"Knuckles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stock indeed. Five black pieces of muslin, each with two peep-holes, several sets of false whiskers, two pairs of brass knuckles, three metal rings from each of which dangled more than a dozen keys of varying sizes, a box of revolver cartridges, a formidable knife, some twine and a number ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... interesting matters were, as far as we were concerned, swallowed up in one stupendous fact. One of the four survivors of the brutal and perhaps fatal scuffle was the immaculate Lieutenant Keith, his clothes torn to ribbons, his eyes blazing, blood on his knuckles. One other thing, however, pointed at him in a worse manner. A short sword, or very long knife, had been drawn out of his elegant walking-stick, and lay in front of him upon the stones. It did not, however, ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... Tommy bored his knuckles into his red eyes, and began to whimper. Again it was hard for Tommy! He had followed Clare, thinking to supply what was lacking to him; to do for him what he was not clever enough to do for himself; in short, to make an advantageous partnership with him, to which he should furnish the ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences fill the morning. At night the king plays at commerce and backgammon, and the queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte runs her usual nightly gauntlet, the queen pulling her hood, and the Princess Royal rapping her knuckles. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery, and sleeps as usual between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline. Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says), like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... old Daniels appeared at the door, a heavy Colt in his hand. For a moment he stood dumbfounded, but then, with a cry, jerked up his gun—a quick movement, but a fraction of a second too slow, for the hand of Dan darted out and his knuckles struck the wrist of the old cattleman. The Colt rattled on the floor. He lunged after his weapon, but the voice of ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... room but came down again with considerable celerity, rubbing his knuckles, and breaking the highly charged silence of the office with a caustic comment upon the inconvenience of ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... mistaken and much practised desire of striking when the iron was hot, Mrs. Agar, like many a wiser person, began, therefore, to bang about in all directions, hitting not only the iron but the anvil, her own knuckles and the susceptibilities of any one standing in the neighbourhood. She could not leave things to Mr. Glynde, but must needs see Dora herself. She had in her mind the nucleus of a simple if scurrilous scheme which will show ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... with a lace cap on her head and a white silk shawl over her shoulders, was sitting upright in her low chair, knitting. She wore no glasses, and her old hands, meagre, almost transparent, with large knuckles, and skin that looked as if it had been polished, fumbled a little with her needles and the thick wool. Her eyesight was failing, though in the pride of her great age she would not acknowledge it; but her hearing was almost perfect. Aunt Laura, who was ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... lost his patience. Seizing a rod he told Robert to hold out his hand, and gave him a caning. "There!" he exclaimed, "I hope that will make you do something." But the boy folded his arms and answered very quietly, "I came to school to have something beaten into my brains and not into my knuckles." It was very hard for the teacher to do much with such a lad, particularly as the boy was so often really very ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... the principal specialities being—(1.) early and free movement of the fingers; (2.) secure fixing of the wrist to procure consolidation. (1.) By passive motion of the joints of the knuckles and fingers, commenced on the second day, and continued daily after the operation; (2.) By a splint supporting the fore-arm and hand, the fingers being held in a semiflexed position by a large pad of cork fastened firmly on ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... too staggered to laugh. But the girl filled the staid place with gay peals. Then she leaned over and patted the wrinkled and bony worn black knuckles. "Bless your dear heart," she said; "no, he isn't, Aunt Basha. He's awfully important and good to us all, and he knows everything. But he's ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... and then replaced the volume on its shelf. He gave the glass cylinder of his electrical machine a turn or two, and was for the moment gratified to elicit a faint spark, a feeble snap of blue fire, which clicked from the "receiver" to his knuckles. His eye dwelt fondly for a few seconds on the air-pump, but wandered from that to the telescope, and finally took cognizance of an apparatus for weighing heavy articles. This was provided with a small platform, upon which the recluse philosopher stepped, to determine ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... cud gyard he had his gloved fist home on my cheek an' down I went full-sprawl. 'Will that content you?' sez he, blowin' on his knuckles for all the world like a Scots Greys orf'cer. 'Content!' sez I. 'For your own sake, man, take off your spurs, peel your jackut, an' onglove. 'Tis the beginnin' av the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... her mouth and bit down hard on her knuckles for a moment. She frowned intensely at nothing. Then she closed and locked the cabin door, went back up the passage and into the control room. She sat down before the communicator, glanced up once more at the plasmoid station ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... Susan's voice was shaking now. Her hands were clenched so tightly on the fence pickets that the knuckles showed white with the strain. "Mis' McGuire, there's a chance, maybe, that that boy can see. There's somethin' they can do to his eyes, if he gets strong enough to have ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... beard, in form resembling a peg. The hands and feet, like the rest of the figure, have general forms only, without particular detail; the fingers and toes are flat, of equal thickness, little separated, and without distinction of the knuckles; yet, altogether, their simplicity of idea, breadths of parts, and occasional beauty of form, strike the skilful beholder, and have been highly praised by the best judges, ancient and modern. In their basso-relievos and paintings, ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... them, were sitting about when Billy, sniffing and rubbing his knuckles in his eyes to such an extent that of necessity notice must be taken, drew ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... almost doubling up as he struck. He had been hit squarely on the jaw with a force that made even Tom Reade's hardened knuckles ache. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... from the pile, and someone, at the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this species blessed with the loud quack of the female bird, sufficiently established the identity of the duck. Then muskrats, and the oyster-eating coon, came round, no doubt scenting my provisions. Brisk raps from my knuckles on the inside shell of the canoe astonished these animals and aroused their curiosity, for they ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... he answered, scarcely even glancing down at her. "They'll make it this time, though," he added, and she could see his knuckles whiten with the strain as he gripped a rough limb of ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... master-lever, protected by its bell of glass. (At least it looked like glass, for it was crystal clear and reflected gleamingly the blue light from the nearby coils). He tapped it experimentally with his knuckles.... ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... troubled thickness apparent in the voices of those who emerge from a deep grief. As he speaks, his large hands, roughened by trench toil and by riding, wander aimlessly until some emotion grips him when the knuckles harden and he clutches at his knees or at the edge of the table. And all the while he will be breathing hard like a man who has swum a distance. When he reads his poems he chants and one would think that he communed with himself save that, at the pauses, he shoots a powerful ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... back and was staring out of the window. He might have been staring at a blank wall, for all he saw through the glass. He was as pale as though he had just received some great physical shock, and he had his hands doubled up into fists, so that his knuckles were white. His eyes were almost gray instead of hazel, and they ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... regretfully, "and you used to be as hard as nails. When I got a good hit at you it made my knuckles tingle. But now you're getting all boggy everywhere. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... give him a thrashing for it. What was it? I want to know." He did not realize how pugnacious was his pose, but he was leaning toward her with his face quite close, and his eyes were blue points of intensity. His hands, doubled and pressing hard on the table, showed white at the knuckles. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... it from the hand, which was very tiny, and pink, with dimples where grown up folk have knuckles. She then pushed past the child, and went on to a door at the end of the passage, which she threw open, ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... the sign for bad is made, that for strong is used by the Comanches as follows: Place the clinched left fist horizontally in front of the breast, back forward, then pass the palmar side of the right fist downward in front of the knuckles of the left. ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... immunity! That fine sand was on the next wolftrap and in an instant I was a prisoner. Although not wounded, for the traps have no teeth, and my thick trapping gloves deadened the snap, I was firmly caught across the hand above the knuckles. Not greatly alarmed at this, I tried to reach the trap-wrench with my right foot. Stretching out at full length, face downward, I worked myself toward it, making my imprisoned arm as long and straight as possible. I could not see and reach at the same time, but counted on my toe ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... rapping of his knuckles on the table recalled her. She turned, slightly startled, and met his imperious eyes. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... observed that as he spoke his companion flushed. A wave of warm colour surged over her face and bare neck and receded again, leaving her very pale. Her hands closed over the book lying in her lap, as if glad to hold on to something, and their knuckles were white against ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... overturned by the energy of men attempting to get to the scene of action. The two combatants were quickly separated; sides were taken by the friends of each, excited explanations attempted and defied. Callum was examining the knuckles of his left hand, which were cut from the blow he had delivered. He maintained a gentlemanly calm. Hibbs, very much flustered and excited, insisted that he had been most unreasonably used. The idea of attacking him here. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... with the beating of its wings, So my soul... emptied of the known you... utterly... Is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song You might have been.... 'Twas a great night... With never a waste look over a shoulder Curved to the crook of the wind... And a great word we threw For memory to play knuckles with... A word the waters of the world have washed, Leaving it stark and without smell... A world that rattles well ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... continually flew into my face and clung to my hair, and I have a great dislike of bats. At last, after some minutes of jerking and dangling, I found myself standing in a narrow passage by the side of the worthy Ali, covered with bats and perspiration, and with the skin rubbed off my knees and knuckles. Then another man came down, hand over hand like a sailor, and as the rest were told to stop above we were ready to go on. Ali went first with his candle—of course we each had a candle—leading the way down a long passage about five feet high. At length the passage widened out, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... metal sheathe of the monster out there, the shapeless crouching and malevolent winking lights, and he felt himself going to pieces inside with a sudden shaking crumble; he hated himself for it but he couldn't stop it; his hands clenched until the knuckles showed white. ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... two bruisers, tense and glaring, the cool self-possession he had acquired in his training as a boxer overcame his mental confusion. With one quick glance he saw the cold hate gleaming in "Slim's" eyes as he stood with his back flat against the door and noticed that one of the "bashers" wore brass knuckles on his right fist, while the other had pulled a black-jack from ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... pay the money they lost, lest otherwise, forsooth, they be thought no men of their words. Again what is it, I pray, to see old fellows and half blind to play with spectacles? Nay, and when a justly deserved gout has knotted their knuckles, to hire a caster, or one that may put the dice in the box for them? A pleasant thing, I must confess, did it not for the most part end in quarrels, and therefore belongs rather to ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... knuckles of the Jew struck under the ear of the man from 'Rapahoe. It was a beautiful blow, and Buckhorn was knocked over in a twinkling, striking heavily on his shoulder in the dust of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his capias armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you like a tiger—that indeed is une autre chose, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... brought the Queen thither 'to break his gall in sunder with Tantalus' torment.' Another time he protested that he must disguise himself as a boatman, and just catch a sight of the Queen, or else his heart would break. He drew his dagger on his keeper, Sir George Carew, and broke the knuckles of Sir Arthur Gorges, because he said they were restraining him from the sight of his Mistress. He proposed to Lord Howard of Effingham at the close of a business letter, that he should be thrown to feed the lions, 'to ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... pudding-headed Teapots, sir. Didn't hurt my knuckles, because his head was soft. Just like punching a bladder o' lard, but the weight on him wrenched ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... her young beauty and contrasted it with her appearance when he saw her in the "loanie" with her child. In a few years, he thought, she would be like any village woman, worn out, misshapen, tired, with gnarled knuckles and thickened hands. Already she had begun to ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... was examining the box. It was at least well made. It weighed certainly under two ounces. I struck it with my knuckles; it sounded hollow. There was no hinge; nothing of any kind to show that it ever had been opened, or, for the matter of that, that it ever could be opened. The more I examined the thing, the more it whetted my curiosity. That it could be opened, and in some ingenious manner, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... thus far—flew around the tent and settled on the snow near by. In the calm, the heat was excessive and great thirst attacked us all the afternoon, which I attempted to assuage at every halt by holding snow in my hands and licking the drops of water off my knuckles——a cold and unsatisfactory expedient. We travelled without burberrys—at that time quite a novel sensation—wearing only fleece suits and light woollen undergarments. Correll pulled for the greater part of the afternoon in ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... curls. His face was as tenderly pretty as his sister's, whom he strongly resembled, although he was somewhat fairer of complexion. But it was full of the utmost bravado of rage and defiance, and his two small hands were clinched, until the knuckles whitened, in the faces of the little crowd who confronted him. The color had not left his face, for his cheeks burned like roses, but his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed. The boys danced ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... elegance, appeared so frequently that the razor-like tips began to look somewhat scarred and battered, as if they might perhaps retire from active service in ten years' time, or so. But the tan shoes were not Jerry's only concession to the social amenities. An unwonted attention was given to grimy knuckles and finger-nails. More than once he made his appearance with his usually frowsy hair as sleek as the coat of a water rat, and dripping, in further likeness to the animal mentioned. Peggy, whose original ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... was flat and wide and snubby. Tuff's cheeks were big and bony. Tuff's cigar was long and black. Tuff's lips were thick and extensive. Tuff's neck was huge and short. Tuff's coat was a heavy blue one that did for an overcoat, too. Tuff wore diamonds as big as his knuckles. Tuff's scarf was red. Tuff's waistcoat was yellow, and every color known to the spectroscope was employed to make up Tuff's ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... Pennsylvania and then went quickly inside. Something pleased him and as he stood before the counter in the shop he laughed and whistled softly. With a wink at the Reverend Minot Weeks who stood by the door leading to the street, he tapped with his knuckles ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... His attack did not seem quite spontaneous. In spite of the wildness of his manner and the violence of his speech, he appeared to be acting a part which he had rehearsed beforehand. I was only angry, and stepping forward, I dealt him a very sharp rap with my knuckles on his chest. "Moderate your language, old man," I said; "remember that ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that of his smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, and he held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin upon their thinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... in the passage; he had just come out of the kitchen, and the fact that he had been washing his hands in the sink was made evident by his rolled-back shirt-sleeves, and by the shiny redness of the knuckles he was running through his stiff ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... line of poetry that ever was written. A good recipe for a pudding is worth all that your Shenstones and the whole set of them ever wrote; and there's more good sense and useful information in this book"—rapping his knuckles against a volume he held in his hand—"than in all your poets, ancient ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... in such a fury in my dream, fancying the Dutchmen had boarded us, and I was knocking one of their seamen down, that I struck my doubled fist against the side of the cabin I lay in with such a force as wounded my hand grievously, broke my knuckles, and cut and bruised the flesh, so that it awaked me out of my sleep. Another apprehension I had was, the cruel usage we might meet with from them if we fell into their hands; then the story of Amboyna came into my head, and how the Dutch might perhaps torture us, as they did our countrymen ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... muscle and bone and fire and flax went to the making of that stunted wight," mused Zelie, setting her knuckles in her hips. "What a pity that she escapes powder and ball, when poor Pierre Doucett is shot down!—a man with wife and child, and ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... guess everybody is," agreed Fanny with that joyous, bubbling, luxurious note that Grandma knew so well. "I saw Mary Hagley polishing her very knuckles off on that second-hand stove Mert bought from that watery-eyed man from Spring Road who drives through here with the lame buckskin horse and pieced-out harness. Lutie Barlow's got her fall tinting and painting all done. She's ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... sword of the Lord and of Gideon," Gib made a great lunge at me with his fist. But the sword of Gideon missed its aim, and skinned its knuckles on the stone wall. I saw now to my great comfort that the man was beside himself with fury, and was swinging his arms wildly like a flail. Three or four times I avoided his rushes, noting with satisfaction that one of the countrymen had got hold of the shrieking ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... battle raged, and bruised knuckles, splinters in fingers, torn clothes, and rubbed shoes, were the only wounds received, while a great deal of fun was had out of the maltreated logs, and a lasting peace secured between ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Captain closely. Anderson turned abruptly away from them all and stood, feet apart, head down, hands behind his back, and stared out of the forward viewports. In the tense silence they could hear his knuckles crack. At length he said quietly, "That isn't what we came here ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... nothing more. The artist must be a great student of human nature. I went, every day, to study these domestic groups; at first they did not attract the crowd; but later it was next to impossible to get at them. Every one was taken from life, and you see the grime on their knuckles. Almost every face expressed strong and agreeable character. There were very few good and a great many had pictures. Of statuary "The Forced Prayer" was very popular; the child has his hands folded, but is in anything but a saintly ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... greeted the play and stirred the sleigh-bells on the startled horses beyond the door. The programme over, somebody called for Squire Town, a local pettifogger, who flung his soul and body into every cause. He often sored his knuckles on the court table and racked his frame with the violence of his rhetoric. He had a stock of impassioned remarks ready for ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... for a glimpse of the beloved branches. The bats might take to caves and the vampires to outhouses and dark crevices in the rocks, but most of the monkeys and apes would soon become extinct, while a chimpanzee or orang-utan would become a cripple, swinging ever painfully along between the knuckles of crutch-like forearms, searching, searching forever for the trees which gave him his form and structure, and without which his life and that of his race must ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... freestone of a half-buried tomb with a nail till told to stop. Sir Toady Lion, having a "pinch-bug" coralled in his palms, sat regarding it cautiously between his thumbs. Only Maid Margaret, her dimpled chin on her knuckles, sat looking upward in rapt attention. For her there was no joy like that of a story. Only, she was too young to mind letting the tale-teller know it. That ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... His knuckles smote the bear fairly on the point of its nose, and the impact sounded loud and clear in the tense stillness of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... when Vanderkemp closed his eyes on this world, a lad was working as an apprentice to a Scotch gardener, rising in the dense darkness of the cold winter's mornings at four o'clock, and warming his knuckles by knocking them against the handle of his spade. He was passing through a hard training, but this lad was being prepared to take up the work which Vanderkemp had so well begun, though in a somewhat different sphere, and to repair the loss which had been sustained ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... perhaps I'd better climb down. I did so, very slowly and stiffly, making the sad mistake of jumping down from the height of the step. How that did injure my feelings! The only catastrophe I can remember comparable to it was when a teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler after I had been making snowballs bare handed. My benumbed faculties next swung around to the proposition of proceeding up an interminable gravel walk—(it is twenty-five feet long!) to a forbidding flight ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... warehouse, O' Man. All among the table-cloths and blankets. Carlyle. He's reading aloud. Doing the High Froth. Spuming! Windmilling! Waw, waw! It's a sight worth seeing. He'll bark his blessed knuckles one of these days ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... alive to the very serious position in which he was placed;" i.e., He occasionally wiped his mouth on his knuckles. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... violently that, for a few seconds, he was unable to move. Becoming calmer, he tried the door, and finding it locked, rapped with his knuckles against it. The grocer's wife demanded who was there. But Wyvil, instead of returning an answer, repeated his application. The same demand followed, and in a louder key. Still no answer. A third summons, however, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Those who have not grasped a live salmon in their arms have no conception of the strength of a fish; and perhaps it may be said with equal truth that those who have never wielded a forehammer have but a faint conception of the strength of a blacksmith's knuckles. Bryan had thrown his whole weight on the fish, and grasped it, as with a vice, in both hands; but at every struggle of its powerful frame he felt how uncertain was the hold he had of its slippery body. Once it almost escaped, and dashed the spray over its adversary's ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... to ask you," he began, and then stopped at a punch in the side from Roy's knuckles, and began again: "Me and Roy would like—if it wouldn't be too much trouble, and you'd just as soon as not—to have you tell us a horse story next time." Then in a loud whisper aside to Roy: "You did ask me! ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... night is no easy task at best; but if your start is from a boat that is being tossed up and down on a rolling sea, if your precipice has a way of varying from a strict perpendicular to an overhanging cliff, and then in an instant thrusting out its base so that the climber's knees and knuckles come with a sharp bang against it, while the next moment he is dropped to his shoulders in icy sea-water, the difficulties of the task are naturally increased. The instant the pilot puts his feet on the ladder he must run up it for dear life if he ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... rest, too, the Prince suffered a little from his eyes, an irritation caused by grains of steel that had blown into them while viewing the works at "Soo." His right hand was also painful from the heartiness of Toronto, and the knuckles swollen. To set these matters right, the doctor went up from the train, and by the Indian canoe that carried the mail and the daily news ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... instant she stopped, appalled. The door did not open, the steps did not cross her threshold. Instead, knuckles rapped feebly on ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... for a long time on the panels of the front door—she could not reach the knocker—she walked round to the back of the house, and knocked there. But still there was no answer. Then she tried the side door. By this time her knuckles were sore, and, as she found she could turn the handle, she opened the door, and walked in. A long passage led to the hall, where she stopped, and looked round. There were doors on every side, but they were all shut. The first door she opened showed another passage, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... dozen men fell over the ropes and pulled as many more down with them, and those that were down fought on the ground, while the others walked on them and fought over their heads. Carew, who was quite in his element, hit every head he saw, and knocked his knuckles to pieces on Black Andy Kelly's teeth. The fight he put up, and the terrific force of his hitting, are traditions among the mountain men to this day. Charlie Gordon was simply mad with the lust of fighting, and was locked in a death-grip with Red Mick; they swayed and struggled on the ground, while ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... Jake's relief, there came a sudden distraction. Drama knocked at the door with imperious knuckles, and forced Comedy to the wings, and Drama peeped with a smiling but set ...
— Options • O. Henry
... installed his secretary and overwhelmed him with work. The young man spent his nights in writing, and, like all great workers, he contracted a bad habit, a trick—he took to chewing paper. The late M. de Malesherbes use to rap people over the knuckles; and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit depended upon him. The handsome young secretary began by chewing blank paper, found it insipid for a while, and acquired a taste for manuscript as having more flavor. People did ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Think of poor Northcliffe. He thinks he's saved the nation from its miserable government, and the government now openly abuses him in the House of Commons. Northcliffe puts on his brass knuckles and turns the Times building upside down and sets all the Daily Mail machine guns going, and has to go to bed to rest his nerves, while the row spreads and deepens. The Government keeps hell in the prayer-book because without ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... not remember that he must avoid the effort to use the right hand which he had always used. Now he reached down and picked up the envelope—still with the lettered surface turned up to sight—and rapping still swollen knuckles on the desk top, he let the envelope fall just as he ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... walks from side to side without a moment's rest. Every now and then he stretches his arm out of the window, apparently throwing something away. He is certainly ill. His body and legs are badly swollen, and there are great lumps in the places where his joints and knuckles ought to be. Well then, if he is ill, why does he not lie still in bed and rest and get well? For even in this wretched cave-room there is something that looks like a bed in one corner. It has no white sheets or soft blankets, but still it has four legs and a sort of coverlet, and ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... he clenched his teeth, and shook his fist towards the sea, saying at the same time that he was sorry he had not broken Tararo's head, and he only hoped that one day he should be able to plant his knuckles on the bridge of that chief's nose! After they had 'pumped me dry,' as Peterkin said, I begged to be informed of what had happened to them during my long absence, and particularly as to how they got out ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... country, too," he interposed, "and no one ever said that I am sentimental." He tapped his head. "I'm as hard as nails up here." Quill cracked his knuckles in a disagreeable habit he has, and continued: "I have a shack on the West Shore, and I go there week-ends. My work is so confining that if I didn't get to the country once in a while, I would play out in a jiffy. I'm a nervous frazzle—a nervous frazzle—by Saturday noon. But I lie on the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... stalwart frame, now bowed and broken, he walked habitually with the knuckles of one hand in the small of his back, as if he feared that his frail framework might give way at that point; silvery hair straggling about his temples, faded blue eyes, kindly and clouded under white shocks of eyebrow—such was the Reverend Fergus Symington, now for some years minister-emeritus. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... distinguished family. The scent of old lavender and spiced rose leaves, and a stick or two of white orris root, haunt this relic: my lady's laces must be kept fresh, and so must my lady's long white mitts—they reach from her dainty knuckles quite to her elbow. And so must her cobwebbed silk stockings and the filmy kerchief she folds across ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... promise to Bill, that he would not fight a customer. Casey spat disgustedly. "Hell! He wasn't no customer! Didn't he ship his rubber in by express, ruther'n to buy off me?" He grinned retrospectively and looked at his knuckles, one of which showed a patch of new ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... half an hour he climbed out of the slip again, dripping sweat, minus the skin of all his knuckles, and blistered as to palms and knees, but with a cheerful grin that spoke of a satisfied soul. He confidently depended upon the darkness, now absolute, and native unthoroughness, for his work to remain undetected until the sea came up ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... knock at the door, and it appeared to him that his knuckles had hardly fallen upon the panel before the valve was flung suddenly open. An indescribable and heavy odor fell upon him and for the moment overpowered his senses, and he found himself standing face to face with a figure prodigiously and ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... the history of mathematics are the calculations published by the weather-prophet of the Express. Arithmetic turns pale when she glances at them, and, striking her multiplication table with her algebraic knuckles, demands to know why the Express does not add a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... Stixon replied; "we all works our way up regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled ways is not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing of the steps till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a bean. The old lord was the man for discipline—your grandfather, if you please, miss. He catched me when I were about ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... much too tight for him; and yet, when he had taken up the ring (as it turned out to be), and was carrying it to his mistress, she thought he looked like a little cupid. He gave the ring to her; it was a trumpery little thing enough, but too small for any of her old knuckles, so she put it into ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that gallant chieftain was somewhat incoherent, and amid protestations of admiration and eternal friendship, much to our astonishment, wept profusely. Still later, he got very maudlin indeed, and was heard to murmur, looking at his scarred knuckles, that "he was afraid he must have hurt some one that night," with an accent of heartfelt sorrow and contrition which ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... It was really too much of a good thing. In this state of intense antagonism he was startled to observe tips of fingers fumbling with the dark stuff. Then they grasped the edge of the further curtain and hung on there, just fingers and knuckles and nothing else. It made an abominable sight. He was looking at it with unaccountable repulsion when a hand came into view; a short, puffy, old, freckled hand projecting into the lamplight, followed by a white ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... to be some street quarrel, I endeavoured to separate the parties by remonstrance. I rushed between them, holding out my cane; but a sharp cut across the knuckles, which I had received from one of the small men, together with his evident intention to follow it up, robbed me of all zest for pacific meditation; and, keeping my eye upon the one who had cut me, I drew a pistol (I could not otherwise defend myself), and fired. The man fell dead in his tracks, ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... gentleman had read them down town, for he shoved them aside. Then he dropped an elbow on the table, rested his chin against his knuckles, and gazed fiercely at the ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... beside one of these windows sat Mrs. Meyerburg with her hands idle and laid out along the chair sides. They were ringless hands and full of years, with a great network of veins across their backs and the aging fingers large at the knuckles. But where the hands betrayed the eyes belied. Deep in Mrs. Meyerburg's soft and scarcely flabby face her gaze was straight ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... recover she had run into the house, through the hall, up the stairs into her bedroom. Down she sat on the side of the bed. "How vile, odious, abominable, vulgar," muttered Isabel. She pressed her eyes with her knuckles and rocked to and fro. And again she saw them, but not four, more like forty, laughing, sneering, jeering, stretching out their hands while she read them William's letter. Oh, what a loathsome thing to ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... that already swollen lip, but the lower knuckles landed against the tip of Dodge's jaw with a force which, while not complete, nevertheless sent Bert to the floor, where he ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... board the Triad with the hospitable Vice-Admiral. We were all very cheery at the happy turn of our fortunes; outwardly, that is to say, for there was a skeleton at the feast who kept tap, tap, tapping on the mahogany with his bony knuckles; tap, tap, tap; the gunfire at Helles was insistent, warning us that the Turks had not yet "taken their licking." But when I get back, although there is nothing in from Hunter-Weston there is an officer from Anzac who has just ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... the free range was his as well as another's. On that long night march, when the men were behind the sheep, driving them, contrary to the usual custom, he told Sims of his interview with Beef Bissell, and the herder cracked his knuckles with rage at the position ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... back, horror in his eyes. His hands slid slowly along the carved arms of his chair, and clenched the ends so tightly that his knuckles looked like ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... herself on the bed, face downwards and buried in a pillow. She was weeping and uttering incoherent cries. When her mother came in, alarmed, the old lady was indignantly ordered out again while the girl's feet beat against the mattress hurriedly, and she bit the knuckles of her hands. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... and he put one foot on the keg. He made no other move; but if ever a man's back was eloquent of determination, his was. From where I lay I could see the fingers of his left hand shut tight over his thumb, pressing till the knuckles were white and the cords in the back of his hand stood out in little ridges. I'd seen that before, and I recalled with a start when and where I'd heard that soft, drawly voice. I knew I wasn't ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "it was the Dominican put him out of joint. It certainly did give him a rap over the knuckles." ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of all evil. One should never trust them. They have no honour. No honour!" he repeated, striking his breast with his closed fist on which the knuckles stood out very white. "I left my village many years ago and of course I am perfectly satisfied with my position and I don't know why I should trouble my head about this loyal lady. I suppose that's the way women get on ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... to stand well with my neighbours and do my duty towards them. What disheartens me is, they won't see it." He pushed the wine aside, and for a while, leaning his elbows on the table and resting his chin on his knuckles, stared gloomily before him. Then, with sudden boyish indignation, he burst out: "It's an infernal shame; that's it—an infernal shame! I haven't been home here a twelvemonth, and the people avoid me like a plague. What have I done? My father wasn't popular—in fact, they hated ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... beginning to wonder whether he is really in love with Helene. If he isn't he ought to have his knuckles rapped. Of course, Helene will be sensible about it. But, Louis, when a really nice man behaves as though he were in love with a woman, no matter how gaily she laughs over it, it is bound to mean something to her. And men ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... knuckles and took a turn or two up and down the cabin. Douglas noted with a little sense of pity the extreme thinness of the rounded shoulders under the denim jumper. Douglas dished the bacon and put a loaf of Mary's bread beside ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... before her, eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead—and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature who inhabited the ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... each other steadily for perhaps a minute. Then Oxenford rapped his antagonist smartly across the knuckles and sprang back out of reach. The colossus, with a growl, swung his mace to right and left, striking at random, for Oxenford had cunningly contrived to turn Dom Gillian so that the light was at his back. Quinton Edge ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... round Sapt's waist and supported him out of the cellar, drawing the battered door close after me. For ten minutes or more we sat silent in the dining-room. Then old Sapt rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, gave one great gasp, and was himself again. As the clock on the mantelpiece struck one he stamped his ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... with little olive trees and sometimes have white hollows, rayed and criss-crossed, in their flanks), as they drove up hill and down he scowled in the corner of the carriage, with his paw so tightly closed that the skin was stretched between the knuckles and the little hairs stood upright. Sandra rode opposite, dominant, like a Victory prepared to fling ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... gentlemen the doctor sat frozen with terror in his high-backed seat, clutching the arms of it so that his knuckles showed white as marble. In like case were the two attendant servants, who hung motionless by the buffet. But Sforza-Fogliani, a man of some spirit for all his effeminate appearance, leapt to his feet and set a hand ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... the present, and forecast the future. Truly, if hell ever does begin to men on earth, it began that day to the pirate, as he sat in the twilight on the gnarled root, with one of his feet dangling in the slimy water, his hands clasped so tight that the knuckles stood out white, and his eyes gazing upwards with an expression that seemed the ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... when we were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pin's point following the letter, to impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination; and wince involuntarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady who instilled into our mind the first principles of education for ninepence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile head occasionally, by way of adjusting the confusion of ideas in which we were ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... without any little wandering hairs, protruded a little over the dress. To her sloping shoulders were attached long arms, large or slender where they so should be. What shall I say of her white hands, with their long fingers, and knuckles without knots, delicately ending in rosy nails attached to the flesh by a clear and single line? I come to her bosom with its firm breasts, but short and high pointed, revealing the valley of love between them, to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... substance had been in him at his birth trustworthy rose up now to meet the voice of God that called to him aloud. His lank jaws grew red, his eyes a deeper blue, a look in them which his mother may have seen the like of years and years ago; he beat with his knuckles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... she went to the Mahlmanns', where she gave the twins their music lesson. Very often the finger exercises, to which she had to listen there, were positively painful to her, and she would rap the children on the knuckles when they struck a false note. On the present occasion, however, she was not in the least strict. When Frau Mahlmann, fat and friendly as ever, came into the room and inquired whether Bertha was satisfied, ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... quiet civil appearance of the chiefs reassured me, all the more when their spokesman began and made a long speech in a low tone of voice, sometimes waving his hand towards Case, sometimes toward me, and sometimes knocking with his knuckles on the mat. One thing was clear: there was no sign of anger ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not a trace of embarrassment or of suspicion. The little dynamo with the prodigious head and the baby mouth and the intense, deepset, restless eyes stood by his chair, and with knuckles on the table much of the time, talked down into the flowers directly in front of him. He spoke sometimes in a husky, low voice, now and again in a smothered shriek, again in a tragic whisper. He was in a small gathering and he seemed to know that though the dingy, mysterious room was somewhat ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... that moment somebody took a swing at Joe and grazed his cheek. It was a good thing that was all he did; he was wearing brass knuckles. Joe went down a couple of feet, bending at the knees, and caught this fellow around the hips with both hands, straightening and lifting him over his head. Then he threw him over the heads of the people in front of him. There were yells where the ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... pronounced, Swinton's expression underwent various changes, and his face became visibly paler under the steady gaze of Grummidge. At the last word he grasped his knife and drew it, but his foe was prepared. Like a flash of light he planted his hard knuckles between Swinton's eyes, and followed up the blow with another on the chest, which felled him ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... of harm's way. Yet here was the girl, hiding something beneath her long blue coat, and acting as if she had great ado to keep it there. It must have been a heavy, slippery something, because all the while she talked she kept hitching it up and clenching it till her knuckles ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... his superior, sternly. "Don't you see I'm quiet?" and he twisted his knuckles viciously into Leander's throat. "If you call out you're ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... his lips, for the brown thing behind the chair had slipped upward with the silent undulation of a panther, and a deadly roomal (towel) had flashed over the Chief's head and was now a strangling knot about his tawny throat; the hard knuckles of Hunsa were kneading his spine at the back of the skull with a half twist of the cloth. He was pinioned to the back of the chair; he was in a vise, the jaws of which closed his throat. Just a stifled ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... his side, Damar Greefe, clenching his teeth and clutching at the chair-arms so that his knuckles gleamed in the lamp-light like white marbles, turned his glance upon ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... tight hold of the gunwale, and as reward for his chivalry had his knuckles rapped sharply by the oar-blade. Then he forgot himself, and Miss Welse also, and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... dexterity, though they are not easy to manage. The handles overlap by about six inches—in order to gain leverage, as the curagh is narrow—and at first it was almost impossible to avoid striking the upper oar against one's knuckles. The oars are rough and square, except at the ends, so one cannot do so with impunity. Again, a curagh with two light people in it floats on the water like a nut-shell, and the slightest inequality in the stroke throws the prow round at least a right angle from its course. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... heerd th' like in his born days. He says she fetched th' pianny two or three wallops that made Cassidy jump out iv his chair, an' Cassidy has charge iv th' steam whistle at th' quarry at that. She wint at it as though she had a gredge at it. First 'twas wan hand an' thin th' other, thin both hands, knuckles down; an' it looked, says Slavin, as if she was goin' to leap into th' middle iv it with both feet, whin Donahue jumps up. 'Hol' on!' he says. 'That's not a rented pianny, ye daft girl,' he says. 'Why, pap-pah,' says Molly, 'what d'ye mean?' she says. 'That's Wagner,' ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... would not have sufficed to serve the customers who struggled with one another for provisions. At the baker's they formed a string as in times of dearth. The wine shop keepers got rid of the produce of three vintages, and a clever statistician would have found it difficult to reckon up the number of knuckles of ham and of sausages which were sold at the famous shop of Borel, in the Rue Dauphine. In this one evening Daddy Cretaine, nicknamed Petit-Pain, exhausted eighteen editions of his cakes. All night long sounds of rejoicing broke out from the lodging houses, the windows of which ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... time I had zigzagged it into the back chamber, Halicarnassus loomed up the back stairs. I stood hot and panting, with the inside of my fingers tortured into burning leather, the skin rasped off three knuckles, and a bruise on the back of my right hand, where the trunk had crushed it against a sharp edge ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the table and sat down behind the smoky lamp. There was a red spot on his forehead from a chance blow, and the knuckles of both big hands were raw. He breathed heavily for a full minute, and ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... sounded like the tiny knuckles of a fairy's hand, knocking lightly and playfully on ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... be felt as two. At each successive putting down of the instrument I would bring the points a little nearer together and a little lower down on the hand. By the time a dozen or more stimulations had been given I would be working down near the knuckles, and the points would be right together. From that on I would use only one point. It might be necessary to repeat this a few times before the illusion would persist. A great deal seems to depend on the skill of the operator. It would be noticed that the first impression was ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... at Madame Beavor, said, "And yet, madame, your charming gaiety consoles me amidst all my suffering;" upon which Madame Beavor called him "flatterer," and rapped his knuckles with her fan; the latter proceeding the brave Pole did not seem to like, for he immediately buried his ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the Secretary, holding the hand of Dona Isabel in her own, as if to assure her that she was guiltless of any design against her former admirer. This was quite unnecessary, as the gentle Isabel, after bidding Brace, with a rap on the knuckles, to "go and play," contented herself with curling up like a kitten beside Miss Keene, and left that gentleman to wander ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... pretty!' said Sam, when the red-nosed man having finished, pulled his worn gloves on, thereby thrusting his fingers through the broken tops till the knuckles were disclosed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... countless ages ago. I stood mute before this apparition of remote antiquity. My uncle, usually so garrulous, was struck dumb likewise. We raised the body. We stood it up against a rock. It seemed to stare at us out of its empty orbits. We sounded with our knuckles his ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... clenched his right fist and examined his knuckles, his unconscious action causing ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... with an intention the straighter that her glove had by this time somehow come off. Bending over it without hinderance, he returned as firmly and fully as the application of all his recovered wholeness of feeling, under his moustache, might express, the consecration the bareness of his own knuckles had received; only after which it was that, still thus drawing out his grasp of her, and having let down their front glass by his free hand, he signified to the footman his view ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... green balls with his knuckles, and feeling of the stems, and when he had tested each in turn, he answered, "Yis, I'll sell thim for you, but ye'd better wait a week or two. They ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... weight. The blade sank into the man's body—through his body into the earth; Captain Madwell came near falling forward upon his work. The dying man drew up his knees and at the same time threw his right arm across his breast and grasped the steel so tightly that the knuckles of the hand visibly whitened. By a violent but vain effort to withdraw the blade the wound was enlarged; a rill of blood escaped, running sinuously down into the deranged clothing. At that moment three men stepped silently forward ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Littleton translates "Talus," a hucklebone, a bone to play with like a dye, a play called cockal. (So also in Rider.) Hucklebones and knucklebones are syn.: but the latter is modern and liable to give a false idea, besides being tautological. It has nothing to do with the knuckles and derives from the German "Knochel" (dialectically Knochelein) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... later I learned that the late foreman had left town nursing a black eye and a cut on one cheek such as might have been made by a set of red knuckles backed by an arm the size of a ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... refuge wherein they might take their last stand against the encroaching multitudes of men that had steadily spread themselves over the surface of the earth, wresting the hunting grounds from the lower orders, from the moment that the first ape shed his hair and ceased to walk upon his knuckles. Even the species with which Tarzan was familiar showed here either the results of a divergent line of evolution or an unaltered form that had been transmitted without variation ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... called out. On more than one occasion, the sailors on one side to the number of two or three hundred, and the Kentucky and Tennessee boatmen of equal or superior numbers on the other, were drawn up in battle array, and commenced a desperate contest with hard knuckles, bludgeons, and missiles of every description, revolvers and bowie-knives had not at that time been introduced into such MELEES, when the military made their appearance, and the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... concealment of pain are two of the old noblesse oblige characteristics which are now little more than a tradition. Public opinion should be firmer on the matter. The man who must hop because his shin is hacked, or wring his hand because his knuckles are bruised should be made to feel that he is an object not of pity, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that moment on a stool. I rapped his knuckles gently with the butt of the revolver to ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... de Bechamel confided to me in her mad triumph and wild hoyden spirits—she was but a child, poor thing, poor thing, scarce fifteen;—but I love them young—a folly not unusual with the old!" (Here Mr. Pinto thrust his knuckles into his hollow eyes; and, I am sorry to say, so little regardful was he of personal cleanliness, that his tears made streaks of white over his guarled dark hands.) "Ah, at fifteen, poor child, thy fate was terrible! Go to! It is not good to love me, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... had done—though quite the puppy's fault, and not hers at all—came over her. She began to breathe quickly and then to make faces, and in a moment she was sobbing and sniffing, and rubbing her wet eyes with her knuckles, still dirty from her politeness in letting the puppy choose what game she and it ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... said Crane, thoughtfully, "and neither can I, worse luck. We are not in his class there. And you must not fight with him, either"—noting that Seaton's powerful hands had doubled into fists, the knuckles showing white through the tanned skin—"though that would be a fight worth watching and I would like to see you give him the beating of his life. A little thing like a beating is not a fraction of what he deserves ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... the door, as fast as knuckles could go. And then, as if the comer could not wait, the door was opened, and Mary Hodgson stood there ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell |
