male labour are to be found in the boot trade. A large proportion of the work throughout the trade is out-work, and therefore escapes the operation of the Factory Act. The competition among small employers is greatly accentuated by the existence of a form of middleman known as the "factor," who is an agent ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... servant. His bodily movements are nearly as quick as those of his tongue. He rises, as well as his brethren, by five in the morning; and the testimonies of this early activity are quickly discovered in the unceasing noise of beating coats, singing French airs, and scolding the boot-boy. He rarely retires to rest before mid-night; and the whole day long he is in one eternal round of occupation. When he is bordering upon impertinence, he seems to be conscious of it—declaring that ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... he certainly would have recalled at that moment his symbol of the spider and the fly. Soon the unfortunate girl, through a mist which spread before her eyes, beheld the boot approach; she soon beheld her foot encased between iron plates disappear in the frightful apparatus. Then terror restored ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a knacker's yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here's my head and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn't ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... was a terrific struggle, but luck, as well as skill, was with him. The next he knew, out of the red ruck, was that he had Hobart by the throat, jammed against the wall, with fingers clinched in the throat. Then he saw the other coming, a dim, shapeless thing, that he kicked at viciously. The boot must have landed, for he was suddenly free to strike the purple face fronting him, and fling the helpless rocking body in a huddled mass ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... in pursuit of the thieves, the lady, who was now thoroughly convinced of Jem's truth, desired her coachman would produce what she had ordered him to bring with him that evening. Out of the boot of the carriage the coachman immediately produced ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... He wondered if he could reach it before he sank through the floor. Somehow he had the horrible feeling that just as he opened it to go out some one would kick him from behind. He could almost feel the impact of the boot and involuntarily accelerated his speed as he opened the door to pass into the biting air ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... regular teeth. Into the face, "accustomed to refusals," into the wistful gaze of the pale blue eyes, something of awe had crept. Presently he put up his boot upon his knee, and once more his eyes fell upon the crack in the side. He moved his foot within the boot—certainly a bulging showed; by to-morrow the stocking would ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... everywhere were signs of recent feeding. There was a man's track here too, which came cautiously out from a thick point of woods, and spied about on the shore, and went back again more cautiously than before. I took the measure of it back to camp, and found that it corresponded perfectly with the boot tracks of Old Wally. There were a few deer here, undoubtedly, which he was watching jealously for his own benefit ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... of a French boot was driven through the perineum one inch from the median line, midway between the anus and the posterior commissure of the labia majora. The wound extended into the vagina above the external opening, in which the heel, now separated from the boot, projected, and whence it was removed without difficulty. This wound was the only injury sustained by ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... for you to go and see,' his wife said, and though he could ill spare the time, kind-hearted Mr. Curtis put down the boot which he was mending, and ran down the lane till he reached ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... from the lever. While the machine is running, he can withdraw the leg gradually, as each portion receives its proper amount of action, till the whole, including the foot, becomes glowing with the effect. The boot or shoe affords no impediment to the effect, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the boot-maker, the hair-dresser, were in turn visited by this poor pagan of externals. As by degrees under their hands he emerged from the beggar to the gentleman, his spirits rose; his eyes brightened; he walked ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... must be on our guard against a sudden attack. We don't want the name of our camp to mean that we were taken unawares. We'll have things fixed so the boot will be on the other foot, if ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... it was in his possession; that the other constable on duty with Cock stated that a man he had seen lurking near the house about twelve o'clock on the night of the murder appeared to be William Habron's age, height and complexion, and resembled him in general appearance; and that the boot on Habron's left foot, which was "wet and sludgy" at the time of his arrest, corresponded in certain respects with the footprints of the murderer. The prisoner did not help himself by an ineffective attempt to prove an alibi. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... be as particular to warn all other speakers not to say anything which shall sound like an attack on liberal religion. They never seem to think we have any feelings to be hurt when we have to sit under their reiteration of orthodox cant and dogma. The boot is all on one foot with the dear religious bigots—but if they will all pull together with us for suffrage we'll continue to bear and forbear, as we have done for the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... were stooping over the plate-chest, the Badger with his back to the door, Swankie with his head towards it. The major raised the boot-jack and took aim. At the same moment the door squeaked, Big Swankie looked up hastily, and, in technical phraseology, "doused the glim". All was dark in an instant, but the boot-jack sped on its way notwithstanding. The burglars were accustomed to fighting, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne |
