"Rapped" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soldiers looked stern, and an officer said, As he rapped with his sword on the black woolly head, "Come, boy, clear the road; what a figure you are!" Came the ready reply, "I'se George Washington, sah! But I didn't know nuffin about my birfday 'Till a feller jist tole me. Oh, golly! ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and entered the garden, the Doctor singing, now in fantastic high notes, now producing deep reverberations from his chest. He took a seat, rapped loudly on the table, assailed the waiter with witticisms; and when the bottle of Bass was at length produced, far more charged with gas than the most delirious champagne, he filled out a long glassful of froth and pushed it over to Jean-Marie. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The door had been safely locked. The proceedings commenced. Mr. McKim rapped quietly on the lid of the box and called out, "All right!" Instantly came the answer ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... "Samoval!" he rapped the name out sharply. He was clearly angry. "That man! I can't understand why O'Moy should suffer him ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... which did not a little flatter my vanity and expectation, I took care to observe, and went to his lordship's house at the time appointed. Having rapped at the gate, the porter unbolted and kept it half open, placing himself in the gap, like soldiers in the broach, to dispute my passage. I asked if his lord was stirring? He answered with a surly aspect, "No." "At what hour does he commonly rise?" said ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... still asleep when Mary rapped at his door. Having aroused him to action by calling out that a stranger had been wounded in the arroyo, she did not pause to offer any further details. With her eyes level and dull, she walked ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... St. Martha's Settlement Mission was congratulating herself upon the ease and expedition with which her charges were learning to transact their affairs, when the President drew a pencil from her pompadour and rapped professionally on the table. In her daytime capacity of saleslady in a Grand Street shoe store she would have called "cash," but as President of the ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... natural to a spook to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they wouldn't let him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling and quarreling incessantly; they manifested and they dark-seanced as regularly as the old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bells and they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo about the house, and, worse ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... for me, and I voluntarily thrust my hand in my pocket for something to give her, and looked foolish as I found nothing and passed on with my head down. I heard her knock at the office door; there was an alarm over it, and I recognized the jingling sound it gave when any one rapped on ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Sloane, a personal friend, rapped at my door and announced to me the news of the assassination of Lincoln, and, as then reported, that of Seward. The change from joy to mourning that day in Columbus was marked and impressive. No event of my life created a more painful ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... hurried along the streets he doubted more than ever how Willy would receive him. He might just as well have waited till morning. However, it was too late now to think of going back, there was no train, and he rapped at first timidly and then noisily at the shop door. He had to wait some time, and then he heard a voice asking from the top windows who ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... is a rebel!" returned the young man, and his knuckles rapped petulantly upon the table. "I stand for the King—for King Charles the Second. When you were dispossessed, his late martyred Majesty made me master of this estate and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... crackling black silk, Jerry in spotless frilled cotton, and Bobbie in a white sailor's suit, bristling with starch and pearl buttons—made their way through the little garden of the Funnels' house, and rapped importantly on the door with the end ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... I rapped on the table. "We did desert them once," I reminded him. "They know how we abandoned the refugee Hurons at Quebec, and they hold our word lightly. It shames us to say this, but we must see matters as they are. No, the Ottawas do not trust us, but they trust the English less. It is ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... stood for a few minutes, looking out into the street, when a merry burst of laughter across the hall attracted my attention. The door of the room opposite was slightly ajar, and I saw that it was the library of the house; so crossing the hall, I gently rapped on the panel. A cheery "Come in!" was my answer. I obeyed the summons, threw ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... she cried, and Seaton, stepping up to the window, rapped sharply upon the glass with the butt of his pistol and raised both hands high above his head in the universal sign of peace. In response, a man of Herculean mold, so splendidly decorated that his harness was one blazing mass of jewels, waved ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... Mary," she said, "page thirty-two," and, picking up the yellow chrysanthemum, she held it to her lips to hide her smile. Then she turned to the girls, rapped with her baton: ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... killed it, he threw it on his back and went home, not by the turnpike, nor by any road or path, but over fields and through copses until he got to the back of his mother's cottage. There was no door on that side, but there was a window, and when he had rapped at it and his mother opened it, without speaking a word he thrust the dead deer through, then made his ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... striven conscientiously to do his duty, it seemed to Davies, as he rejoined the chaplain, that he had become involved in tangles enough without seeking new ones. His friend had already rapped at Leonard's door and been informed that the adjutant was over at his office, so thither went the two, many eyes following them as they crossed the broad, brown level of the parade. The snow had disappeared ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... thought I, "last season, but 'twere surely wild unreason Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star, When she whispered, something sadly: 'I—we feel your going badly!'" "And you let the chance escape you?" rapped the ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... door, he rapped gently. No answer came, and the detective rapped again. This time the door was cautiously opened, and a ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... the other's scowl, and leaned easily back, his head against the carved heraldry, and rapped his fingers softly and rhythmically on the ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... standing over Henry Holmes, who had been driven into a corner and was held prisoner there by a threatening finger. There was a whispered parley that ended only when the old man surrendered and, stepping to the centre of the room, rapped long and loud on the floor with ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... waiting very long, however, perhaps a matter of ten minutes after my arrival, and then Captain Ijichi, of the Mikasa, who as each captain arrived, had been ticking his name off a list, announced that all were present, and rapped sharply on the table with his sword-hilt for silence. The next moment, to use a common expression, one might have heard a pin drop. Then Admiral Togo stepped forward, unrolled a chart and spread it open upon the table, and ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... "Besides," he rapped out, "in the soft soil beneath the window of Professor Northrop's room, I found footprints. I have only to compare the impressions I took there and those of the people in this room, to prove that, while the real murderer stood guard below the window, he sent ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in their places, and one of them read an exhortation ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... door of the private office, and the elderly man drew his cane and rapped twice. The colonel must have recognized the signal as familiar, for the door opened with a spring, and the next moment he had them both ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... court perfunctorily rapped for order. The laugh was frankincense and myrrh to the court. So the court clearly showed its appreciation of its own fine sarcasm as it rapped for order and continued insolently: "See here, Adams, if you aren't crazy, what are ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... kitten, and told to read "Mary." Nobody paid any attention to her. They did not even look at her. They went on, indifferently, reading their parts, moving here and there on orders from Jenkins. Suddenly her name was rapped out: ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... He rapped, and while the hollow echoes rang, Out at the door a curst hyena sprang And fled! Said Azrael: "His soul's escaped," And closed the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... shivering, Michael Daragh,—shivering in September! The incredible freshness of this morning, the bracing miracle of cold! I left Boston on the night boat and the stewardess rapped me firmly up at three-thirty to see the sun rise. I stayed stubbornly in my berth, at first, but presently a length of Quaker gray sky interlined with faintest rose brought me to my elbow and then to the ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... of money, later withdrawn. We shall see that she probably had mixed motives both for giving and for withdrawing the gift, but it was asserted, though on evidence far from sound, that 'the spirits' had rapped out a command to give Home some thirty thousand pounds. Spirits ought not to do these things, and, certainly, it would have been wiser in Home to refuse the widow's gold even if they did. Beyond this one affair, and an alleged case ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... and then he resolved to find out, if possible, what could be the meaning of the stranger's visit. With this object in view, he descended the stairs and approached the professor's door, on which he rapped. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... makes me proud," said Aramis, "since you infer it is I who brought all this." And he rapped immediately on the door. The jailer came to open it with Baisemeaux, who, devoured by fear and uneasiness, was beginning, in spite of himself, to listen at the door. Happily, neither of the speakers had forgotten to smother his voice, even ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... from a tavern, his passion got the better of him. He went to the door of the sitting-room which led to the bedroom, and firmly pressed down the latch—not softly, but as if he had a right to enter. But the door was bolted. He rapped. Nothing moved; the door remained locked. With aching limbs he went up the stairs to his garret-room; he felt as if smoke were rising from his lungs and his very vitals were on fire. A tempest of thoughts ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... back, Samms!" the Commissioner rapped out, without preliminary or greeting. "Four vessels gone—a freighter and a passenger liner, with her escort of two heavy cruisers. All in Sector M; Dx about 151. I have ordered all traffic out of space for the duration of the emergency, and since even our ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... call almost the instant I rapped at his door, coming from his cabin fully dressed, having turned in to his bunk "all standing," as if prepared for the summons; but the first mate was a heavy sleeper, and it took me more than ten ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... pretty, and take it hard when she is not. But possibly the secret of enduring so much state as the English have lies in knowing how and when to shirk it, to drop it. No doubt, the alien who counted upon this fact, if it is a fact, would find his knuckles warningly rapped when he reached too confidingly through air that seemed empty of etiquette. But the rapping would be very gentle, very kindly, for this is the genius of English rule where it is not concerned with criminal offence. You must keep off wellnigh all the grass on the island, but ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... dregs of his courage, and went up the stairway of a mean little entresol, at whose windows he had caught a glimpse of green curtains yellowed by the sun. He read the word "Offices," stamped in black letters on an oval copper-plate; he rapped, nobody answered, and he went in. The place, worse than humble, conveyed an idea of penury, or avarice, or neglect. No employe was to be seen behind the brass lattice which topped an unpainted white wooden enclosure, breast-high, within which were tables and desks in stained black ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... the studio door I rapped: before the servant had time to answer my summons, I rapped again till the sounds echoed along the street. When my summons was answered, I rushed upstairs. Wilderspin stood at the studio door, listening, apparently, to the sound of the blacksmith's anvil coming in ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... and there, exploring the branches of an old apple-tree, directly under my window, was the black-and-white woodpecker for whom I had been searching in vain through five or six townships. The saucy fellow! He rapped smartly three or four times; then he straightened himself back, as woodpeckers do, and said: "Good-morning, sir! Where have you been so long? If you wish to see me, you had better stay at home." He might have spoken a little less pertly; for after all, if a man would know what is ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... you!" rapped Nayland Smith. "Suppose we say, then, a thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of Fu-Manchu, the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit by your ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... rapped sharply upon the table with the steel hook that served as his left hand, then, when a waiter cleared a passageway through the crowd, he mutely invited the house employees to drink. The dealer declined, the lookout and the case-keeper ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... long, or short run—were two striped ground squirrels (chipmunks) who were caught in a box with a falling door, and presented to me by Barratier. He lent me the box to keep them in. I fed and watered them warily and successfully for a couple of days by lifting the door an inch, having previously rapped upon it to scare the prisoners to the other end, then slipping in the dish of water and the nuts, sugar, or fruit that were the day's rations. Supposing that kindness and comfortable quarters had tamed them into appreciation of my services ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... afternoon, just as Ben had finished sending off a lengthy dispatch, someone rapped sharply on the counter behind him, and turning, he saw an honest-looking farmer, who had been writing and groaning for fully twenty minutes before he was ready to ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... soldier, our Major, a splendid officer, and a kind and Christian man, but in no wise inclined to overlook the delinquencies of youthful ensigns; and he had rapped our knuckles soundly more than once. But we all loved him in our small mess of five—Captain Simpson, Lieutenant Boyd, and we two ensigns; and I think he knew it. Had we disliked him, among ourselves we would have ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Several of the listeners rapped upon the table, one or two growled suspiciously, and a big sunburnt Englishman stood up. "We'll let the article in question pass," he said. "It is clearly written with personal animus. As you say, we know you better; but see here, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... sardines, and we ate them with hard tack. Then we had a game course, consisting of fried elk, and then a salad of canned baked beans, and coffee with condensed milk, and a spoonful or two of condensed milk for ice cream. When the banquet was over the leader of the bandits rapped on the stone floor of the cave with the butt of his revolver for attention, and taking a canteen of whisky for a loving cup, he drank to the health of their distinguished guest, and passed it around, so all might drink, and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... Islands. Mrs. Burns found her offspring, the Fat Man, lying dispossessed on his back in the gutter, while Sime Wilkins, the Man Who Ate Glass, sat comfortably on his stomach. Sime immediately apologized to Mrs. Burns and disappeared. Next, Mrs. Perkins took the Snake Charmer by his collar, and rapped him soundly with the piece of garden hose which she captured as he was using it to chastise the predatory Wild Man from Borneo. Other members of the company received equally unlooked-for censure of their ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... that I buy for twenty-four dollars a dozen that is just as good as the one that you are selling me for the same money. Look at it.' He passed it over to me. I rubbed my hand over the crown and quickly I rapped the derby over my fist knocking the crown clean off it. I threw the rim onto the floor and didn't say a word. This play cost me a new hat but it was the best way I could answer my customer's argument. After that, my customer was as gentle ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... right with a close row of doors, the most of which stood open and gave glimpses of foul disordered beds, broken meats, and barred windows crusted with London grime. The smell was pestilential. Our turnkey rapped on one of the closed doors, and half-flung, half-kicked it open; for a box had been set against it on ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... it, the next time you nitiate a man in your Mason's lodge you sprinkle a little kyan pepper on the goat's beard just afore you turn him loose. You can get three times as much fun to the square inch of goat. You wouldn't think it was the same goat. Well, we got all fixed and Pa rapped, and we let him in and told him he must be blindfolded, and he got on his knees a laffing and I tied a towel around his eyes, and then I turned him around and made him get down on his hands also, and then his back was right towards the closet ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... to identify the odor that had rapped at his heedless nostrils for an hour. Disbelieving the testimony of his sense of smell he scanned the woods for visual evidence, for the first time taking in the quiet beauty of the scene. Finding the objects for which he searched he exclaimed ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... plunge from top to bottom, since the undefended opening was just where no one would expect to find it. Sometimes an angle was so arbitrarily walled up that you felt sure there must be a secret chamber there and furtively rapped on the wall to catch the hollow echo within. Then again you opened a door, expecting to step into the wilderness of a garden, and found yourself in a set of little rooms running off on a tangent, one after the other, and ending in a windowless closet and ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... youth secured a job with Farmer Jones. The morning after his arrival, promptly at 4 o'clock, the farmer rapped on his door and told him to get ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... rapped on the table, for every child laughed right out. What fun it was! No one had ever seen a cat ...
— Clematis • Bertha B. Cobb
... Then sunlight glittered, and the valley filled with a fierce glare, and a man in a human spacesuit stood on the Niccola's plating, opposite the Plumie air lock. He held a bulky object under his arm. With his other gauntlet he rapped again. ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... so do I!" Whitey Mack rapped out with a vicious snarl. "So does every guy in the fleet down here. We got it in for him. You get that, don't you? He's got Stangeist and his gang steered for the electric chair now; he put a crimp in the Weasel the other ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... was the answer, and the next moment Lon had rapped on the door, and a woman's voice bade ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... he reached the artist's rooms, and his rap at the door, gentle as a woman's, brought no response. He rapped again. ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... reign of David the old John Robinson wagon circus paraded the streets of Marion early on a forenoon and the elephant made a break in a panic and ran into the mill office of the Morrisons through the big door, and Paymaster Andrew Mac Tavish rapped the elephant on the trunk with a penstock and, only partially awakened from abstraction in figures, stated that "Master Morrison willna see callers till he cooms frae ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... do anything about it. But this sixty thousand dollars which belongs to Miss Field, who is the best, purest, and kindest woman I have ever known, and who has given away more money than you ever stole, is going back with me to-morrow to New York." Holcombe leaned forward as he spoke, and rapped with his knuckles on the table. Allen confronted him in amazement, in which there was not so much surprise at what the other threatened to do as at the fact that it was he who ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... I care whether you care," he rapped out, all the time wishing he could strike himself; "but I'm the doctor of this place, and when your mother was ill you should have come straight to me. What had I done that you should ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... They rapped upon the attic door. All was quiet within. Timidly they opened the door and looked in. There upon the floor lay an old rusty iron ring. It ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... Sergeant McBain rapped out his formula without regard for the letter of it. Then, while one of the troopers placed handcuffs upon the prisoner's wrists, he turned ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... was the porter's duty to call every one, and as he was anxious, like the rest of his class, to get rid of his travellers as soon as possible after arrival, he rapped at each of the two closed doors behind which people presumably ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... to be done so easily, for even as he spoke the officer rapped out a command and a group of twenty horsemen began to spread out and surround the place where the ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... them so funny that they quite recovered their spirits. The Count indulged in some rather risky pleasantries, but so well put that they raised a responsive smile; Loiseau, in his turn, rapped out some decidedly strong jokes which nobody took in bad part, and the brutal proposition expressed by his wife swayed all their minds: "As that is her trade, why refuse one man more than another?" Little Madame Carre-Lamadon seemed even to think that in her place she would refuse this ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... He rapped gently on the panelled partition which separated their staterooms. He could hear her low, softly spoken answer as if there were nothing ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... tried to think so. But I knew well enough that there was more to come. I had hardly taken my seat when, looking up, I could see between my fingers the little man standing up and gesticulating beside one of the keepers. At one moment he rapped the damning page with his forefinger; the next, he turned sidewise and flung out a hand toward me; and I divined, without hearing a word, all the bitterness of his invective. The keeper appeared to ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... Hastily O'Halloran rapped out orders, gathered together a little force of five men, and prepared to start. Both Carlo and Megales he furnished with revolvers, that they might put an end to their lives in case the worst happened. But before they had started Juan Valdez and Carmencita Megales ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... half dead with fright when they carried her on board, and I could readily imagine how she must be suffering now. Grandmother came often to my den, to say how thankful she was I did not go. On the third morning she rapped for me to come down to the storeroom. The poor old sufferer was breaking down under her weight of trouble. She was easily flurried now. I found her in a nervous, excited state, but I was not aware that she had forgotten to lock the door behind ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... Anton Von Barwig rapped on the conductor's desk for silence and laid down his baton. The hundred men constituting the Leipsic Philharmonic Orchestra stopped playing as if by magic, and those who looked up from their music saw in their leader's face, for the first ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... rapped out the spare, angular woman, "to have everybody talking about the way Martin has ditched his son, without having the boy scattered to bits, or burned to a cinder. Already he's been blown twenty feet by one windy shot, and more ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... then? He needs one." He walked around Chick and rudely rapped his whip-butt on the breastplate. "If I wasn't afraid of spraining a toe I'd boot you from here to hackenny, you old ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... and rapped. There was no answer; perhaps her appeal was not heard by those within. She pushed the door a little open, saying to Barbara, "There! ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... Roaring out on me its anger And unpitying abuse. How the rain beat down upon me! How the lightning burned its track Through the clouds of storm and thunder As I reached your sod-walled shack! All was dark within, and quiet, When I rapped upon the door. Then I saw the flash of matches And the lamplight on the floor; Heard you stomp your heavy boots on, Heard you walk and draw the bar, But the door, when thrown wide open, Showed Jim ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... shutters. He knocked and knocked again, at the risk of seeing the window open, and her father's gloomy face make its appearance, and demand: "What do you want?" This was nothing in comparison with what he dimly caught a glimpse of. When he had rapped, he lifted up his voice and called Cosette.—"Cosette!" he cried; "Cosette!" he repeated imperiously. There was no reply. All was over. No one in the garden; ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... returned from the bank the next afternoon, Cherry rapped ostentatiously at his door. "Mother wishes me to ask you," she began with a certain prim formality, which nevertheless did not preclude dimples, "if you would give us the pleasure of your company at our Church Festival to-night? ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... felt very hungry, but he could find no food in the house. In the middle of the night he heard some one tapping at the door. Thinking that it was his mother, he arose and went to meet her. When he opened the door, however, he saw that it was not his mother who had rapped, but Boroka, [90] whom children are very much afraid of. Now, Boroka was a witch. She had wings like a bird, four feet like a horse, but a head like that of a woman. She devoured boys and girls, and was especially fond of their liver. As soon as Pedro opened ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... going to knock about on a lee-shore all the afternoon and run our noses at night—and dead up-wind, too—into the Dons' mouths? No, Jack, my friend. Let Orlando-Furioso-punctilio-fire- eaters go and get their knuckles rapped. The following game is the game, and not the meeting one. The dog goes after the sheep, and not afore them, lad. Let them go by, and go by, and stick to them well to windward, and pick up stragglers, and pickings, too, Jack—the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... himself that to this extent at least Alexander had succeeded, but his pleasure had been short-lived for the operator here at Viper had flashed back the interrogation, "What then," and the other—who Halloway figured must be cutting in from Wolf-Pen Gap—rapped ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... rapped out, "do you and Minchin take this body to the room below. Let a surgeon be sent for. Bring word if he find any sign of life. Gentlemen, I must ask you to avoid the chamber. This is a state matter. I am responsible ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... it was "no fair," and Bill Hursey thrust out the knuckle of one middle finger in a very threatening way and offered to "do" the boy from Stratford. Then Mary Ann rushed in to still the tempest. There's no telling what would have happened had not the landlady just then rapped at my door and asked if I had called. I awoke with a start and with the guilty feeling that I had been shouting in my sleep. I saw it was morning. "No—that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... P., at all this was something to behold. He to be deprived of his opportunity thus lightly? Hardly! He overruled the objections at once, and rapped loudly for order. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... now! I'll call to him to find the other boys and bring them over." Dora rapped on the window-pane with her knitting needle as ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... swished the goad in beckoning fashion after he had rapped it against the post in imitation of knocking on an ox's nose to summon attention. His efforts to vault lingually over the first "double-u" excited much mirth. Even the corners of Flagg's ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... bench and rapped with his gavel, and when the name of Sam Opdyke was called, heads craned, feet shuffled, and an ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... off his wet clothes, and as he was about to dress himself, Nekhludoff heard quick steps and a rapping at the door. He recognized both the steps and the rapping. Only she walked and rapped thus. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... moonlit path across lots, and Caleb followed. They entered the yard, and Amanda walked up to the window belonging to the best bedroom. It was wide open, and she rapped on it loudly, and then turned ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... their eyes rove about the room in search of the guilty member, for it was very plain from the teacher's manner that someone was out of order. Instantly a pencil rapped sharply on the desk, and forty-nine pair of inquisitive eyes jerked quickly to the front again. But the fiftieth pair continued to stare out of the window, until in exasperation the woman's voice rasped out, "Peace Greenfield, will ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... coincidence, but the severest of logic. Given such a woman and two such men, no other course of fate is conceivable. She made it necessary for me to put hate into practice. If she had not offered herself, why, then it would have been somebody else: that's all. Good Lord!" he rapped the table, and his voice rose for the first time above its level tone of exposition, "you don't suppose all my study— all my years of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... seemed to have been let into the partition from behind, for, both above and below, the woodwork was in front of it. While I was making these observations, I watched Thorndyke with no little curiosity. First he rapped his knuckles on the glass; then he lighted a wax match, and, holding it close to the mirror, carefully watched the reflection of the flame. Finally, laying his cheek on the glass, he held the match at arm's length, ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... of Mr. Henckel was accomplished without the slightest excitement or bloodshed. Mr. Reardon rapped at his door and Mr. Henckel replied sleepily in German. The skipper and the chief merely lurked, one on each side of his state-room door, until he stepped briskly out; whereupon the captain jabbed him with the gun while Mr. Reardon shook the monkey wrench ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... came willingly," the teacher said. "It was after I had them so interested that one of the factory hands came in. It was Saturday night, and she rapped on the door before coming in with a hesitating touch, as if she was afraid. She sat down across from me, smoothing her dress and ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... last; and then he paused, as if he was thinking of his next card. The table was rapped. He played; and then quick and furious the cards came down; the captain all the while raving, shouting, and foaming at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... before you bleed to death," said the little old woman, frowning. Then she rapped on the floor with ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... to!" rapped out Gwen, who happened to overhear. "I should miss the bus if I stayed behind after four. I only wanted to see things ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... be," rapped out Mr. Brent sharply. "For not only have the notes vanished, but I've lost the best night-watchman I ever ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... tide of words, but in vain, between the meandering incoherency of the one, and the nervous rapidity of the other, and they had both set off again on this fresh score, when in despair she ran downstairs, rapped at the study door, and cried, 'Mr. Kendal, Mr. Kendal, will you not come! I can't get Miss Meadows ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... waggons, also one or two better looking carriages or as we should say phaetons; there is no shed as in some places so that in winter or wet weather the horses must suffer terribly. The Minister Samuel Henderson, an Irishman, was just beginning the sermon; very orthodoxical and loud; rapped the Universalists as relying upon the mercy of God and forgetting His justice. The singing, German hymns, chiefly done by the choir. After service notice was given of the Lord's Supper, and those in the centre were requested to go to the ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... a time, until someone rapped upon the door. Von Holtz admitted a slim, good-looking young Belgian who grasped his hand and said ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... strength to hold the reins, to spur, to cling on, to ride. A horrible quaking, craven fear possessed her soul. Lassiter led the swift flight across the wide space, over washes, through sage, into a narrow canyon where the rapid clatter of hoofs rapped sharply from the walls. The wind roared in her ears; the gleaming cliffs swept by; trail and sage and grass moved under her. Lassiter's bandaged, blood-stained face turned to her; he shouted encouragement; he looked back down the Pass; he spurred his horse. Jane clung ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... for some reason smelled strongly of shoe blacking. Two gendarmes and the village police commissioner, Ryskin, their heavy tread resounding on the floor, removed the books from the shelves and put them on the table before the officer. Two others rapped on the walls with their fists, and looked under the chairs. One man clumsily clambered up on the stove in the corner. Nikolay's pockmarked face became covered with red patches, and his little gray eyes were steadfastly fixed upon the ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... scruples," I says, and not a bit did I know what I was talking about. Captain Clyde rapped the table ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... very highest station and a few of the lowest; and bent my head more than once in response to the inquiring gaze of some fashionable lady who never before, I warrant, had found herself in such a scene. By the time I reached my place all the others were seated and the coroner rapped for order. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... No answer. She rapped again—louder and louder. At last in the intervals of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within—something deep and continuous, like the buzzing ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... court-room jumped up and looked toward the door, and the confusion was redoubled. Several policemen hurried to the assistance of the doorkeepers. The judge rapped in vain. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... reached the stairhead, but there was no doubting which her room was; the door was partly open, permitting a view of armchairs and feminine garments in some disorder. We heard a man talking loud quick Arabic, and a woman—pleading, I thought. Yerkes rapped ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... 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
... help when you rapped at the door," Mr. Bradley explained, "telling the boys that I must venture out on expeditions myself in search of trade. With an old servant like you in the store, I shall ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... denounced as slavish. All authority in teaching, growing out of the age and the reputed wisdom of the teacher, all faith and reverence in the learner, growing out of a sense of his ignorance and dependence, are discarded, and the frightened stripling is continually rapped on the knuckles, if he does not at every step show the truth of his allegations by what is called a course of reasoning. Children reason, of course. They should be encouraged and taught to reason. No teacher, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... it was dark and it smelled bad in that hall. I guess they ought to tear down that row of tenements. Pretty soon I rapped again, and I felt kind of funny, because I didn't know what I ought to say—especially if a woman opened it. All of a sudden it opened very soft, and, good night I who should be standing there ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the third story, Pinky gave two quick raps and then a single rap on a closed door. No movement being heard within, she rapped again, reversing the order—that is, giving one distinct rap, and then two in quick succession. At this the door came slowly open, and the two girls passed in with their bundle of clothing and ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... rapped, "These members of my staff are all trusted Haer employees, Captain Mauser. They are not fly-by-night freelancers hired ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... him, and again the tumult broke loose, and they shouted and laughed and wept and congratulated each other. The Judge himself sat stiffly in his seat, his chin quivering with an emotion he was making a desperate effort to conceal. Finally he turned and nodded to the sheriff, who rapped loudly for order. In a moment the room was silent, every one eager to hear what was to be the next step ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... fix it on her mind. She had started out without her overshoes, then had returned for them because the snow was quite deep and she was liable to rheumatism. Then Dame Louisa who lived next door had rapped on her window, and she had run in there for a few moments with the hen-coop key dangling on its blue ribbon from her wrist, and Dame Louisa had remarked that she would lose that key if she were not more careful. Then when she returned home across the yard ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... He rapped his foot fiercely on the floor, staring down at Chris who had thrown himself back ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... a pitcher of water to one of the priests, and it being very heavy, it required both my hands and nearly all my strength to keep it upright. On reaching the door, however, I attempted to hold it with one hand (as I dare not set it down), while I rapped with the other. In so doing I chanced to spill a little water on the floor. Just at that moment the door was opened by the priest himself, and when he saw the water he was very angry. He caught me by the arm and asked what punishment he should inflict upon ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... in a state of mortal disquietude. For long weeks Alexandre seemed to be dead, but she, nevertheless, started at the slightest sound that she heard on the landing. She always felt him to be there, and whenever he suddenly rapped on the door she recognized his heavy knock and began to tremble as if he had come to beat her. He had noticed how his presence reduced the unhappy woman to a state of abject terror, and he profited by this to extract from her whatever little sums she hid away. When she had handed him ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... "Damme, yes," the youngster rapped out, and he caught a rich lock of his hair and drew it forward to look at it, frowning. "What's a man to do when his ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... outside say she hasn't left." He rapped sharply on the door with the butt of his stun gun. "Miss Ravenhurst! Is there ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... time for the exercise of her prerogative as presiding officer, and rapped violently on ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... Marya Korsunova rapped at the window from the street, and when the mother opened it, she said in a ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... if possible. She bade the older girls don heavy boots, and gave them further instructions. By this time the horsemen had reached the gate. Their leader was the redoubtable Justice Sharpe. He rode up to the door, and rapped with the but of his riding-whip. Mother threw up the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... three cheers, and we rapped the table furiously, which brought in Sarah to see what the matter was. Lupin ordered us to "fill up" again, and addressing us upstanding, said: "Having been in the firm of Job Cleanands, stock and share-brokers, a few weeks, and not having paid particular attention to the interests ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... through in quick order. Still the tie remained unbroken, though Jack managed to get a single in his turn at bat. Phil Parker also rapped a ferocious screamer across the infield, but hit into a double that ended the ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... preceding day might be reviewed in a better spirit. Accordingly, I proceeded at once to his apartments, after the captain of the guard had assured me that his majesty was still sleeping, not having retired until nearly daylight. When I rapped upon the door of the room occupied by the prince, as a sleeping apartment, there was no response, and I repeated the summons, more loudly than before. Still I waited in vain, and at last, feeling some misgivings, and being assured by the guard in the corridor ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... up, Walter. The rest of us had breakfast over half an hour ago, and it's nearly eight o'clock. You'll be late. Hurry down and I'll have some coffee and toast ready for you." There came no sound from within the room, so she rapped louder. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Rembrandt without its frame had walked silently up the stairway, bringing with it the dark atmosphere which was the sign-manual of the great master. The old man cast a look upon the youth which was full of sagacity; then he rapped three times upon the door, and said, when it was opened by a man in feeble health, apparently about forty years of ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... put the meat away, locked the meat-safe, and then overlooked the small servant while she finished the potatoes. After that, without the smallest cause, she rapped the child with the blade of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back. Then, after walking slowly backward towards the door, she darted suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... She rapped a second time, a little louder than the first, and the door was opened by Jenny, in her nightdress. The gas in the room was out, and there was no one ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... of May 4th Jopp came into the office, looking, I fancied, a little thoughtful. He sat for some moments staring before him with his brow a trifle furrowed; then he seemed to come to himself. He rapped his desk. ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... of an hour since he had rapped on the mortuary door and sent his messages of prohibition to mouse, rat, bandicoot, civet-cat, wild-cat or other vermin intruder through the roof-ventilation holes. He would knock again. A strange thing this—knocking at a dead man's door in the middle of the night. Suppose the dead man called ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... direction of the window in which Lady Mary had appeared. Quick as a bog-trotter responds to an invitation to drink, I mounted that grand stairway, turned to my right, and came to a door opposite which I surmised was the window through which Lady Mary was leaning. Against this door I rapped my knuckles, and speedily I heard the sweet voice of the most charming girl in all the world demand with something ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... delivered Molly's gentle appeal so pathetically that even the professional gentlemen hummed and buzzed—a sincere applause; and some wags who were inclined to jeer at the beginning of the performance, clinked their glasses and rapped their sticks with quite a respectful enthusiasm. When the song was over, Clive held up his head too; after the shock of the first verse, looked round with surprise and pleasure in his eyes; and we, I need not say, backed ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray |
