|
|
|
More "Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what did you see?" asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy's knuckles with the butt end of it. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... Cattle butt with the horns and show a tendency to lick other animals. They bellow more than common and the sexual desire is increased. Paralytic symptoms are manifested early in the disease, and the animal may fall when moving about. They soon present a gaunt, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... crossed Brandes' features, and Stull snatched at the pistol he had whipped out. There was a struggle; Brandes wrenched the weapon free; but Neeland tore his way past Curfoot and struck Brandes in the face with the butt of his ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... when I charged plunk into the middle of 'em. Yer should 'ave been there to see it. They were all round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop 'oles. Then they began to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... would attend the enterprise, so implicit was his confidence in his leader. When at some little distance from the town they halted, and Wallace ordered a tree to be felled and lopped of its branches. It was some eight inches in diameter at the butt and thirty feet long. A rope had been brought, and this was now cut into lengths of some four feet. Wallace placed ten of his men on each side of the tree, and the cords being placed under it, it was lifted and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... cried lustily into the twilight our coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The snapping of our driver's whip had brought every inhabitant of the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... a lion's mane flew across the desert, but it was not till midnight that the fearful uproar began, and even you shuddered when it broke out in the Apis-cave. Frightful things must be coming on us when the sacred bulls rise from the dead and butt and storm at the door with their horns to break it open. Many a time have I seen the souls of the dead fluttering and wheeling and screaming above the old mausoleums, and rock-tombs of ancient times. Sometimes they would soar up in the air in the form of hawks ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "She fell in love with a false priest, and rued it ever mair"? The priest followed her "butt and ben," and gave her no peace. They took horses and money and rode out together "Until they came to a rank river, Was raging like the sea." There the priest ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... in the cache with one or two other prospector's tools, which, as the reef they desired to find was uncovered in one place, they had not thought it worth while to carry over that high ridge; so they set to work in silence with the rifle butt and their naked hands. Fortunately, the stones were large, and the soil beneath them soft, and in about twenty minutes they were ready for the rest of their task. It was one from which they shrank, but they accomplished it, and Grenfell straightened himself wearily as they ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... time he had held his hand in his bosom, and now he drew it out so far as to show the brass gleam of a pistol butt. ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time. The Newton boy was small and stood low in his class, perhaps because book-learning had not been the bent of his grandmother. The fact that Isaac was neither strong nor smart, nor even smartly dressed, caused him to serve in the capacity of a butt for the bullies. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... husband, her children, her friends, her servants, to everybody. From the lofty height of her genius she scorns every womanly duty, and she is always trying to make a man of herself after the fashion of Mlle. de L'Enclos. Outside her home she always makes herself ridiculous and she is very rightly a butt for criticism, as we always are when we try to escape from our own position into one for which we are unfitted. These highly talented women only get a hold over fools. We can always tell what artist or friend holds the pen or pencil when they are ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... individualities a herd of cows presents when you have come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and disposition. Some are timid and awkward and the butt of the whole herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face like certain persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly-fed one a pitiful and forlorn look. Some cows have a masculine ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... chimney is to cut a block of wood to the inside dimensions of the chimney, less 1/4 in. in width and thickness, then soften the asbestos cardboard by immersing in water, and bend it round the wood, cutting off to the required size, i.e., till the two edges form a neat butt joint. It can be allowed to remain on the mould until dry—when it will retain its shape—or can be put into the chimney straight away, if it is wanted for use immediately. In the latter case, however, it will be some fifteen minutes or so before the tube ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... decease, of "warbling truth at court," like Mr. Mallet [4] of indifferent memory.—Consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the wine and the disgrace; but then remorse would make me drown myself in my own butt before the year's end, or the finishing of my first dithyrambic.—So that, after all, I shall not meditate our laureate's death ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... he was countersigning the Note of Capitulation in the headquarters at Aldershot, the Auriole swung round from the northward and descended on to the turf flying the flag of truce. He saw it through the window, got up, put his right hand on the butt of the revolver in his hip-pocket, thought hard for one fateful moment, then took it away and ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the cylinder, in which an accurately fitting and hollow piston moves. A powerful helical spring, turned out of a solid bar of steel, is compressed between the inside end of the piston and the upper end of the butt. To set the gun, the catch is pressed down so that its hooked end disengages from the stock, and the barrel is bent downwards on pivot P. This slides the lower end of the compressing lever towards the butt, and a projection on the guide B, working in a groove, takes the piston ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... connected by a bridge with the Laconian Coast. Hence the French Malvoisie and our Malmsey. Prof. Azevedo (loc. cit.) opines that the date of the wine's introduction disproves the legend of that 'maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.'] whose black grape was almost a raisin, and a harsh produce like that of the modern Gual, with great volume and alcoholic strength, but requiring time to ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... swiftness, Pierre leading, to the gate. They had just reached it when there was a cry from the walls, on which two Indians were sitting. The Indians sprang down, seized their spears, and lunged at the seven as they entered. One spear caught Little Babiche in the arm as he swung aside, but with the butt of his musket Noel dropped him. The other Indian was promptly handled by Pierre himself. By this time Corvette and Jose had shut the gates, and the Fort was theirs—an easy conquest. The Indians were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... toward her. For one brief moment it was laid across her lap upon the paper-covered book she had been reading. Then its butt found its way to a resting place against her soft shoulder. Not for an instant had her gaze been diverted from the moving object. Now, however, her head inclined forward, and her warm cheek was laid against the cool butt. The sights of the weapon ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... 'cause he couldn't!" Amy quoted. "Poor Cigarette," she added, descending to prose again, and tapping Cigarette's nose with the butt of her riding-crop. "How he did heave and pant when he caught up with us! And Sunbeam ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... at a gull and brought it down on the rocks; but it was only winged, and picking it up, I wrung its neck, and flung it down, thinking it was dead, but in a couple of minutes it gave such signs of returning animation that I put the butt of my gun on its neck, which was upon the hard pathway, and pressed with all my might. But the thing would not die, so I got cross with both it and myself, with the bird for not dying and myself for causing it so ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... butt of a musket fell against the door, and we started to our feet in an instant. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... the wits, musicians and literati whom a traditional morgue still excluded from many aristocratic houses. Yet in spite of his hospitality (or perhaps because of it) the Procuratore, as Odo knew, was the butt of the very poets he entertained, and the worst satirised man in Venice. It was his misfortune to be in love with his wife; and this state of mind (in itself sufficiently ridiculous) and the shifts and compromises to which it reduced him, were a source of endless amusement to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... hurriedly reloaded their arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with, the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me with. And there were over ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... hold that deadly fuse tight, it would eventually burn down to the bitter end. Then there would be a flash, and I'd probably never hold my hand around a gun butt again. I'd have to go looking for this pair of lice with my gun in my left. If they didn't try the same trick on my other hand. I tried to shut my mind on that notion but it was no use. It slipped. But the chances were that this pair of close-mouthed ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... without the capable assistant whose services were essential. In this perverse sequence of events disaster to his application was more to be desired than success. He foresaw himself browbeaten, humiliated, detected, a butt for the ridicule of the community, his pretensions in the dust, his pitiful imposture unmasked. And beyond these aesthetic misfortunes, the substantial emoluments of "keepin' store," with a gallant sufficiency of arithmetic to regulate prices and profits, were vanishing ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... had no more this opinion after Robertson said it, than before. I know nothing more offensive than repeating what one knows to be foolish things, by way of continuing a dispute, to see what a man will answer,—to make him your butt!' (angrier still.) BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, I had no such intentions as you seem to suspect; I had not indeed. Might not this nobleman have felt every thing "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable[1039]," as Hamlet says?' JOHNSON. 'Nay, if you are to bring in gabble, I'll talk ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... after I get it," he said belligerently. "I'm not going to do an investigation of some silly subject like The Transience of Venusian Immigrants in Relation to the Martian Polar Ice Cap Cycle. Solarian sociologists are the butt of enough ridicule now. Do something like that and for the rest of your life you get knocking of the knees whenever anybody inquires about the specialty you worked in and threatens to read ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... with a start. Anson with his admiring smile pulled his gun and, taking a couple of steps forward, held it out butt first. She stretched eagerly for it and he ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the Mexicans thought of asking for quarter. One of the infantrymen, retreating before Dalzell's deftly handled sword, and fighting back with his rifle butt, retreated so close to the edge of the roof that, in another instant, he had fallen to the street below, ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... this pistol artist. This citizen remonstrated and warned the Idaho man that there was a Mounted Policeman not many miles away who would probably hear of the situation and come over. This enraged the "gun-man," who offered to bet that no Mounted Policeman could arrest him, adding, "if he comes to butt in to my game I will eat his liver cold." A telephone message was sent to Corporal Lett. It took some time to ride in, but Lett located the Idaho citizen terrorizing a bar-room. Lett walked in and the Idaho man had his gun up in a ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... really study—boxing?" At the last word Gibbs reeled under a blow in the face; his revolver, going off harmlessly, was snatched from him, Maxime's derringer missed also, and Gibbs swayed, bleeding and sightless, from Hilary's blows with the butt of the revolver. Presently down he lurched insensible, Hilary going half-way with him but recovering and turning to the aid of his friend. Maxime tore loose from his opponent, beseeching the bull-drivers to attack, but ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... two ways. A straight down push and a sideways push. The bolt resists the down push and transmits it to the first stick, and that pushes against the sill that I marked a. Now, the sideways push is against the butt of the first timber of the floor, and that's passed on, same ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... the butt of the gun, if he talks too much," Duff directed the bully, who had stepped back a few paces as the men formed a circle ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the only provocation I still need to kill you." Andre-Louis was as calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred the company. He protruded from his pocket the butt of a pistol—newly purchased. "I go armed, Binet. It is only fair to give you warning. Provoke me as you have suggested, and I'll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing you most ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... always did. How else should I walk? How do I walk that makes me so funny?" I asked, mortified at the thought of my having been the butt of secret ridicule. Henrietta was ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... advised that a club, of which he was an honorary member, would entertain him—that it would be a farmer's night. Alfred well knew there would be great fun at the expense of the farmer. He would be the butt of all the jokes the busy brains of a dozen or more keen wits could devise. Therefore, he studied for days that he might in a humorous way parry the jibes. Nothing humorous in connection with the farm could be evolved from his brain. He was too ambitious, too enthusiastic a ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... towards him with my musket loaded, and when near enough as I thought to him, I fired; but it did him no mischief and only made him take himself off at once. I nearly got into a scrape through it, however, for I was fired at myself in return, the bullet fortunately only taking the butt end off my musket. I turned to run off, and another shot hit the knapsack on my back, but I soon got out of reach of their shot again, luckily, as it happened, without any injury; but it must have been a near thing, for when I next opened my knapsack, I found ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... ridiculed, most despised nation on earth? That your countrywomen furnish about eighty per cent. of the world's prostitutes; that a German almost anywhere is a waiter, or a sausage-manufacturer, or a beer-seller, the butt of comic papers in a score of languages? All that has not occurred ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... down. His rather long, fair hair was in contrast with the golden tan of his face. He wore a shirt of fringed buckskin, open at the neck. His trousers were tucked into silver-studded riding boots, weighted with spurs that jingled in tune to his swinging stride. At each trim hip was the butt of a ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... She's served them butt, she's served them ben, Intill a gown of green, But her e'e was ay on Brown Robin, That stood low ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... "The butt! the butt!" she cried, almost breathlessly. "I know that's right! I read how Edward Everett Hale did ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... the kind of a man I am looking for. I want somebody with nerve. The trouble with the fellows in college who hate Merriwell is that they do not dare butt up against him. They ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... gaining the upper hand when the thug whom he had thrown over his head recovered. The brute took the situation in at a glance, saw his pal in trouble, and, sneaking treacherously behind Locke, dealt him a terrific blow with the butt of a revolver. Locke dropped to the floor as if pole-axed and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... worst, I'll cover the whole of this property with a couple of tubs, one to catch rain-water and t'other filled with garden mould. If the sea rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, and a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... performed as to make those at the Rito believe that the Navajos were the perpetrators. This was her plan, and she did not feel the slightest scruple or compunction. For years she had been, among her own people, the butt of numberless insults and mortifications. Now it had gone so far that her life even was in imminent peril. Ere this should be lost, she would prove to her enemies that she was alive, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy. For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amid a suppressed laugh from ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... sent to the Matambwe south-east of this returned with a good supply of grain. The sepoys won't come; they say they cannot,—a mere excuse, v because they tried to prevail on the Nassick boys to go slowly like them, and wear my patience out. They killed one camel with the butt ends of their muskets, beating it till it died. I thought of going down disarming them all, and taking five or six of the willing ones, but it is more trouble than profit, so I propose to start westwards on Monday the 4th, or Tuesday the 5th. My sepoys offered ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... for Ben, nothing more would have been done or said about, the matter. Butt it was not in his nature to be sensible of an inconvenience without using his best efforts to find a remedy. So, as he and his comrades were returning from the water-side, Ben suddenly threw down his string of fish with a very ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Governor General. The State regulates very strictly the importation of arms. Permission has to be obtained from the Governor General before any fire arms can be landed; then each one is stamped on the butt with the Star of the State and a number which is registered. If anyone in the country wishes to purchase a weapon from another, both buyer and seller have to obtain permission from the Governor General. These laws are very excellent for they effectually keep modern weapons out of the hands ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... pronounce a hasty verdict upon actions which may be carelessly misrepresented, or words, if not intentionally, yet heedlessly misquoted, without affording an opportunity to the condemned individual to speak for himself, is unjust in the extreme. But how many excellent persons are made the butt of ridicule, or tossed about as the playthings of a gossipping spirit, which, incapable of a direct charge, gratifies its malignity by infusing calumnies into the too listening ear of prejudice. An idle ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... secrecy—that the jewel had been lost when the lamp was shipped from New York," Dundee explained. "There's a blank cartridge in the gun now, of course, but Miles, in his panic, took my words literally.... See the electro-magnet strapped to the gun butt? He got it from the bell Sprague had installed in Lydia's bedroom, and he returned it when he was 'cleaning up', so that the bell would ring again. The magnet he connected with the electric wire in one of the two lamp sockets, as you see it now, and the long cord of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Not that Walter really hated his brother; he would have been shocked to admit to himself the faintest shadow of such a feeling, for he was naturally generous and of warm affections; but he clearly looked upon his elder brother as decidedly in his way and in the wrong place, and often made a butt of him, considering it quite fair to play off his sarcasms and jokes on one who had stolen a march upon him by coming into the world before him as heir of the family estate. And now that their mother—who had made ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... home, I greet my father alone in the patio. Father Dominic, meanwhile, sits outside in his flivver and permits the motor to roar, just to let my father know he's there, although not for money enough to restore his mission would he butt in ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey-bees; Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like soldiers, armed in their ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... on to sharpening the weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately, but "that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, "never ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the butt about ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... In a blackened butt of an inn, a group of Senegalese were hiding. They were great six-foot fellows, with straight bodies, and shoulders for carrying weights—the face a black mask, expressionless, save for the rolling whites of the eyes, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... this thought which led him stealthily to place his hand on the butt of the revolver at his hip, prepared to whip it out and fire as quickly as he knew how. At the same time he edged away from him, so as to maintain ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... coachman,—that is the man who was before me,—gave you, in the dark, a good sound drubbing, of which you said nothing. In short, what is the use of going on? We can go nowhere but we are sure to hear you pulled to pieces. You are the butt and jest and byword of everybody; and never does anyone mention you but under the names of miser, stingy, ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... thought in an agony of uncertainty, but the hazard followed quick upon the thought, and bang, bang, went my two barrels. At the same time the Sikh dafadar, Gopal Singh, with all the characteristic bravery of this magnificent race, ran in and beat the animal about the head with the butt-end of Blake's shot-gun, which he was ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... hand gripped the butt of his pistol as he led the way straight ahead. The sudden gloom helped to hide in his face the horror he felt of what that "rescue" would mean to Mary Standish; and then a cold and deadly definiteness possessed him, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Skinski whispered back. "Never a break from yours mysteriously, believe me. We wouldn't have come out at all if your partner hadn't insisted. He was so hot to have us butt in here and hand your heart a flutter that I just couldn't resist his pleading voice. It's a catchy jest, all right, and it's making me laugh. The way you two ducks josh each other is pitiful, but your secret ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... by my side. I slept peacefully and without a dream; the sun was high in heaven when, with a yawn and a stretching of my limbs, I awoke. I heard, as I opened my eyes, a little rustling as of somebody moving; my hand flew to the butt of my pistol. But when I turned round I saw Barbara only. She was sitting a little way behind me, looking out over the sea. Feeling my gaze ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Flushing effectually did, and Walcheren, with its ophthalmia and its agues, was no longer a place for a gentleman. Besides, I plainly saw that if there ever had been any intention of advancing to Antwerp, the time was now gone by; and as the French were laughing at us, and I never liked to be made a butt of, particularly by such chaps as these, I left the scene of our ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a BAThrooM wallpaper? it could be produced verery cheaply and itcould be calld the CHER RYdesigN damn, imeant to put all that in capitals. iam afraid this articleis spoilt now but butt bUt curse . But perhaps the most excitingthing aLout this macLine is that you can by presssing alittle switch suddenly writein redor green instead of in black; I donvt understanh how Lt is done butit is very jollY? busisisness men us e the device a gre t deal wen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... music calculated to fire the breast of the Scotsman with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one (p. 017) occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... that until they found out about you. He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side. Of course no boy could have ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rendered him notorious. He had gained, and not undeservedly, great reputation for his critical powers. After a retention of above thirty years, his Pucelle appeared. He immediately became the butt of every unfledged wit, and his former works were eternally condemned; insomuch that when Camusat published, after the death of our author, a little volume of extracts from his manuscript letters, it is curious to observe the awkward situation in which he finds himself. In his preface he ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was a preliminary step to his being shot, he fell on his knees and implored mercy. His captors were, however, inexorable, and he began to cry bitterly, and besought them to spare his life; these manifestations had, however, no effect on his deadly foes, who now threatened to fell him with the butt end of a fusee if he did not comply: this had the effect, and the poor captive reluctantly pulled off the jacket and threw it on the ground; this was immediately picked up by one of the party, to avoid its being stained with the life-blood of the victim. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... was marred by his irregular habits, which resulted in pecuniary embarrassment, and between 1865 and 1870 he returned again to his work at the law courts. The result, however, of the disestablishment of the Irish Church was to drive Butt and other Irish Protestants into union with the Nationalists, who had always repudiated the English connexion; and on 19th May 1870, at a large meeting in Dublin, Butt inaugurated the Home Rule movement in a speech demanding an Irish parliament for local affairs. On this platform ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... while brief, was thorough. The judges examined the saddle carefully for copper stitching, looked at the butt end of the whip, ran their hands over Calamity's thin loins and last of all felt in his bootlegs for wires connected with the spurs. All this time Jockey Gillis might have been posing as a statue of ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... incomparably the best patients, taking them by and large. Besides, when they won't get well and bore you to death, you can send 'em off to travel. Mind me now, and take the tops of your sparrowgrass. Somebody must have 'em,—why shouldn't you? If you don't take your chance, you'll get the butt-ends as a matter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... open weather. The cattle in the corral ate corn almost as fast as the men could shell it for them, and we hoped they would be ready for an early market. One morning the two big bulls, Gladstone and Brigham Young, thought spring had come, and they began to tease and butt at each other across the barbed wire that separated them. Soon they got angry. They bellowed and pawed up the soft earth with their hoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrew to a far corner of his own corral, and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... for a week or two afterwards she would not pass through that room. As we entered the refectory one evening for dinner we saw a large snake vanish out of the back door, and we found it curled up behind the water-butt. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... with the official reports of Captain Bailey and of his own commander, Lieutenant Harrison; "but a heavy charge from our eleven-inch gun settled the Governor Moore, which was one of them. A ram, the Manassas, in attempting to butt us just missed our stern, and we soon settled the third fellow's 'hash.' Just then some of our gunboats which had passed the forts came up, and then all sorts of things happened." This last expression is probably as terse and graphic a summary of a melee, which to so many is ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... laurels were chiefly won. Yet, at the time of the declaration of war, the navy of the United States consisted of twenty vessels, of which the largest carried forty-four guns, and the majority rated under thirty. For years this navy had been a butt of ridicule for all the European naval powers. The frigate "Constitution" was scornfully termed by an English newspaper "a bunch of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting." Not long after the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... kindred's sake before he makes friends for his own; the world is overkind to his virtues and blind to his faults; he enters manhood indeed as "one of our conquerors"; and it will cost him some trouble to throw away his advantages. Before the war such a youth was the common butt of the Socialist orator. He was the typical "shirker" and "loafer," while other men worked; the parasite bred from the sweat of the poor; the soft, effeminate creature who had never faced the facts of life and never would. As to his ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which scarcely affect other trees, or only tear off a few twigs. Two have thus been thrown recently—within eighteen months—in the fields opposite Tolworth Farm. The elm drags up its own roots, which are often only a fringe round its butt, and leaves a hollow in the earth, as if it had been simply stood on end and held by these guy-ropes. Other trees do, indeed, fall in course of time, but not till they are obviously on the point of tottering, but the elm goes down in full pride of foliage. By this pond there is a rough old ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... mules were trotting off in the direction where Jose and I lay; seeing which, some of the banditti came in pursuit of them. On seeing that I was alive, a savage-looking fellow lifted his carbine, and was about to give me a quietus on my head with the butt of it, while another threatened to perform the same office for Jose, when a shout, different from any I had before ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... would fain be "distinguished" by Madame Schontz, but as for marrying her, that folly seemed debatable to a bachelor of thirty-eight whom the revolution of July had made a judge. Seeing his hesitation, Madame Schontz made the Heir the butt of her wit, her jests, and her disdain, and turned to Couture. Within a week, the latter, whom she put upon the scent of her fortune, had offered his hand, and heart, and future,—three things of about ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... house, near the spot where Edith was standing. She had placed her right foot on the second board of the fence just ready to jump, when Jerry arrived just in time to take advantage of the opportunity presented. With one strong butt he hoisted her clear of the fence, landing her on all fours on the soft, plowed ground on the other side. She jumped up quickly, spitting out a mouthful of the soft earth she had scooped up. Bob and Edith were doubled ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... he could get a shot, or Seth deal the deadly blow he contemplated with the butt-end of his rifle, Ernest Wilton uttered an exclamation that stopped them both—an exclamation of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... was returned; and ere the smoke rose a cheer rang through the ravine, and Riley fell with a swoop on the intrenchments. With bayonet and butt of musket, the Second and Seventh drove the enemy from his guns, leaping into his camp and slaughtering all before them. Up rushed Smith's own brigade on the left, driving a party of Mexicans before them, and charging with the bayonet straight at Torrejon's cavalry, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... his breathing showed him fast asleep indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand close to the butt ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... cultured men are to be pitied, for they are ever the butt, byword and prey of the untaught, who are often the knowing. As success came to Southey he lost the sense of values, that is to say, the sense of humor. He attacked Byron with great severity, and Byron's reply was the dedication of Don Juan, "To the illustrious Poet-Laureate, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... and seventh centuries, but never, to my knowledge, with any of a later age. They may, in fact, be considered as characteristic appendages, or accompanying features, to the ecclesiastical structures of those times. There is one at Rathmichael, near Dublin, where there is the butt of a round tower. I have seen many of them in various states of preservation, and I think all were about 4 feet both in breadth and height. They were, however, never arched, but roofed with large flags, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... both sides going at a great rate, and infinite musketry ("ninety cartridges a man on our Prussian side, and ammunition falling done"), not without bayonet-pushings, and smitings with the butt of your musket, the Austrians are driven into Lobositz; are furiously pushed there, and, in spite of new battalions coming to the rescue, are fairly pushed through. These Village-streets are too narrow for new battalions from Browne; "much ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... perfect piece of wood in all the world. This he never finds, but the likest substitute is trimmed and balanced and poised to that ideal. One man I know has evolved very nearly the weapon of Umslopogaas. It is almost straight, lapped at the butt with leather, amazingly springy, and carries a two-edged blade for splitting and chopping. If his Demon be with him—and what artist can answer for all his moods?—he will cause a tree to fall upon any stick or stone that you choose, uphill or ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... girls can't very well understand. When one is a wife and a mother—I thought it all over during my illness. I had been neglecting my husband and Hughie, and it was too bad—downright selfishness. Art and housekeeping won't go together; I thought they might, butt found my mistake. Of course, it cost me a struggle, but that's over. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... formed his unimpassioned and polished periods. And as that old Earl, who in the time of Charles the First was the reigning wit of the court, in the time of Charles the Second was considered too dull even for a butt, so every age has its own literary stamp and coinage, and consigns the old circulation to its shelves and cabinets as neglected curiosities. Cleveland could not become the fashion with the public as an author, though the coteries cried him up and the reviewers adored ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bad. Papa was quizzed, mamma flattered, and the daughters' simplicity amused these young lordlings. Rebellion was whispered in the small ears of the Gay weathers. The little heads, too, of the Gay-weathers were turned. They were the constant butt, and the constant resource, of ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... both, for we're fed every day out of the ship's stores. There's the scuttle butt on deck nearly full o' water, and there's grub down in the lazarette, but ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a triangular indentation, which, with footmarks, was imprinted in the soft yellow sand at the foot of a small boulder; and taking the butt of his Winchester rifle, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... as hard to find as Chagres. The California acted as if she were going to butt right into the beach; and the passengers, crowded along the landside rails, eagerly waiting, could make out no harbor. Yet Acapulco was said to have the finest harbor between Panama and San Francisco; and there was Acapulco itself—the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... are very important. The American tuna rod is an excellent piece of workmanship. It is made in two pieces, the tip and the butt. The tip, according to the rules of the Tuna Club, must not be less than 6ft. long, and fits into the butt just above the reel. It is made of split cane, but with no steel centre, and is very strong and ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... the young man who had waded ashore, whom his comrades addressed as Kirkwood or Kirk, walking behind the wagon with the dog in his arms, responding to his whimpering claims for attention with teasing caresses. The dog, it seemed, was the butt as well as the pet of the party. As they approached the house he scrambled out of Kirkwood's arms and lingered to take a roll in the sandy path, coming up a moment afterward to be received with blighting sarcasms upon his appearance. After his ignominious wetting he was quite unable to bear ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... peculiar. It is bad enough to have to bear the burden of one's own transgressions without learning of those of other people, that is, unless one is a priest and must do so professionally. So I jumped up to escape and make arrangements for a wash, only to butt into old Billali, who was standing in the doorway contemplating Robertson with much interest and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... A butt weld (Figure 52) is made between the ends of two pieces of shaft or other bar shapes by upsetting the ends so that they have a considerable flare and shaping the face of the end so that it is slightly higher in the center than around the edges, this being ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... to guess that "Jazz" is the mascot of "X" squadron, accepted by pilots and mechanics alike as talisman for good at some training camp back home. This office he has performed with exceptional skill from the day "Fuzzy" permitted him to "butt ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... Morning Sitting gave only possible fillip to interminable Debate on Land Purchase Bill. BRER FOX still away, so comparative peace reigns in Irish Camp. TIM HEALY no one to butt his head against; COLONEL NOLAN too busy deploying his army of five men; showing them how to retreat in good order when Division-bell rings, and how, when it is decided to vote, they shall pass out through one door, march in at the other, cross the floor, and look as much as possible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... to Christina's infinite disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What can papa mean by asking such a horrid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... at him and he added reassuringly: "Oh, don't mistake me. I don't want to butt into your set—not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of 'em in a business way, would you fix it up for me—AFTER ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... to within twenty yards, the other to within ten yards, of the Austrian front line. Here every one spoke in a low whisper or by signs. They warned me to keep well down, as the Austrians hated khaki worse even than "grigio-verde," as one is always apt to hate third parties who butt in against one in what one conceives to be a ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... frowning as he recalled how Fanarin, examining him as a witness the year before, in the most polite manner made him the butt of ridicule. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the wounded man had dragged himself up the trail, finally staggering to his feet, and with a caution which he had not exercised a few hours before Howland continued slowly between the thick forest walls, one hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly been used in place of tent-stakes. With the toe of his boot he kicked among ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... started all wrong, Bi did. He came to college from a Western university and entered the junior class. That was his first mistake. A fellow can't butt in at the beginning of the third year and expect to trot even with fellows who have been there two years. It takes a chap one year to get shaken down and another year to get set up. By the time Bi was writing his "life" he had just ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... tease Joy, perhaps because she flushed so prettily as her slight anger rose. But whatever the reason she was always the butt for their good natured teasing. And no matter how much she resented it, she turned it off with a joke. Yet it could be seen that she always turned to Shirley ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... aside the chart, kicked the lead under the seat, and, kneeling on the dripping coils of line, sounded continuously with the butt-end of the boat-hook, a stumpy little implement, notched at intervals of a foot, and often before used for the same purpose. All at once I was aware that a check had come, for the dinghy swerved and doubled like a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... one another in the same way; bears wrestle and box; chickens have mimic battles; colts run and leap; fawns probably do the same thing; squirrels play something like a game of tag in the trees; lambs butt one another and skip about ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... ire he rose to mete out justice to this highwayman. Had the butt of his whip hit Shelby he would have seen more stars than twinkled overhead. But it didn't. It was caught in one hand, given a dexterous twist and sent flying into the road as Shelby said in ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... moment's hesitation, he let go his sheet and began to paddle back. This bolsa was nothing but a bundle of tule, or bullrush, bound together with grass-ropes in the shape of a cigar, about ten feet long and about two feet through the butt. With these the California Indiana cross streams of considerable size. When he came ashore, I gave him a good overhauling for attempting to desert, and put him to work getting breakfast. In due time we returned him to his ship, the Ohio. Subsequently, I made ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... orthodox and extremely old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water. These, however, were minor advantages. The important thing, the insurmountable obstacle which kept these three skilled tailors away from the big cloak-shops, was the fact that one had to work on Saturdays ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... is!" cried a voice from the landing; "here he is! I see him!" The brigadier had put his eye to the keyhole, and had discovered Andrea in a posture of entreaty. A violent blow from the butt end of the musket burst open the lock, two more forced out the bolts, and the broken door fell in. Andrea ran to the other door, leading to the gallery, ready to rush out; but he was stopped short, and he stood with his body a little thrown ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that opened behind the arras at the rear of the throne, and passing into The Hall of Chiefs took his place upon the back of a riderless thoat, whose warrior was in I-Gos' repair room. When O-Tar entered and came near him Gahan fell upon him and struck him with the butt of a heavy spear. He thought that he had killed him and was surprised when O-Tar appeared to ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Afghanistan (22. Mr. Blyth, in 'Land and Water,' March, 1867, p. 134, on the authority of Capt. Hutton and others. For the wild Pembrokeshire goats, see the 'Field,' 1869, p. 150.), rear on their hind legs, and then not only butt, but "make a cut down and a jerk up, with the ribbed front of their scimitar-shaped horn, as with a sabre. When the O. cycloceros attacked a large domestic ram, who was a noted bruiser, he conquered him ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Californian replaced the targets with new ones—old tin dinner plates this time—and voiced a philosophical regret over his recent defeat. The Texas man, ready at last, took his place beside Pete and raised his gun till the butt of it was level with his ear, the barrel pointing up and back. Johnson swung up his heavy gun in ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... begged me to come with her, and I went. The phaeton was waiting, but we had scarcely started when some fellow seized the horses' heads, and a couple of ruffians attacked us. One of them I beat over the head with the butt of the whip, so that he dropped the cudgel with which he was about to strike me; then lashing the horse, I shook off the others and got safely away. I cannot imagine who they were or why they should ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is but sluttish if it smell so strongly as thou speak'st of: I will hencefoorth eate no Fish of Fortunes butt'ring. Prethee alow the winde ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... missing to complete the attire. It is the revolver, which Austrian law compels them to leave behind on entering her land. They are obviously ill at ease without that familiar weapon, for ever and anon a hand strays unconsciously to the empty belt seeking its wonted resting-place on the butt. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... and there began to be straggling passengers along the road, some of whom came slowly, as if they had received hurts; all seemed wearied. Among them one form appeared which Rose soon found that she recognized. It was Robert Hagburn, with a shattered firelock in his hand, broken at the butt, and his left arm bound with a fragment of his shirt, and suspended in a handkerchief; and he walked weariedly, but brightened up at sight of Rose, as if ashamed to let her see how exhausted and dispirited he was. Perhaps he expected a smile, at least a more ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the presence of the men until they were directly behind him. Then he turned, only to be met with a blow on the head with the butt of a pistol, and he sank to the ground ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... said to be so mighty and powerful, had never to do with me. As to the other, I know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel it; the shepherd Cratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he-goat, out of jealousy, came, as he lay asleep, to butt the head of the female, and crushed it. We have raised this fever to a greater excess by the examples of some barbarous nations; the best disciplined have been touched with it, and 'tis reason, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the whole of the school to butt in?" warned Jess. "Then keep quiet, can't you? Much taffy you'll get if Rachel catches us. Your only chance is to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... him to take heed and not allow himself to be deprived by vote of his authority, and proclaimed a public enemy to the Roman state. But Geminius no sooner arrived in Greece but he was looked upon as one of Octavia's spies; at their suppers he was made a continual butt for mockery, and was put to sit in the least honorable places; all which he bore very well, seeking only an occasion of speaking with Antony. So, at supper, being told to say what business he came about, he answered he would keep the rest for a soberer hour, but one thing he had ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... is the description of bow of which your correspondent has furnished a drawing. Another mode, and which appears to have been applied to the ancient bows, was by a sort of two-handed windlass, with ropes and pulleys, called a "moulinet," which was temporarily attached to the butt-end of the Cross-bow; of this a drawing is given in the illustrations of Froissart's Chronicles, particularly in that one descriptive of the Siege of Aubenton; in which two bowmen are shown, one in the act of winding up the bow, and the other taking ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... our press is a frequent topic of complaint. But here is a woman who had never placed herself before the public in any way so as to give them a right to discuss her conduct or affairs, not even as an author, made the butt of every description of offensive personality for months, with the tacit encouragement of the first ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... with tin; but, these swords were of an awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow would bend one. They made light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears—which they jerked back after they had thrown them at an enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened to the stem. The butt-end was a rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse. The ancient Britons, being divided into as many as thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little king, were constantly fighting with one another, as savage people usually ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... Mayor looked blue; So did the Corporation too. For council-dinners made rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Via-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gypsy coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... doctor hinted that the heart clasped the bit by strong muscular exertion, with a view to his own private use; but this being speculative merely, I only mention the fact. As he was now nearing the water rapidly, a rope was slipped round the butt of the helm, a quick turn made around a stiff sapling on the bank of the river, and all hands made fast to the rope. At this moment, just as they were all braced, the alligator made his plunge into the water, and the sapling, I don't remember how large, very large however, came up ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... and confused mass rushed in through the half-opened gate, and beat Captain Paton to the ground with their bludgeons, the hilts of their swords, and the butt-ends of their muskets. Mukun, chuprassie, his only remaining attendant, was beaten down at the same time and severely bruised, but he soon got up, covered with blood, made his way out through the crowd, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... Follies. He was a hound for numbers, dates and etc. He had a better memory than a loan shark, and a encyclopedia would look stupid alongside of him. No matter what the subject was, this guy knowed more about it than the bird which wrote it and would butt in with the figures to prove it. Fin'ly, when I struck a match and he tells me they is 9,765,543 of them used in New York every fiscal year, I went out into ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... forced to put up with Ferdishenko. Possibly the latter was not mistaken in imagining that he was received simply in order to annoy Totski, who disliked him extremely. Gania also was often made the butt of the jester's sarcasms, who used this method of keeping in Nastasia Philipovna's ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... inclination to plumpness has to put up with the officers' coarse witticisms. There, for instance, is Handsome Sara from Cimrishamn, whom everybody knows. Every autumn she goes home, and comes again every spring with a figure that at once makes her the butt of their wit; but Sara, who generally has a quick temper and a ready tongue, to-day drops her eyes in modest confusion: she has fourteen yards of cloth wrapped round ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... court ball. No—I was convinced that I had not been intoxicated, but on this occasion I resolved to exercise special caution, and to be strictly temperate, in the event of the disguised perpetrator of pranks again attempting to make the German stranger the butt of his impudence. This time he should meet his match; I would keep my head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... piercing shriek the boy leapt convulsively from Nurse Beaton's arms, rushed blindly into the wall and endeavoured to butt and bore his way through it with his head, screaming like a wounded horse. As the man and woman sprang to him he shrieked, "It'th under my foot! It'th moving, moving, moving out" and fell to the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... when taken out of the boat, showed none of these symptoms of emotion, but running instinctively to the scuttle-butt, asked eagerly for a drop of water. As the most expeditious method of feeding and dressing them, they were distributed among the different messes, one to each, as far as they went. Thus they were all soon provided with dry clothing, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... beautiful young lord there, that sort of figure that no woman can resist. There was a delightful chappie who seemed inclined to empty the mustard-pot down my neck; him I could keep in order, but the beautiful lord I saw was attempting to make a butt of me. With his impertinences I did not for a moment intend to put up; I did not know him, he was not then, as he is now, if he will allow me to say so, a friend. About three or half-past the ladies retired, and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... shall be of long-leafed or southern pine, not less than 14 in. at the butt. They shall be free from defects impairing their strength, and shall ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 - Tests of Creosoted Timber, Paper No. 1168 • W. B. Gregory
... barracks. The alferez was not there at the time and the unhappy woman had to pass the night seated on a bench. The following day the alferez returned. Fearing lest the unhappy woman should become the butt of the crowd during the fiesta, he ordered the soldiers who were guarding her to treat her with pity and give her something to eat. Thus the ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... was patently strong—strong enough to excuse any disheartenment. Scarcely a window pierced its narrow butt-end, four stories high, under which the steps wound. It ended just where they met the towpath, and from its angle sprang a brick wall dead-blank, at least twelve feet high, which ran for eighty or ninety yards along the straight line of the ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... And the movement—? I was aware that a figure was passing across the distant center of the floor. Instantly I dropped back into the arena of my little human terror. My hand again clutched stupidly at the pistol butt. I drew back into the folds of the heavy ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... "Let's go and butt in, then," Downing suggested. "I love breaking up these little gatherings. You'll see them all stiffen when we come near. I hope they haven't got hold of ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 406: Three interpretations are given for this line:—1. "All the gates were attacked." 2. "All the gates were bolted."—Butt. 3. Change the nominative case to the accusative, and translate—"They (the Lycians) had attacked all ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Indian who would have opposed me, and, calling for men to follow me, sprang forward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for the opening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set upon them with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devils drove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor, the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping of the savages; before us a rush that ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... through the air To pluck the Pilgrim's corn, And bears came snuffing round the door Wherever a babe was born; And rattlesnakes were bigger round Than the butt of the old ram's horn The deacon blew at meeting time, On ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... leading to relays outside—all were clear as print to Hoddan. He moved confidently toward an especially understandable panel, pulling out his stun-pistol and briskly breaking back the butt for charging. He shoved the pistol butt to contact with two terminals devised for another purpose, and the pistol slipped for an instant and a ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... under the saplings in the quarry, and then, as Billy had not returned and the time hung heavily on his hands, he crept out and up the hill towards the Red Hand. He prowled about amongst the old tips for a time, then seated himself at the foot of a dead butt and gave himself up to thought. He began to fear that Peterson would prove unfaithful, or, worse still, that he had fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the idea made him very uneasy. He hesitated about returning to ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... divisions known as Gwaigullean and Gwaimudthen, Muggulu and Bumbirra, etc., which have the meaning of "sluggish" and "swift" blood respectively. The bloods again are sometimes subdivided. In the Ngeumba tribe Gwaimudthen is divided into nhurai (butt) and wangue (middle), while Gwaigulir is equivalent to winggo (top). These names refer to different portions of the shadow of a tree and refer to the positions taken up in camping by the persons belonging to ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... nearer to her and spoke low. "Your ladyship makes a butt of me," he said. And 'twas so ordained by Fate, at this moment when the worst of him seethed within his breast, and was ripest for mad evil, Sir Christopher Crowell came bustling into the apartment, full of exultant hilarity and good wine ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... instant he is surrounded. The butt ends of four muskets rattle on the pavement—the sergeant's hand is on his shoulder—the sergeant's voice rings in ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... the pistol ready by my side. I slept peacefully and without a dream; the sun was high in heaven when, with a yawn and a stretching of my limbs, I awoke. I heard, as I opened my eyes, a little rustling as of somebody moving; my hand flew to the butt of my pistol. But when I turned round I saw Barbara only. She was sitting a little way behind me, looking out over the sea. Feeling my gaze she ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... herd; but she was wishing for the Bar Cross buddies to butt in, I believe. Reckon your sheriff-man guessed it. He had ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... front rank: butt between his feet, barrel to front. Even number rear rank passes ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... his seat in mingled fear and wrath. Was he to be the butt of those overbearing sophomores? He thought he could do nothing but hang on with all his might. The ascending student jumped upon the fourth bench and, reaching up, laid hold of Ken with no gentle hands. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... the cartridge in a Mauser, it is necessary to hold the rifle at an almost perpendicular angle, and close up under the shoulder. After the fresh cartridge has gone home the temptation to bring the butt to the shoulder before the barrel is level is too great for the Spanish Tommy, and, in his excitement, he fires most of his ammunition in the air over the heads of the enemy. He also fires so recklessly and rapidly that his gun often ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... a second shot from his six-shooter, stretched Kansas on the ground; then, rushing forward with reversed weapon, he brought the butt down on Red's head with such force as to deprive him of consciousness. So swift and deadly were his movements, so wild his appearance as, with long locks streaming in the wind and huge black whiskers hiding all but glittering eyes, aquiline nose and a brief space of tough red skin—so ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... she say? I had asked these questions before and found an answer. Now they came again with a trail of fresh implications and I had no answer for them at all. As I approached Nettie she ceased to be the mere butt of my egotistical self-projection, the custodian of my sexual pride, and drew together and became over and above this a personality of her own, a personality and a mystery, a sphinx I had evaded only to ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... the bogs of Wolmer-forest is not yet all exhausted, for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village, this was the butt-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what purpose he had procured it, he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... in spite of you, and I know to whom to apply. Do you think you can play fast and loose with me and my love? No, no! I used to believe in you; I turned, a deaf ear to your traducers. My mad passion for you became known; I was the jest and the butt of the town. But you have opened my eyes, and at last I see clearly on whom my vengeance ought to fall. He was formerly my friend, and I would believe nothing against him; although I was often warned, I took ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... some pity—coming as it did from a woman:—Oh! master, master! buy me and my children with my husband—do, pray; and this was the only crime the poor woman committed for which she suffered death on the spot. Her master stepped up from behind her, and with the butt end of his carriage whip loaded with lead, struck her a blow on the side of the head or temples, and she fell her full length to the ground. Poor Reuben stooped to raise her up, but was prevented by the jail policeman, who seized him by the neck and led ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... the public—is quite true, but it does not go far to account for their failure. Punch has done this steadily ever since its establishment, without serious injury. No good cause has ever received much backing from it till it became the cause of the majority, or indeed has escaped being made the butt of its ridicule; and we confess we doubt whether "the friends of progress," using the term in what we may call its technical sense, were ever a sufficiently large body, or had ever sufficient love of fun, to make their disfavor of any great consequence. Most people in the United States who are ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... 'Because a butt was torn out of Dr Pendle's London cheque-book,' said Baltic, 'and I made inquiries at the Ophir Bank, which resulted in my discovery that a cheque for two hundred had been drawn on the day the bishop ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the speeding bullets flew past Hal's head. The third struck and glanced off the rifle butt just as Hal, dropping to one knee, was raising the piece to his shoulder ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... glad to have been in Lady Byron's place." But it may be doubted if Byron would have made a good husband to any woman; his wife and he were even more than usually ill-assorted. A model of the proprieties, and a pattern of the learned philanthropy of which in her sex he was wont to make a constant butt, she was no fit consort for that "mens insana in corpore insano." What could her stolid temperament conjecture of a man whom she saw, in one of his fits of passion, throwing a favourite watch under ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... some stones and some pine-cones in their pockets, and climbed up into a tree; and when the beasts lay down, they dropped a stone down upon that one which was the unicorn. He said to the next: "Be quiet; don't butt me." It said: "I'm not doing anything to you." Again they let a stone fall from above upon the unicorn. "Be quiet! you've already done it to me twice." "Indeed, I'm doing nothing to you." So they attacked each other and fought together. The ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... this involuntary outburst of enthusiasm, they broke out in mocking laughter. A rose was to them a rose, and nothing more; an apple they valued higher, as something eatable; and, perhaps, over plum-pudding they would have got enthusiastic, too. As it was, poor John was a constant butt for all the shafts of coarse ridicule; even his own parents, to whom he was attached with the tendered affection, and who fully returned his love, did not spare him. Old Parker Clare shook his head when he heard his son descanting upon the beauties of nature, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... Bart, the chief butt of this ridicule, in the mean while, was moving quietly about the room in performance of his bidden tasks, without appearing to notice a word that was uttered; and but for a certain rapid twinkling that might have been seen in his eyes, which, as he deliberately returned to his seat ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... fishing-rod with both his hands he gripped it as he spoke, And, where the butt and top were spliced, in pieces twain he broke; The limber top he cast away, with all its gear abroad, But, grasping the tough hickory butt, with spike of iron shod, He ground the sharp spear to a point; then pulled his bonnet down, And, meditating ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... defences, not forgetting to lay in a large stock of water. The savages return in force, and then—this is most important—at the most thirsty moment of the siege it is discovered that the water is all gone! Generally a stray arrow has pierced the water-butt, but in Masterman Ready the insufferable Tommy has played the fool with it. (He would.) This is the Hero's great opportunity. He ventures to the spring to get more water, and returns with it—wounded. Barely have the castaways wetted their lips with the precious fluid when the attack breaks ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... rifle with one hand, while I endeavoured to free myself with the other, I could not point the muzzle at my assailant, and my only way of clearing myself from his hold was by battering his head with the butt end of the weapon with my right hand, while he still clung round my left side. At last I disengaged myself, and he let go suddenly, and slipped instantly behind one of the thick acacia bushes, and got away, just as the army in front was wavering. All this ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... on the coastwise freighter San Gardo, was the butt of the ship; every man of the crew imposed on his good nature. He was one of those persons "just fool enough to do what he's told to do." For thirty of his fifty years he had been a seaman, and the marks of a sailor's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a moment, no one moved. Then a crashing blow, from the butt of a rifle in the hands of a man in the rear of the two prisoners, sent Young Matt once more to the ground. When he again regained consciousness, he was so securely bound, that, even with his great ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... tree, cut away all the brush, vines, and undergrowth around its butt as far as you will swing the axe. This is very important as many of the accidents with an axe result from neglect of this precaution. As we swing the axe it may catch on a bush or branch over our ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... ever knaw the rights o that yarn. Only one chap o the crew o the Curlew left alive to tell the tale—poor Alf Huggett here alongside o me. Stove in a water-butt and hid in it—didn't ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... will you do, sir? Have you ne'er a currant-butt to leap into? They'll put you to the ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... "I didn't butt in," said Charlotte. "I turned round an' come straight home. An' the next day they rode by, as budge as you please, she with the baby in her lap. Baby had on a nice white coat. I didn't go ag'in. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... black figures moving along the side of yonder dune? His hand went to the butt of his revolver as he saw them. But he was presently reassured; they were only vultures and eagles over-gorged by the fruits of war; the only beings besides wolves and hyaenas, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... victimize my monsters, eager to dissipate my musquito-like tormentors; yea, I would "take up arms against a sea"—["Arms against a sea?" dearest Shakspeare, would that Theobald, or Johnson's stock-butt, "the Oxford Editor," had indeed interpolated that unconscionable image! It has been sapiently remarked by some hornet of criticism, that "Shakspeare was a clever man;" but cleverer far must that champion stand forth who wars with any prospect of success upon seas; perhaps Xerxes might ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... active and zealous; yet his awkwardness could not be concealed. The transition from the stable to the store was as great as from a hovel to a palace. He made a great many blunders. Mr. Wake laughed at him; Mr. Wade swore at him; and all the clerks made him the butt of their mirth or their ill nature, just as ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... guard. "You dog of dogs! Your father was bewitched by a hyena! I'll teach you to curse your betters. Quick! get up,—or I'll shave your beard. Open! or I'll ride the donkey on your head! There!—and there!—and there again!" and at every word the butt of his long gun rang ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... several seconds gazing at one another, and then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied that he recognised the language. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... egret in its place—his jeweled sabre—his swaggering, almost ruffianly air—were no more meant to escape attention than his charger that clattered and kicked among the crowd, or his following, who cleared a way for him with the butt ends of their lances. He rode ahead, but every other minute a mounted sepoy would reach out past him and drive his lance-end into the ribs of ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... rather die than live without ruins of some kind; that America was so new, and crude, and spick and span, that it was obnoxious to any aesthetic soul; that our tendency to erect hideous public buildings and then keep them in repair afterwards would make us the butt of ridicule among future generations. I even proposed the founding of an American Ruin Company, Limited,—in which the stockholders should purchase favourably situated bits of land and erect picturesque ruins ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... quick shift, the three men faced Lord Nick, but each from a different angle. And opposing them, he stood superbly indifferent, his arms folded, his feet braced. His arms were folded, but each hand, for all they knew, might be grasping the butt of a gun hidden away in his clothes. Once they flashed a glance from face to face; but there was no action. They were remembering only too well some of the ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... with discontinuous Wound Passed through him; butt the Ethereal Substance closed Not long divisible; and from the Gash A Stream of Nectarous Humour issuing flowed Sanguine, (such as celestial Spirits may bleed) ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... common thankes, on leaving youres, and Mr. B.'s hospitabel house, because of thatt there affaire, which I neede not mention! and truly am ashamed to mention, as I have been to looke you in the face ever since it happen'd. I don't knowe how itt came aboute, butt I thought butt att first of joking a littel, or soe; and seeing Polley heard me with more attentiveness than I expected, I was encouraged to proceede; and soe, now I recollecte, itt ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... saw or heard. At times they lost the trail, as it was overgrown with fern and berry bush. But once the leading klootsmah stopped and signed to her companions to keep still. Halting, they waited while she pointed to the root fangs of a cedar tree, where well within the hollow butt a western timber wolf had made her lair. Gone was the mother, perhaps in quest of deer with which to feed her four young pups who calmly slept within that sheltered cave, awaiting ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... face, instead of brightening with the spirit of explanation, became instantly lack-luster and dough-like; for, be it known, to the everlasting discredit of human nature, that his affection and matrimonial intentions, as they were no secret, so they were the butt of satire from grown-up persons of both sexes in the house, and of various social grades; down to the very gardener, all had had a fling at him. But soon his natural cordiality gained the better of that momentary reserve. "Well, I'll tell you," ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... stuffed full of colored rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which so far as mutilation is concerned bears a strong resemblance to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose. Near it there is a little chair, and the butt-end of a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... be more exact, in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great favorite, though something of a butt with the country boys, and a notable singer in church on Sundays and ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be heated" were the fearful words which greeted Mr. Verdant Green on his initiation into a spoof Lodge of Freemasonry at Oxford. This was one of the many "rags" of which he was the butt during his days ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... air. Charley swung the whip, and shouted at them to lie down, but they were beyond his control, and would not lie down, but jumped and strained at their traces, giving out short whines and howls. He struck at Sampson with the butt end of the whip, and Sampson snapped at him with ugly fangs, and would have sprung upon him had the dog's trace not held him ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... distinguished Pontic called Demostratus, who was staying there, rescued him by interposing his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from being stoned to death—as he richly deserved to be; what business had he to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation? ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... violet banks, Crisp primrose leaves and others, And watch the lambs leap at their pranks And butt ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... learned—I happened to be up in the Academic Building and I happened to find out that Professor Drood is making a report to the faculty—special meeting!—about your last lecture. I've got a hunch he's going to slam you. I don't want to butt in, but I'm awfully worried; I thought perhaps you ought to know.... Who? Oh, I'm just one of your students.... You're welcome. Oh, say, Professor, g-good ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... into the thicket and presently he fired. Then he called to me to come in, and when I crawled up to him he said: 'I've killed the cub by mistake, but the old one is lying badly wounded on the other side of a little open spot, and you can get a splendid shot at the butt of her ear while I ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... gave him the opportunity for which he had been waiting. Nobly he maintained his reputation as a thief by quietly going behind the bar and lifting from a box four cigars which he stowed away in his pockets. But even that, apparently did not satisfy him, for when he espied the butt of a cigar, flung into the sawdust on the floor by a man who had just come in, he picked it up before squatting down again to ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... thought I ever thus should stand, The butt of every tearful eye; To raise the Culprit's trembling hand, To heave the Culprit's ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... when she heard the soldier assigned to their home bang on the door with the butt of his rifle, fled to the kitchen, where she stood listening and watching. She nearly cried out when the soldier thrust the bayonet of his rifle at her father, and all the resentment of her race at such ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... villain, have I got you?" cried he, as he almost throttled the man. "Get up now, an' come along peaceably. If you don't, I'll knock your brains out with the butt of my gun." ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... elder sister living in the city, an old maid who had withdrawn from the world, and in happier times had been the butt of the family's sarcasms. She did nothing all day but go to church, say her prayers, and caress her cat; and whenever she and her cronies came together they would gossip and abuse the younger generation, possibly because they themselves were past ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... soldier; but he is made too good for this world and somewhat too innocent, too transparently a child of nature. Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is rough; Pendennis is a bit of a puppy; Clive Newcome is not much of a hero; and as for Dobbin he is almost intended to be a butt. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Felix, who have had but one thought, known but one enthusiasm, retain in this breast of iron a spot however secret, however small, which any woman, least of all his daughter, could reach? Never! I am the prey of frenzy or the butt of devils. Yet only the inhabitants of a more celestial sphere brighten around me when I think of those half-raised eyes, those delicately parted lips, so devoid of guile, that innocent bearing, and the divine tenderness, mingled with strength, by which she commands admiration and awakens ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... got aslant. On the afternoon of the day we quitted Stornaway, I got a notion how it was going to be; the sun went angrily down behind a bank of solid grey cloud, and by the time we were up with the Butt of Lewis, the whole sky was in tatters, and the mercury nowhere, with a ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... and tackle are very important. The American tuna rod is an excellent piece of workmanship. It is made in two pieces, the tip and the butt. The tip, according to the rules of the Tuna Club, must not be less than 6ft. long, and fits into the butt just above the reel. It is made of split cane, but with no steel centre, and is very strong and stiff, bending ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... may be just the kind of a man I am looking for. I want somebody with nerve. The trouble with the fellows in college who hate Merriwell is that they do not dare butt up against him. They ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... on the Boss in a stage whisper that whirls him around as if he'd been on a string. Not wantin' to butt in ahead of my number, I sort of loafed around just outside the ropes, but near enough to block a foul. Now, I don't know just all they said, nor how they said it, but from what the Boss told me ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... As I too have learnt; But, as you will read, She jumped into the water-butt before you could count, ONE, ...
— The Nine Lives of A Cat - A Tale of Wonder • Charles Bennett
... enemy's camp, until the Tories were asleep. But his men timidly shrunk from the performance, expressing their dread of superior numbers. Witherspoon undertook the adventure himself. Creeping up to the encampment, he found that they slept at the butt of a pine tree, which had been torn up by the roots. Their guns were piled against one of its branches at a little distance from them. These he first determined to secure, and, still creeping, with the skill and caution of an experienced scout, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... brutally beat an old negro who was working next to Mike. The old man resumed his work, but was so feeble that he in vain endeavored to use his hoe, and the overseer struck him to the ground with the butt end of his whip. Mike instinctively dropped his hoe and sprang to lift the old man to his feet. The infuriated overseer, enraged at this interference, brought down his whip on Mike's head and felled him ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... give full play to his simious humour, startle more hideously than ever his straighter-laced neighbours, defiantly defend his own character, and caricature whatever eccentric figure in the society around him might offer the most tempting butt ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Fabiano, the Italian commander of the wireless telegraph, and found him in a little house at the northern horn of the bay. He received us gaily. He spoke an excellent French, so that the Serbian captain could not butt in and interfere, as was his habit. Fabiano said that it would take a long time to get a wire to Brindisi, where we had heard were several ships of the English fleet, very bored and craving for something to do; we had hoped to get into communication with ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... that in so many yeres they have nott founde the menes to make a bourse! but must walke in the raine, when ytt raineth, more lyker pedlers then marchants; and in thys countrie, and all other, there is no kynde of pepell that have occasion to meete, butt they have a plase meete for that pourpose." Indeed, Clough got quite excited over the thought that London, of all cities in the world, possessed no decent accommodation for merchants transacting their everyday business, and declared his readiness ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... up to his shoulder. For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he pressed the trigger. He felt the jar of the butt, a little smoke blew in his eyes, and he could make out nothing on the crest of the ridge. It, however, seemed impossible that he had missed and next moment he heard a heavy floundering in the snow among the rocks above. He went up the slope at a savage run and plunged down ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Wallace acquired four pupils instead of one, and for three successive evenings we had a jolly time in the old sheep pasture taking our lessons from this most remarkable "hired man." We had to let Mr. Harding into the secret the second evening, but he promised not to "butt in" to our class, so he and Bishop sat on a side hill and smoked and laughed and seemed ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... distance of twenty miles to Busuntpoor, in the Hurhurpoor district, where Beharee Lal's headquarter had been fixed. For three days heavy rain continued to fall. Pregnant women were beaten on by the troops with bludgeons and the butt-ends of muskets and matchlocks. Many of them gave premature birth to children and died on the road; and many children were trodden to death by the animals on the road, which was crowded for ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... demoralizing the public sentiment. Under a wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass, and, in short, all the valuable and time-honoured institutions justly dear to our common humanity and especially to republicans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respectable and religious portion of our community should be aroused to the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and infidelity. It is a fearful proof of the wide-spread nature of this ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... only slightly, and Ayrton, profiting by the momentary retreat of his adversaries, rushed towards the companion-ladder to gain the deck. Passing before the lantern, he smashed it with a blow from the butt of his revolver. A profound darkness ensued, which favored his flight. Two or three pirates, awakened by the noise, were descending the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... had forgotten it till then—and, tightly seizing it in his strong hands, he flings the butt end against the lock. The wood is ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... war struck the land! Why the barefooted band It just nailed up that door: and the very next day, With master for Cap'en, went marchin' away; And Bally the butt of the whole Wabash band. But he bore with it all, yet once firmly said, "When I get back ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Castlemaine; and this tempted him to adopt the uncongenial part of a moralist, who found it convenient to cultivate the friendship of the strictest sectaries, and to pose as the saviour of the kingdom. It was not the first, nor the only, antic by which he made himself, as Zimri, the easy butt of Dryden's satire. He became the prime favourite of the people, and his power with the mob seemed to make him the rival of the King. It added to the zest with which he pursued this new freak, that it helped him to satisfy ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... overlooked the barricade he stationed three of us. There, lying flat on our faces on a billiard-table, we exchanged many shots with the enemy. A number of National Guards came up and surrendered to us as prisoners. As soon as one presented himself with the butt of his musket in the air, we made him come under the window, where two of us stood ready to fire in case of treachery, while the third took him to the lieutenant. In the course of the night I was slightly ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Ladon and the Erymanthian water and the ridges of Pholoe haunted by wild beasts, Lycormas son of Thearidas of Lasion got, striking her with the diamond-shaped butt of his spear, and, drawing off the skin and the double-pointed antlers on her forehead, laid them before ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... thinkin ye're no just a here-a-wa man, by your tongue," said she; "an', if I'm no mista'en, ye've seen better days; for, when I was bringin butt your wet claes to get them dried, though your bit jacket an' your breeks were just corduroy, I couldna help noticin that there is no a bit bonnier linen inowre our door than the sark ye ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... before this thought it a grave disadvantage that our street was unlighted. Our street was not drained nor graded; no municipal cart ever came to carry away our ashes; there was not a water-butt within half a mile to save us from fire, nor more than the one-thousandth part of a policeman to protect us from theft. Yet, as I paid a heavy tax, I somehow felt that we enjoyed the benefits of city government, and never ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... the camp. One of my peculiarities as a youngster was a morbid sensitiveness in respect of anything like chaff. This was so marked that the least attempt at teasing was enough to send me away in a state of misery. My mates knew this, and accordingly often made me the butt of their cheap witticisms. When I spoke of the burrow and the resemblance of the gravel at its mouth to the diamondiferous soil in which we were working, this was ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... then I saw the scythe and knew it must be old Father Time. The hour-glass puzzled me no little though. The man has cotton batting wings. One of them is a little wabbly, but what can you expect from Caledonia? They're always trying to butt the bull off the bridge. They're jealous of our town. Oh, they stooped to all the mean, underhanded tricks you ever heard of to get the canning factory to go to their place instead of here. But we know a thing or two ourselves. Yes, we got the canning ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... our village has become a butt For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er Our peaceful plain its soothing ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... him, but far enough away so the goat could not butt him with his horns, which Nicknack tried to do, was a big, and not very nice-looking, dog. This dog was barking fiercely at Nicknack, and the goat could ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... person, age, and attire. He is represented as grey-haired, hump-backed, lame and hideously ugly. In fact, he is a species of buffoon, who is allowed full liberty of speech, being himself a universal butt. His attempts at wit, which are rarely very successful, and his allusions to the pleasures of the table, of which he is a confessed votary, are absurdly contrasted with the sententious solemnity of the despairing hero, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... the men were listening to gossip about their colleagues in the Cafe Cardinal across the way. Ambroise alone sat apart and patted and smoothed the salt in its receptacles. He was a young man from some little town in Alsace, a furious patriot, and the butt of his companions—for he was the latest comer in the Cafe Riche. Though he told his family name, Nettier, and declared that his father and mother were of French blood, he was called "the German." He was good-looking, very blond, with big, innocent blue eyes; and while he was never ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... been so developed as to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not very charitable or ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... left. Then he went at it with both hands and fairly made it hum. Then, at the word, with remarkable swiftness, he gave it fist and elbow, first right and then left. Then he did some fancy work at a combination hit and butt. ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... Bud must want to have their barns burnt like some other folkses had been. Fer his part, he had sense enough to know they was some people as it wouldn't do to set a body's self agin. And as fer him, he didn't butt his brains out agin a buckeye-tree. Not when he was sober. And so they managed, during Bud's confinement to the house, to keep him well supplied with all the ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... whole they carry on the benignant scheme of social nature, like the other instincts that rule the animal creation. But of all the most numerous are the men, who have ever more their own dearliest beloved self, as the only or main goal or butt of their endeavours straight and steady before their eyes, and whose whole inner world turns on the great axis of self-interest. These form the majority, if not of mankind, yet of those by whom the business of life is carried on; and most ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... [Object and cause of ridicule.] Laughingstock. — N. laughingstock, jestingstock[obs3], gazingstock[obs3]; butt, game, fair game; April fool &c. (dupe) 547[obs3]. original, oddity; queer fish, odd fish; quiz, square toes; old monkey, old fogey, fogey monkey, fogy monkey; buffoon &c. (jester) 844; pantomimist &c. (actor) 599. schlemiel. jest &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... him with her claws, and then, if there's any game left in him, she lets him try again. Of course the game fisher could have a strong line and a stout pole and git his fish in a good sight quicker, if he wanted to, but that wouldn't be sport. He couldn't give him the butt and spin him out, and reel him in, and let him jump and run till his pluck is clean worn out. Now, I likes to git my fish ashore with all the pluck in 'em. It makes 'em taste better. And as fur fun, I'll be bound I've had jist as much of that, and more, too, than most of these fellers ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... design in his head. But, that morning, there seemed to be none of these qualities in Benjamin Tresco. He dropped his work with a suddenness that endangered its fastenings of pitch, rapped the bench with the round butt of his graver, and glared ferociously at ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... tapestry.—In times of tranquility the extortion is covered up, but in troubled times it is nakedly apparent. Under the revolutionary government, bands of collectors armed with pikes made raids on villages as in conquered countries;[2204] the farmer, collared and kept down by blows from the butt end of a musket, sees his grain taken from his barn and his cattle from their stable; "all scampered off on the road to the town;" while around Paris, within a radius of forty leagues, the departments fasted in order that the capital might be fed. With gentler formalities, under ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... 'labouring working mind[9].' It might make him reflect that if the mighty reasoner could rise up and meet him face to face, he would be sure, on which ever side the right might be, even if at first his pistol missed fire to knock him down with the butt-end of it[10]. I have attempted therefore not to criticise but to illustrate Johnson's statements. I have compared them with the opinions of the more eminent men among his contemporaries, and with his own as they are contained in other parts of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... triangle, with a parallelogram below its base; the hypothenuse or head of the sail is secured to a yard, like an enormous fishing-rod; the halyards are secured to it about a third of the way from the butt-end, and it is hoisted close up to the head of the mast. A tackle brings down the lower end of the yard to the deck, and serves to balance the lofty tapering point, while the sheet is secured to the lower after-corner of the sail. Though many of the ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... subscribed by charitable people to succour the starving Irish met occasionally ships sailing out of the Irish ports laden with food reaped by the starving Irish. On the quays of Galway the unhappy people wailed as they saw their harvests borne away from them, and were admonished by the butt-ends of British muskets, the British Government meantime passing Relief measures which provided employment for hordes of English officials and Irish understrappers, and pauper-relief for those who surrendered their manhood and their property—the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... The butt of scandal having been, 'Tis dreadful—ye agree, I hope— To pass with reasonable men For a fictitious misanthrope, A visionary mortified, Or monster of Satanic pride, Or e'en the "Demon" of my strain.(81) Oneguine—take him up again— In duel having killed his friend And reached, with ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... and anon burst out in some strain of scriptural-styled eloquence, chanted through his nose, like an exhortation at a camp-meeting. A group of Universalists and no-religionists sat around him, making him their butt, and holding wild argument with him; and he strangely mingled humor with his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with his humor, so that it was almost impossible to tell whether he were in jest or earnest. Probably it was neither, but an ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... delayed a second. The butt of the pistol that would equalize the affair was almost within his grasp, and Muller stood in the light, but he saw an ominous glint in the pale blue eyes and the farmer's fingers tighten on the haft. There was also a suggestive raising of one shoulder; and his hands went up above his ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... removing the silk. Then blanch it for 3 to 5 minutes in boiling water and cold-dip it quickly. Cut the kernels half way down to the cob and scrape out what remains after cutting. For best results in this operation, hold the ear of corn so that the butt end is up; then cut from the tip toward the butt, but scrape from the butt toward the tip. Next, pack the jars tightly with the corn, pressing it into them with a wooden masher. Unless two persons can work together, however, cut only enough corn for one ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... in the forest adjoining the glaciers. During the day they go up again into the snow, for which they have an extraordinary love, and in which they skip and play, amusing themselves like a band of scholars in play hours. They tease one another, butt with their horns in fun, run off, return, pretend new attacks and new flights ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... none gave out; Not any pike on that renowned stand, But took new force from his inspiring hand: Soldier encouraged soldier, man urged man, And he urged all; so much example can; Hurt upon hurt, wound upon wound did call, He was the butt, the mark, the aim of all: His soul this while retired from cell to cell, At last flew up from all, and then he fell. But the devoted stand enraged more From that his fate, plied hotter than before, And proud to fall ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... parallels with John Gilpin, and only anxious to be in time to help me out at the halting-place; but more than once only coming in when the beefsteaks were losing their first charm, and then good-humouredly serving as the general butt for his noble horsemanship. Did any one fully comprehend how much pleasanter our journey was through the presence of one person entirely at the service of the others? For my own part, it made an immense difference to have one pair of strong ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... facts. Children are whipped unmercifully for the smallest offences, and that before their mothers. A large proportion of the blacks have their shoulders, backs, and arms all scarred up, and not a few of them have had their heads laid open with clubs, stones, and brick-bats, and with the butt-end of whips and canes—some have had their jaws broken, others their teeth knocked in or out; while others have had their ears cropped and the sides of their cheeks gashed out. Some of the poor creatures have lost the sight of one ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... misled by a pleasing self-delusion that he was born a painter, made himself the butt and ridicule of all the artists of Bologna. When they extolled his works and called him the greatest painter in the world, he took their irony for truth, and strutted with greater self-complacency. On one occasion, the students ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... cool blue twilight of two steep streets in Camden Town, the shop at the corner, a confectioner's, glowed like the butt of a cigar. One should rather say, perhaps, like the butt of a firework, for the light was of many colours and some complexity, broken up by many mirrors and dancing on many gilt and gaily-coloured cakes and ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... arm was tired, but these words renewed her strength, and her fingers clutched more firmly the butt of the revolver. Curly was fully aware that the girl was becoming wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, and he regretted that he had told her anything about Dan. What might not this girl do? he asked himself. In ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... to join the group. I found myself looking down at one of those thick-set Burmans whom I always associated with Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-dotted mass, and a heavy stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him. I started back appalled as Smith caught ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... merrily against our lances' butt, And our bugles ring out clearly in the coolness of the dawn, You can see the guidons waving as the ranks begin to shut, And the morning sun beams forth on the sabers that are drawn. Then the bits begin to jangle and our horses paw the air, When we ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... dull life, that long since, with thousands of dull lives like its own, was vainly lived and lost: thousands of them, massed, vile, slimy lives, like those of the torpid lizards in yonder stagnant water-butt.—Lost? There is a curious point for you to settle, my friend, who study psychology in a lazy, dilettante way. Stop a moment. I am going to be honest. This is what I want you to do. I want you to hide ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... assented. It was now impossible for Harry to regain his place at the tree, and when it fell he acted and looked like a conqueror, and Harry patted him on the back as a token of his good work. A section of the butt of the tree was cut off, and loaded on the truck, and dragged to the sawmill. The end had to be squared off, and Chief insisted on doing this, the use of the exceedingly novel tool being the greatest pleasure, evidently, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... undischarged. Two were fired—one, aimed at Bob Harvey, did not wound him, or at any rate only slightly, and Ayrton, profiting by the momentary retreat of his adversaries, rushed towards the companion-ladder to gain the deck. Passing before the lantern, he smashed it with a blow from the butt of his revolver. A profound darkness ensued, which favored his flight. Two or three pirates, awakened by the noise, were descending the ladder at ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... guide-lines, but increasing in speed to almost a fearful extent as they neared their destined place between the piers. "The success of this operation," says Mr. Clark, "depended mainly on properly striking the 'butt' beneath the Anglesey tower, on which, as upon a centre, the tube was to be veered round into its position across the opening. This position was determined by a 12-inch line, which was to be paid out to a fixed mark from the Llanfair ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... on the butt of an alleged cigar, into which he had stuck a sharpened match as a visible means of support, a boy who was probably not so old as he looked sat upon the curbstone at the corner, and claimed the world for his cuspidor. He was ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... live to complete the piece. Finish it, however, he did in a masterly style, grouping everything that could denote the end of all things. Prominent were a broken bottle, an old broom, a bow unstrung, the butt-end of an old musket, a crown tumbled in pieces, towers in ruins, the moon in her wane, the map of the globe burning, Ph[oe]bus and his horses dead in the clouds, a vessel wrecked, Time with his hourglass and scythe broken, a tobacco-pipe in his mouth, the last puff of smoke going out; a play-book, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... diversion, when the lover of Charlotta having his mind a little perplexed, placed his men so ill, that the chevalier beat him out at every motion. How is this, Horatio, cried he; you used to play better than I, butt now I have the advantage of you.—May you always have it, sir, replied he with the utmost respect, over all who pretend to oppose you.—Chess is a kind of emblem of war, where policy should go hand in hand with courage; and there is a great master in that art, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... neither by Cratinus,(5) shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. You will not be the butt of the villainous Pauson's(6) jeers, nor of Lysistratus,(7) the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... in black was he, and he rode a black horse. Not a word we spoke, but we dashed against each other, and at the first encounter I was unhorsed. Still not a word spoke the Black Knight, but passing the butt-end of his lance through my horse's reins, rode away, leaving me shamed and on foot. So I made my way back to the castle, and there I was entertained again that night right hospitably, none questioning me as to my adventure. ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... heartlessly ironical, were common enough. Commonest of all in this particular time was the play that began playfully, with plenty of comic business, and was gradually sobered by sentiment until it ended on a note of romance or even of pathos. A commonplace little officer, the butt of the mess, becomes by the last act as high and hopeless a lover as Dante. Or a vulgar and violent pork-butcher remembers his own youth before the curtain goes down. The first thing that Bernard Shaw did when he stepped before the footlights was to reverse ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... answer except by the smashing of glass. He had forced his way into two houses within the past hour. He was now busy breaking into a third. The window had not yielded to pressure. Therefore he was knocking out the glass with the butt of his revolver. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... upon a time three brothers, of whom the eldest was called Jacob, the second Frederick, and the youngest Peter. This youngest brother was made a regular butt of by the other two, and they treated him shamefully. If anything went wrong with their affairs, Peter had to bear the blame and put things right for them, and he had to endure all this ill-treatment ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... ill-balanced, but exceedingly accurate. It was very heavy, and when upright, reached to the chin of a tall man; for the barrel of thick, soft iron, was four feet in length, while the stock was short, and the butt scooped out. Sometimes it was plain, sometimes ornamented. It was generally bored out—or, as the expression then was, "sawed out"—to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of thirty or forty, to the pound; and was usually of backwoods manufacture.[28] ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Alex. Berkley, priest; which last, though nott scarce, yet so very fayre and perfect, that seldome comes such another; the Priceus you will find deare, yett I never sold it under 10s., and att this tyme can have it of a person of quality; butt without flattery, I love to find a rare book for you, and hope shortly to procure for you a perfect's Hall's Chronicle.' With the books Scott sent his ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... she would not let me—Miss O'Shane, I shall not forget myself again—amuse yourself with being as capricious as you please, but not at my expense; little as you think of me, I am not to be made your butt or your dupe: therefore, I must seriously beg, at once, that I may know whether you wish me ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the white man's innate spirit of forbearance acted almost involuntarily. Dally had hitherto been a man of peace. The thought of shedding human blood was intensely repulsive to him. He lowered the butt of his gun, and held up his right hand ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... swow!" ejaculated the Cap'n, rubbing his knurly forefinger under his nose, and glancing first at the parrots and then at the lady. "If that ain't as much of an astonisher as when the scuttle-butt danced a jig on the dog-vane! Them two us'ly cusses strangers, no matter what age or sect. They was learnt to do it." He gazed doubtfully at the birds, as though they might possibly be deteriorating in the effeminacies of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... reason came back into his eyes. Sheba was standing before him, his rifle in her hand. She had struck him with the butt of it. ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... up to the Captain, and crying "Don't shoe him, Alekper! Do nothing for him: here's news, my masters! What new prophets for us are these unwashed Russians?" The Captain was a brave man, and thoroughly understood the Asiatics. "Away, ye rascals!" he cried in a rage, laying his hand on the butt of his pistol. "Be silent, or the first that dares to let an insult pass his teeth, shall have them closed with a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... a plaisanterie, Your Majesty!" and if such a jest, with a king for the butt, seems incredible, let one remember that already Louis had been refused his cour pleniere and the Queen lampooned and hissed at ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... horseback; his gold lace flashed in the sunlight. Before him on the horse's neck lay a girl's white figure, flung across the front of the saddle, struggling, shrieking, held down by his bridle hand which also clutched her dress, while with the butt-end of a pistol he threatened Marie Gigot, who screamed for help as she hung to the horse's head. He, good creature, not being one of the General's own chargers, but a harmless beast borrowed without ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... little kitten apiece; and there was "Old Billy," who once upon a time had been a frisky little lamb, Diddie's special pet; but now he was a vicious old sheep, who amused the children very much by running after them whenever he could catch them out-of-doors. Sometimes, though, he would butt them over and hurt them, and Major Waldron had several times had him turned into the pasture; but Diddie would always cry and beg for him to be brought back, and so Old Billy was nearly always ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... by Lord Grey and a few other officers; but his brave infantry still made a gallant stand. They were charged right and left by the Life Guards and Blues, but the Somersetshire clowns, with their scythes and butt-ends of their muskets, fought to the last. At length their powder and ball were spent, and cries were heard of "Ammunition; for God's sake give us ammunition!" But no ammunition was at hand. The king's ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... Pretender!" greeted the ear as they passed on to their several destinations. A Quaker, fixing his eyes on Mr. Patten, and seeing his black dress, remarked, "Friend, thou hast been the trumpeter of rebellion to those men,—thou must answer for them." The moralizer was touched by a grenadier with the butt end of his musket, so that the "spirit fell into the ditch." But the Quaker was not rebuffed. "Friend," he said to the soldier, "thou art, I fear, no true friend to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... without stopping to think out his wickedness like a man. He's goin' to be a rough, hard case to tame, Sam, that Giant Wolf of yours; but he's come to a hard-case tamer, too, and don't you forget it. He's got to bend or break, and you can gamble clear down to the butt of your sack on that, my son. Come on now, and I'll show you how the others are fed. Just fill ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... some of the swimmers away from his fishing location at that moment. It was plain the members of the moving picture company used the hermit as a butt ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... on slowly, the young man who had waded ashore, whom his comrades addressed as Kirkwood or Kirk, walking behind the wagon with the dog in his arms, responding to his whimpering claims for attention with teasing caresses. The dog, it seemed, was the butt as well as the pet of the party. As they approached the house he scrambled out of Kirkwood's arms and lingered to take a roll in the sandy path, coming up a moment afterward to be received with blighting sarcasms upon his appearance. After his ignominious wetting he was quite unable to bear ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... better dinner at the club, and I wanted to go there. But Moyne was afraid of the other men's talk. It was likely that there would be some very eager talk at the club; and Moyne, whose name still figured on placards as chairman of next day's meeting would have been a butt for every kind ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... would spring up suddenly between two or three of them; and in a moment they would be fighting together, and would keep at it until one of their stern officers was upon them with blows right and left with his fists or with the butt of his pistol or with the pommel of his sword—and so would scatter the rough brutes, scowling, and as it seemed uttering growls such as beasts lashed by their keepers ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... lay, No doubt, in little compass, round or square; But pity him I neither must nor may His suffocation by that pretty pair; 'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... perceiving a disposition on the part of the crowd to gather close about the entrance, and so exclude what little light and air might otherwise make its way in, took an assagai from the hand of an astonished native, and, holding it by the blade, waved the press back with the butt end of the weapon. Then, still waving the butt end, he described on the ground the arc of a circle of some twelve feet radius from the hut entrance, and, returning the weapon to its owner, pointed to the mark on the ground, and, addressing the curiosity-ridden ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... sought the shadow of his side, and instantly gleamed with a weapon. Bob started back; but the man was holding the revolver's butt ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... his elastic blow by the free movement of the wrist. To gain a similarly elastic blow mechanically in his first action, Cristofori cut a notch in the butt of his hammer from which the escapement lever, "linguetta mobile" as he called it—"hopper," as we call it—being centered at the base, moved forward, when the key was put down, to the extent of its radius, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... the jacket to weep the wrist somewhere ajar the butt-end of a pistol as he spoke he approached the door they were talking in ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... looked at her now, he simply could not see the beautiful schoolgirl of sixteen, the blonde gipsy who had bent forward, cigarette in mouth, to his match, who had leaned back and blown rings to the moon above Drouva. Had she ever set the butt of a gun against her shoulder? Something in this woman's eyes made him suddenly feel as if he ought to leave her alone. Yet her arm still lay on his, and she ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... truce had been arranged, a great number of natives spread themselves over the ruins of the town, to search for the iron molotes, which are generally concealed in the earth, beneath the floor of the huts. The natives were all prodding the smoking ground with the iron-tipped butt-ends of their lances ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... victory has decided in favour of one of his sons, the conqueror visits the hut in which his father's body lies in state. He approaches the corpse, and standing by its side, he sticks the butt-end of his spear in the ground, and leaves it thus fixed near the right hand of the dead king. This is ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... our feet and drove us out with the butt-ends of their carbines. Handcuffed, and pushed about by one and another, we reached the bottom of the slope, where a prison-van was waiting for us—a vile box, without ventilation and full of vermin—into which we were ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of this good nature that Blackwell made a mistake. He picked on the young man to be the butt of his coarse pleasantries. Day after day he pointed his jeers at Curly, who continued to grin as if he ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... London to Edinburgh you ride in a Pullman car, with all the appurtenances, even to a Gould coupler, a Westinghouse air-brake, and a dusky George from North Carolina, who will hit you three times with the butt of a brush-broom and expect a bob as recompense. You feel quite ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... towards his own goal. Shep Homans, his fullback, took in the impending catastrophe at a glance and dashed forward, laid the halfback low with a sharp tackle, thereby preventing a safety. The game was unimportant, the Princeton's score was large, so the unfortunate player, although the butt of many a jest, soon survived all jokes and jibes and became in time a ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... at Morning Sitting gave only possible fillip to interminable Debate on Land Purchase Bill. BRER FOX still away, so comparative peace reigns in Irish Camp. TIM HEALY no one to butt his head against; COLONEL NOLAN too busy deploying his army of five men; showing them how to retreat in good order when Division-bell rings, and how, when it is decided to vote, they shall pass out through one door, march in at the other, cross the floor, and look as much as possible as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... up to this wharf once a week in a schooner called the Belle. Her father, Cap'n Butt, was a widow-man, and 'e used to bring her with 'im, partly for company and partly because 'e could keep 'is eye on her. Nasty eye it, was, too, when he 'appened to be ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... this part of it to-day," rejoined Dunwody simply. "This is our judiciary. These are our legislators whom you see." He slapped his rifle stock, touched a revolver butt at his belt. "You left the highway when you tied up to our shores. The temper of my men is such that you are lucky to have a parole offered to you. You deserve not the treatment of soldiers, but of spies. You disgrace your uniform. These men are only fools. But what do they say, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... shadow, came Aunt Isabelle, and bringing up the rear, General Dick, and the four young people; Leila in a pair of mismated slippers, hippity-hopping behind with Barry, and Porter assuring Mary that he knew he "hadn't any business to butt in to a family party," but that ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... had scarcely subsided, when the ancient Lysander opened one of the doors, and, after ringing the tiled floor with the butt of his javelin, and bowing statelywise, announced Sergius. Taking a nod from the Princess, he withdrew to give ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... there was a hand-to-hand fight, the Americans using the butt-ends of their muskets, the English their bayonets. The soldiers were exhausted with the climb up the hill and their exertions under a blazing sun, and the great majority of the defenders of the redoubt were, therefore, enabled to retreat ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... man jabbed the spike of his pole in, and they all lifted together, and the butt end of the log slipped a little way into ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... delivered and accompanied by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... John. 'He came nosing about the place, and then wanted to know where the water-butt was, and the bedclothes. I told him to go to the devil; so would you too, when there was no possible thing to say! And then he said I had pawned them, and did I know it was felony? Then I made a pretty neat stroke. I remembered ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... offensive. Those who wished to go to her house were forced to put up with Ferdishenko. Possibly the latter was not mistaken in imagining that he was received simply in order to annoy Totski, who disliked him extremely. Gania also was often made the butt of the jester's sarcasms, who used this method of keeping in Nastasia Philipovna's ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... there are many ways butt down upon this, and they are crooked and wide: But thus thou mayest distinguish the right from the wrong, that only being ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and I immediately rushed aft; and, the two of us grasping the spokes, managed to turn the wheel round with our united strength; but it was too late to get the ship to pay off, for, a fresh blast of wind striking her full butt, she was taken aback, the foremast coming down with a crash across the deck, carrying with it the bowsprit and maintopmast, the mizzen-topmast ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... enough to excite the fancy of a sportsman. Dick's heart fairly leaped in his breast as he grasped the butt ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... this country and in his own? It is really refreshing to contemplate, that Roebuck, after being the paid agent of the Canadian House of Assembly, should have become such a purist as to drag poor Mr. Isaac Butt before the notice of the Commons, and scream for the censure on him on a mere suspicion that he had touched the yellow and handsome gold coins of one of the innumerable Indian princes and rajahs who come to England with complaints of grievances, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... brethren will always number thee among those who have renounced the Mother. Hark! thy enemies are in pursuit of thee, already near. Should they capture thee, thou must be the slave of their wills, the partner of their crimes, the sport and butt of all their bitter jests throughout the remnant of thy wretched life. One only refuge remains for thee!' And as he spoke, he drew his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... them from three points with the butt end of their guns, swords, and staves, and did their work so well that the wild men set up a loud shriek, and flew for their lives to the woods and hills, with all the speed that fear and swift feet could help them to do. As our men did not care to chase them, ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... "Eddie"—I am not entitled, perhaps, to such familiarity, but the solemn title of "chief clerk" is far too stiff and formal for that soul of good-heartedness striving in vain to hide behind a bluff exterior—"Eddie," I say, blew a last cloud of smoke from his lungs to the ceiling, tossed aside the butt of his cigarette, and motioned to me to take the chair ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... sneering at him—certainly a ground for thinking less of his standing than before—he went home to the Old House, and walked indecisively up and down his back-yard. Turning aside, he leant his arms upon the edge of the rain-water-butt standing in the corner, and looked into it. The reflection from the smooth stagnant surface tinged his face with the greenish shades of Correggio's nudes. Staves of sunlight slanted down through the still pool, lighting it up ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the seasons opened and closed, for her to accede to his importunities to sell her property. There the old inn stood, a blot within the terraced grounds and clean-cut park, unsightly to his eyes, and the humorous butt of his patrons. But Nancy had made her plans when the new order of things was first suggested, and she turned her rugged face to the sandy Monk Road and held ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... economical reforms, such as bring on a government the reproach of meanness without producing any perceptible relief to the finances. One of the victims of his injudicious parsimony was the Poet Laureate. Orders were given that, in the new patent which the demise of the crown made necessary, the annual butt of sack, originally granted to Jonson, and continued to Jonson's successors, should be omitted. [231] This was the only notice which the King, during the first year of his reign, deigned to bestow on the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great favorite, though something of a butt with the country boys, and a notable singer in church on Sundays ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... drinking like that, he is no better than a cheese under the spigot of a wine-cask; he lives to keep his body well soaked—that it may be the nicer, or the nastier for the worms. Cosmo, my son, don't you learn to drown your soul in your body, like the poor Duke of Clarence in the wine-butt." ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... minutes. Some of the old farmers who knew the deceased recount their connection with him, how he worked for them, and how his family has lived in the parish as cottagers from time immemorial. A reminiscence of a grim joke that fell out forty years before, and of which the deceased was the butt, causes a grave smile, and then to business again. The master possibly asks permission to punish a refractory inmate; punishment is now very sparingly given in the house. A good many cases, however, come up from the Board to the magisterial Bench—charges ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... and Hester and Muriel will back you up!" continued Gowan. "Unless they're as mean as you are. There! I've finished now, so you needn't butt in! You know exactly what I think of you. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... trip-hammer, or of the drop, upon the upper die. About one hundred and fifty operations upon the various pieces used in the construction of the musket are performed by these dies. Some of the pieces are struck out by one operation of the drop, while others, as the butt-plate, require as many as three, and others a still larger number. The hammer is first forged, and then put twice through the drop. Four men are kept constantly at work forging hammers in the rough, while but two are required to put them through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Church of the Petits-Peres. He went with his meerschaum pipe that cost nearly sixty pounds, and he took a girl from the Palais-Royal. He was lucky, for he managed to escape, but they took me to the police station, belabouring me with the butt-end of their guns. Fortunately Dulaurens caught sight ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... Schonburg saw near his camp by the water-holes a small group of horsemen standing motionless in the desert, their lances erect, butt downward, resting on the sand, the little company looking like an oasis of leafless poplars. The Count was instantly astride his Arab charger, at the head of his men, ready to meet whatever came, but on this occasion the enemy made no effort to ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... me to madness, and with a mighty effort I shook myself free and sprang forward, but the butt of a lance brought me down, and once more I ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... to exorcize the devils?" I suggested, and he dropped the butt of his rifle on the ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... He brought the butt of the rifle smashing up. It struck the man under the chin and there was a sharp cracking sound as his jawbone snapped. For a fraction of a second there was an expression of stupefied amazement on his face then his eyes glazed and he slumped to the ground with ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... down on his knees engaged in skinning a sheep. Seeing that he had neither gun nor pistol handy I had not the heart to shoot him, so I approached him, greeted him pleasantly and struck him a powerful blow on the head with the butt of my rifle. I have a very good delivery and Uncle William lay down on his side, then rolled over on his back, spread out his fingers and shivered. Before he could recover the use of his limbs I seized the knife that he had been using and cut his hamstrings. You know, doubtless, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... with a little stumble now and again, his eyes on the ground. Lewes strode with a sure foot, his head up, and he slashed at the tangle of last year's growth on the bank whenever he passed some tempting butt for the sword-play ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... firstborn. He died leading them on, when some, 'more careful of valour and safety, began to recoil shamefully.' His last words were, 'Lord have mercy upon me and prosper our enterprise.' A Spanish captain, Erinetta, struck him down with the butt of a musket after he had received a bullet. John Plessington, his sergeant, avenged him by running Erinetta ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... singleness of her love. While she wanted nothing but him, he wanted and took so much else. He perceived this but dimly, as part of that feeling that he could not break through, of the irritable longing to put his head down and butt his way out, no matter what the obstacles. What was coming? How long was this state of things to last? He got up and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him, his head thrown back; and every now and then he shook that head, trying to free it from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... set down the empty pitcher and drawn his breath, he began to criticise the liquor which it had lately contained.—"Sufficient single beer, old Pillory—and, as I take it, brewed at the rate of a nutshell of malt to a butt of Thames—as dead as a corpse, too, and yet it went hissing down my throat—bubbling, by Jove, like water upon hot iron.—You left us early, noble Master Grahame, but, good faith, we had a carouse to your honour—we heard ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... something dogged and self-contained was so startlingly uncharacteristic of him, that it even forced itself on the notice of Pedgift Junior and the clerks as he passed through the outer office. Accustomed to make the old man their butt, they took a boisterously comic view of the marked alteration in him. Deaf to the merciless raillery with which he was assailed on all sides, he stopped opposite young Pedgift, and, looking him attentively in the face, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... slim man, with prematurely gray hair, stepped forward, resting the butt of his rifle on the ground as he surveyed the newcomers. Then his eyes sought ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... that followed. Where should I meet her? What would she say? I had asked these questions before and found an answer. Now they came again with a trail of fresh implications and I had no answer for them at all. As I approached Nettie she ceased to be the mere butt of my egotistical self-projection, the custodian of my sexual pride, and drew together and became over and above this a personality of her own, a personality and a mystery, a sphinx I had evaded ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... high school and sum carots and sum meal and hay and a lot of potatoe pealings and 2 peaces of lettis and drank haff a pale of water and tiped over 3 whole pales full. one is tame and follows me round. that is the old one. the young one is wild and if i dont look out wil butt me when i aint looking and where i aint xpecting it. once she nocked me over and i hit her with a stick hard. so now when i get in the pen she gets in the corner. she knows she cant fool with me. ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... by this time ended, he dropped the butt of his rifle, and, leaning on the barrel with both hands, he turned towards the girl with an interest the singular beauty of her sister had not awakened. He had gathered from Hurry's remarks that Hetty was considered to ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... "wherefore is this overweening harbored in you? Why do ye kick against that will from which its end can never be cut short, and which many a time hath increased your grief? What avails it to butt against the fates? Your Cerberus, if ye remember well, still bears his chin and his throat peeled for that." Then he turned back upon the filthy road and said no word to us, but wore the semblance of a man whom other care constrains and stings, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... man's square jaws set ominously, his gnarled hand dropping heavily on the butt of the Colt dangling ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... Clifford, rough Northumberland, I dare your quenchless fury to more rage. I am your butt, and ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... body-servant, table-waiter, pet, butt for his jests, tool, man of all occasions. He considered himself a part of Mr. Belcher's personal property. To be the object of his clumsy badinage, when visitors were present and his master was particularly amiable, was equivalent to an honorable ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... the pool and begin to cast in the gravelly shallows, on which the fish lie to feed in a flood, a few yards above the deep water. A white trout or two rise, and presently I am fast in something which excites momentary hopes. The heavy rod bends to the butt. A yard or two of line runs out, but a few seconds show that it is only a large trout which has struck at the fly with his tail, and has been hooked foul. He cannot break me, and I do not care if he escapes, so I bear hard upon him and drag him by main force to the side, where Harper ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... a baa lamb. The rain come down like a reg'lar deluge, but I didn't seem to have no ark to run to. As night come on things got wuss and wuss, for the wind blowed the roof off Mis Bascum's barn and stove in the butt'ry window; the brook riz and went ragin' every which way, and you never did see ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... sets in a clear, calm, summer evening over the blue Hebrides! Within less than a mile of our barrack, there rose a tall hill, whose bold summit commanded all the Western Isles, from Sleat in Skye, to the Butt of the Lewis. To the south lay the trap islands; to the north and west, the gneiss ones. They formed, however, seen from this hill, one great group, which, just as the sun had sunk, and sea and sky were so equally bathed in gold as to exhibit on the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... meantime, ran from the outworks, to seize me behind, and I, to avoid him, made a spring at the palisadoes; there I was unluckily caught by the foot, and received a bayonet wound in the upper lip; thus entangled, they beat me with the butt-end of their muskets, and dragged me back to prison, while I struggled and defended myself like ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... of abscesses, bruises, wounds, or long-continued irritation by the harness. Among the more common causes of fistula of the poll (poll evil) are chafing by the halter or heavy bridle; blows from the butt end of the whip; the horse striking his head against the hayrack, beams of the ceiling, low doors, etc. Fistulous withers are seen mostly in those horses that have thick necks as well as those that are ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... of Paeonia and has a neck with a mane like a horse. In all its other parts it is like a bull, excepting that its horns are in a way bent inwards so that it cannot butt; hence it has no safety but in flight, in which it flings out its excrement to a distance of 400 braccia in its course, and this burns like fire wherever ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... himself. "Will you never cease to butt your empty head against the wall? You will butt in vain as long as I have power and life. Go. It befits such a little emperor as you to humble yourself before your great king; but Austria is represented in MY person, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... that fascinated my youth in the Fliegende Blatter, representing "Friedrich Gerstaeker auf der Reise." That gallant man is depicted tramping on a serpent, new to M. Boulenger, while he attempts to club, with the butt end of his gun, a most lively savage who, accompanied by a bison, is attacking him in front. A terrific and obviously enthusiastic crocodile is grabbing the tail of the explorer's coat, and the explorer ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... eye than is generally supposed, and I have often found particularly good shots to possess an almost telescopic vision. In the ordinary use of the rifle, the barrel is guided by the eye, but there are sportemen who fire with the butt of the gun at the hip. In this case, as in the use of the sling, the lasso, and the bolas, in hurling the knife (see Babinet, Lectures, vii., p. 84), in throwing the boomerang, the javelin, or a stone, and in the employment of the blowpipe and the bow, the movements of the hand and ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... exclaimed, growing angry with her, too. "Do you know what time it is? Three o'clock, you write me, and it's now a quarter past five. I have sat here doing nothing for over two mortal hours. It seems to me that's enough, without being made the butt of your friends' wit into the bargain. I'm sick of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... hands fall—and drew away. "I love you too much," he said, "to butt in now. But if the boy goes back on you, Millie, I'll come—again. You'll need me then—and that's why I'll come. I don't want him to go back on you. I want him to love you still. It's because of the way ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... his seat, which he had taken among those who apparently declined to join in the sport, seized a lance from the hands of the slave who bore them, and hurling it with the force of a tempest, the weapon, hissing along the air, struck the butt near the centre; but the wood of which it was made, unused to such violence, shivered and crumbled under the blow. Without a word, and without an emotion, so far as the face was its index, the Egyptian ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... him shuffle a few steps and fumble with a drawer of the desk. In a moment the cold hard butt of a pistol was thrust into his hand. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... not look where, how, or at whom he struck. All he knew was that his rifle blazed, and as he clubbed at soft flesh with the butt, blood spurted, and new screams filled the night. He felt and half saw big, stinking bodies going down, and clawed his way forward, around them, over them. Then he felt no more bodies, and knew that he was through. A little farther he ran over the trampled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... into, how much apiece?" He yawns cavernously, and gives the calculation up. "Always was a duffer at figures," he says, and relapses into silence until, in the act of throwing the nearly smoked-out cigar-butt away, he pulls himself up, and, economically impaling it on his penknife-blade, secures a ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... slipped over his hand, which at once gave him and his partner liberty of action. They knew where the arms lay, and each in the twinkling of an eye secured a large navy revolver without disturbing the Indians. They then simultaneously struck the two sleeping guards a powerful blow on the head with the butt of their revolvers. The Indian struck by the herder was nearly killed by the heavy blow, while Glazier's man was only stunned. They then made for the ponies, leaped into the saddles, and before any of the other Indians ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... side, and an open space on the other for the hanging up of clothes. Very few clothes hung there at present; but it was in this portion of the closet that he stopped and began to try the wall of Brotherson's room, with the butt end of the tool ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... ye're no just a here-a-wa man, by your tongue," said she; "an', if I'm no mista'en, ye've seen better days; for, when I was bringin butt your wet claes to get them dried, though your bit jacket an' your breeks were just corduroy, I couldna help noticin that there is no a bit bonnier linen inowre our door than ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... the pavilion of the knight, and his horse all saddled and bridled, and his shield of divers colours, and a great spear hanging on a tree hard by. Griflet struck the shield with the butt of his spear, so that it fell clattering down to the ground. With that the knight came out of the pavilion and said, "Fair knight, why smote ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... I thrust the butt of my gun ahead of me, and moved it up and down and right and left, trying the inequalities of the ground. To make no sound required the very greatest care; a slip of an inch might have ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... right then! If you think I'm a buttinsky, then I'll just butt in! I don't know who your May Arnold is, but I know doggone good and well that you and her weren't talking about tar-roofing, no, nor about playing the violin, neither! If you haven't got any moral consideration for yourself, you ought to have some ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... she-eagle, the larger, stronger and fiercer, will attack and drive off even the dog that does not fear a wolf, yet I have seen, he continued, a timid ewe, her youngling behind her in a coign in the hill, face the bird fiercely and butt it till she lost her eyes, poor ewe, for I came up too late with my staff. And the lamb? Paul inquired: was far away, Jesus answered, aloft ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... mirth by being ridiculous in person, age, and attire. He is represented as grey-haired, hump-backed, lame and hideously ugly. In fact, he is a species of buffoon, who is allowed full liberty of speech, being himself a universal butt. His attempts at wit, which are rarely very successful, and his allusions to the pleasures of the table, of which he is a confessed votary, are absurdly contrasted with the sententious solemnity of the despairing hero, crossed in the prosecution of his love-suit. His clumsy interference ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... to the bones, not even a little sand thrown over them. The Arabs laughed heartily at the expression which Major Denham evinced, and said, "they were only blacks, nam boo! (d—n their fathers,)" and began knocking about the limbs with the butt end of their firelocks, saying, "this was a woman: this was a youngster," and such like unfeeling expressions. The greater part of the unhappy people, of whom these were the remains, had formed the spoils of the sultan of Fezzan the year before. Major ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... master's intentions towards you, when the arrival of the Moors happened in time to frustrate them. Should he, however, learn that you are at Granada, where your presence may throw invincible impediments in his way, the knowledge would be perhaps attended with disastrous results. I am a poor man, a butt to sustain my master's ill humors, but I will not so far dishonor my feelings as to permit the possibility of your being exposed a second time to the dreaded manoeuvres of Gomez Arias. Fly, lady, fly ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... hard; while the gladiators, apparently encouraged by his apathy, were beginning to handle their weapons, he shifted his spear in his hands, and stepping back a pace, so as to give full scope to a sweeping blow, he flourished the butt, which was garnished with a heavy ball of metal, round his head in a figure of eight, and brought it down so heavily on the felt skull-cap of the conspirator, that his teeth jarred audibly together, a quick flash sprang across his eyes, and he fell, stunned ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... cob five minutes. Cold-dip. Cut the corn from the cob, cutting from tip to butt end. Add the corn to the other vegetables. Add no water. Pack the mixed vegetables into clean glass jars; add one level teaspoonful of salt to every jar; partially seal; cook one hour and a half in wash-boiler or other homemade outfit. At the end of that period remove jars ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... each particular cigarette. Thereupon Raffles prayed to be allowed to smoke one, and, when his prayer was heard, observed that the pearl had been on the table much longer than the cigarettes. Mackenzie promptly caught up the Colt and opened the chamber in the butt. ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... across one of the little brown pools. . . . Then, to her despair, he stumbled, and one leg went down in the soft muck of the farther edge. As he fell, he tried to throw his rifle to the bank, but the heavy, metal-stayed butt jammed against ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... served them butt, she's served them ben, Intill a gown of green, But her e'e was ay on Brown Robin, That stood low under ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... turned their attention to the felled tree once more, studying the innumerable teeth marks, like so many tiny chisel cuts, on stump and butt. Then they noticed the great chips lying about the stump, some of them half as ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... you, wasn't I?" demanded Tony. "Only that fool Chris had to butt in. We got these here bags of doubloons, as I says, without havin' to dig for 'em—oncet we had found the cave, which it's no thanks to old Washtubs we ain't looking for it yet. We got these here bags right out of the fists of a skeleton. Most of him ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... still sitting; PARNELL predominant; issues getting a little mixed; understood that Session summoned to decide whether, in view of certain proceedings before Mr. Justice BUTT, PARNELL should be permitted to retain Leadership. Everything been discussed but that. Things got so muddled up, that O'KEEFE, walking about, bowed with anxious thought, not quite certain whether it is TIM HEALY, SEXTON, or JUSTIN McCARTHY, who was involved in recent Divorce suit. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... the load upon the head and, balancing it there, to walk away merrily under their burthen. And it is surprising how heavy a load they will thus carry. But they could not manage to take our tusks in that fashion. They carried them on their shoulders, four men to a tusk, three near to the thick or butt end, and one near the point. In this way we brought all our ivory to Behar, and the tusks were so perfect and exceptional in size that we could obtain almost any equivalent we pleased for them. And in fact of such marvellous ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... felled, and an oblong hole cut into it, just below the crown of leaves. This hole is eight inches deep, passing nearly through the trunk. It is about a foot long and four inches broad; and in this hollow the juice of the tree immediately begins to collect, scarcely any running out at the butt where it has been cut off. This tendency of the sap to ascend is well shown in another plant, the water liana. To get the water from this it must be cut first as high as one can reach; then about a foot from the ground, and out of a length of about seven feet, a pint of fine ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... him, even as he pushed his jacket back to reveal the butt of his own weapon. He made no attempt to ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the huge head swayed from side to side and mesmerised him with its uncanny power. The gun almost dropped from his nerveless fingers. But with a fierce effort he regained the mastery of himself, brought the butt to his ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... disgrace." His eyes filled with tears, but he wiped them away secretly so that his father should not see him cry. Stephen laughed harshly. He did not answer. He stooped forward, and his rugged brow looked as if he meant to butt into some obstacle; moreover he ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... indignantly forward, for the conversation was so loud that he had heard every word of it. "Flattered to be the butt for the insolence of puppyism and every fool who is coarse ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... he gave them pay, and at first he was very popular with them, but at last they condemned him to death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals who, having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only made him wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he could not have been a good statesman. The same tale might be repeated about ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... blanket from his shoulders, but he still had his pistol, and he kept one hand on the butt, resolved not to be taken. He heard the horsemen crashing here and there among the bushes and calling to one another. He knew that they pursued him so persistently because they believed him to be one who had spied upon their army and it would be of great value to them ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the captain; and almost instantly I was laid prostrate and senseless upon the floor, by a blow from the butt ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... partial tempest, for to the very base of the mountain the same effects were visible. The trees on its side were of a much grander character than those in the forest, and consisted principally of black-butt and bluegum eucalypti measuring from six to eight feet in diameter. The rock was syenite, so weathered as ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the foot which had prest down the Armatost, and lopt off the hands which had held the bow and fitted the quarrel, and plucked out the eyes which had taken the mark; and the living trunk was then set up as a butt for the archers. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... long the butt of unkindly satire, have at last come by their own. Miss Bertha Bowlong, who was governess to the KAISER in the late "sixties," is shortly about to publish her reminiscences of her now all-too-notorious pupil. Strange to say it never occurred to her to set ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... I shan't easily forget the time before, when Billy was born, and I was shut up for a solid three weeks with your mother! Heavens! going about with a face like a funeral! Looking at me as if I was a monster every time I took up my hat to go out! I should think Vera Butt was a comfort to me! It wasn't as if you had been really ill. You know you were always saying you wanted to get up and come downstairs to be with us, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... children, her friends, her servants, to everybody. From the lofty height of her genius she scorns every womanly duty, and she is always trying to make a man of herself after the fashion of Mlle. de L'Enclos. Outside her home she always makes herself ridiculous and she is very rightly a butt for criticism, as we always are when we try to escape from our own position into one for which we are unfitted. These highly talented women only get a hold over fools. We can always tell what artist ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... when there were some final difficulties between the King and his Liberal Ministers over the exact wording of the oath of allegiance. The excitable Neapolitan populace forthwith became unmanageable. The Swiss Guards, who had long been the butt of the people, put down the revolt without mercy. Once more King Ferdinand was master. He hastened to dismiss his Cabinet and dissolved the Parliament before it could come to order. Orders were sent to General Pepe, who had marched to the front ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... into operatic heroes. Nebuchadnezzar appeared on the stage at Hamburg in an opera of Keiser's in 1704; Ariosti put him through his bovine strides in Vienna in 1706. He was put into a ballet by a Portuguese composer and made the butt of a French opera bouffe writer, J. J. Debillement, in 1871. He recurs to my mind now in connection with a witty fling at "Nabucco" made by a French rhymester when Verdi's opera was produced at Paris in 1845. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a heap in the drawing-room of the furniture and books, to set first fire to; and are tearing up the floor for its more easily kindled planks, the less busily-disposed meanwhile hacking round in rage, with axes, and smashing what they can with butt-ends of guns. I do not care to follow with words the ghastly truth of the picture into its detail; but the most expressive incident of the whole, and the one immediately to my purpose, is this, that one fellow has sat himself ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... at this diversion, when the lover of Charlotta having his mind a little perplexed, placed his men so ill, that the chevalier beat him out at every motion. How is this, Horatio, cried he; you used to play better than I, butt now I have the advantage of you.—May you always have it, sir, replied he with the utmost respect, over all who pretend to oppose you.—Chess is a kind of emblem of war, where policy should go hand ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... declaration of war, the navy of the United States consisted of twenty vessels, of which the largest carried forty-four guns, and the majority rated under thirty. For years this navy had been a butt of ridicule for all the European naval powers. The frigate "Constitution" was scornfully termed by an English newspaper "a bunch of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting." Not long after ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Church, for all of them rest on the like untenable grounds. I did not wonder at finding the country abounding in unbelief. Now that the fires of the Inquisition have ceased to burn, the priesthood are made the butt and laughing-stock of those who are educated. Still, the national mind does not run toward the pure Gospel, which is here unknown and prohibited, but to infidelity and socialism. A sincere Protestant can have no sympathy ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... down on the edge of the mate's bunk, close against and facing the tiny table, he noticed the butt of a revolver just projecting from under the pillow. On the table, which hung on hinges from the for'ard bulkhead, were pen and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... bowmen of the Vine: there also were the wisest leaders, as the stark elder Stone- face, and the tall Hall-face, and his father of the unshaken heart, and above all Folk-might, fierce in his wrath, but his anger burning steady and clear, like the oaken butt on the hearth ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... seemed to have an intuitive perception that danger was approaching; for it turned abruptly round just as the missile left the seaman's hand, and received the butt with full force close to the root of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... had to fear from the Sedition Act, appeared with startling suddenness in October, 1798, when Representative Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, an eccentric character who had become the butt of all Federalists, was indicted for publishing a letter in which he maintained that under President Adams "every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." The unlucky ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... passed on to their several destinations. A Quaker, fixing his eyes on Mr. Patten, and seeing his black dress, remarked, "Friend, thou hast been the trumpeter of rebellion to those men,—thou must answer for them." The moralizer was touched by a grenadier with the butt end of his musket, so that the "spirit fell into the ditch." But the Quaker was not rebuffed. "Friend," he said to the soldier, "thou art, I fear, no true friend to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... produces a property lute. While they scrutinize it, a broad man with broad leathery clean-shaven face and small mouth, occupied by the butt end of a cigar, has come on to the stage from Stage Left, and stands ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... away, and shouting a command, started off through the jungle. Astro knew that the patrol had been ordered to move out, but he stood still, waiting for them to push him. They did. A hard jab in his naked side with the butt of a gun sent him stumbling forward in ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... 'that had not been to have acted Octavio to the life, but would have made a discovery.' 'Ah,' said she, 'that was your aim to have acted Octavio to the life, I believe, and not to discover my lady's constancy to your lord; but I suppose you have been sworn at the Butt of Heidleburgh, never to kiss the maid, when you can kiss the mistress.' But he renewing his caresses and asseverations of love to her, she suffered herself to be convinced of all he had a mind to have her believe. After this she could not contain any secret from ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... little Greener gun which he had used upon midwinter nights in a boat upon this very creek of the Salcombe estuary. He had brought down his first mallard with that, and he lifted it and slid his left hand along the under side of the barrel and felt the butt settle comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder. But his weapons began to talk over loudly in his ears, even as Ethne's violin, in the earlier days after Harry Feversham was gone and she was left alone, had spoken with too penetrating a note to her. As he handled the locks, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... military rank, "I fought under good King Henriot, and can play at sword and pistol as well as the worthy 'ligueurs';" and shaking his head he leaned against a post, his knotty staff between his crossed legs, his hands clasped on its thick butt-end, and his white, bearded chin resting on his hands. Then, half closing his eyes, he appeared lost in recollections of ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... camp-fire, and bargained. Because of fast traveling, the sick-train had no fresh meat; McTavish had no firearms. In ten minutes, a goodly supply of frozen rabbits had been packed on the north-bound train, and Donald once more caressed the butt of a revolver with one hand and the stock of a rifle with the other. He had promised to return them as soon as possible, along with the pocket compass that one man ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... stand erect, well balanced on the arches of the feet. The butt of the flag stick is held lightly in the right hand; the left hand steadies and directs the flag at a distance from six to twelve inches above the right on the stick. The length of the stick will determine the position of the left hand; ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. Where was I to begin? Maud stood ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... knowledges adjacent and confining. If therefore the true end of knowledge not propounded hath bred large error, the best and perfectest condition of the same end not perceived will cause some declination. For when the butt is set up men need not rove, but except the white be placed men cannot level. This perfection we mean not in the worth of the effect, but in the nature of the direction; for our purpose is not to stir up men's ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... or started to tell him, why, and was knocked flat in a second. He sprang up, knife in hand, and rushed upon him a second time, only to be floored again, and the knife sent spinning. Willett seized it, and was standing over him, panting a bit, when felled by a crashing blow with a pistol-butt at the base of the skull. Then in terror Case fled the way he came, for he saw both Indians and Mexicans were on him, realized that murder was meant, and knew he would be involved unless he could instantly get back to his bed. Willett made a desperate ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... but began to laugh softly, as though pleased at the curious turn which the conversation was taking; and Prasville felt a vague misgiving at observing that fit of merriment. He grasped the butt-end of his revolver and wondered whether he ought ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... roared and tumbled below. The eyes of Ohquamehud gleamed with ferocious satisfaction as he beheld his foe in his power. Thrice he raised the rifle to his shoulder, after carefully examining the priming, and as often let the butt slide gently to the ground, pausing a little while each time between, and never taking his eyes off the victim. This conduct might be mistaken for irresolution. Far from it. The fell purpose of the savage never burnt more intensely; his hatred was ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... follow his course, as he makes off as if for Berwick and the sea. Once or twice he leaps clean into the air, a flying bar of silver. Then he sulks at the bottom, a mere dead weight, attempting devices only to be conjectured. A common plan now is to tighten the line, and tap the butt end of the rod. This humane expedient produces effects not unlike neuralgia, it may be supposed, for the fish is off in a new fury. But rush after rush grows tamer, till he is drawn within reach of the gaff, and so on to the grassy bed, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... horses. The young man was waiting for him, and as soon as the Dragon had taken the Princess by the hand to carry her off he spread the salve upon his back, pressed him against the wall, and set his dogs upon him. At the same time he belaboured him with the butt-end of his musket, till the Dragon was quite exhausted and began to beg off, promising to give a written agreement never again to molest the Princess. When he had written the paper in his own blood and signed it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... through the head or heart lies as if he were in a deep slumber; insomuch that when you gaze upon him you experience little else than pity. But of these, many had met their deaths from bayonet wounds, sabre cuts, or heavy blows from the butt ends of muskets; and the consequence was, that not only were the wounds themselves exceedingly frightful, but the very countenances of the dead exhibited the most savage and ghastly expressions. Friends and foes lay together in small groups of four or six, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... it and removing the silk. Then blanch it for 3 to 5 minutes in boiling water and cold-dip it quickly. Cut the kernels half way down to the cob and scrape out what remains after cutting. For best results in this operation, hold the ear of corn so that the butt end is up; then cut from the tip toward the butt, but scrape from the butt toward the tip. Next, pack the jars tightly with the corn, pressing it into them with a wooden masher. Unless two persons can ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... moved softly around the corner of the table, and slowly tiptoed toward the door. Tierney had not heard a sound, yet he instantly became as alert as Morgan. He stood ready for a quick move, if necessary, while his right hand rested on the butt of the revolver in ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... to my recollection. The first moment at which I became definitely sure, Clara had been suffered to fall against the outside of my little tent, Northmour and I were tumbling together on the ground, and he, with contained ferocity, was striking for my head with the butt of his revolver. He had already twice wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the consequent loss of blood that I am tempted to attribute the sudden clearness of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I raked pine or spruce needles together for a bed, but in the winter I used green pine or spruce boughs, putting heavy, coarse ones on the bottom, planting their butt ends deeps in the snow. Upon these I placed smaller twigs, which gave "spring" to my couch, and finally I tufted it with the soft, tender tips of the branches. Never have I rested better on mahogany beds than I did ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... get far. Soldiers barred the great green folding-doors. Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came up. The butt-ends of a pair of pistols were seen peeping ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... latch creaked and snapped behind them and, slowly and cautiously, the wooden shutter began to open outward. In an instant Harvey had raised his rifle and struck the resounding board a fierce blow with the butt. The door flew back, crashing in violent contact against the grizzled pate of Moreno himself, who, with a howl of mingled rage and anguish, fell back ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... horror of a nightmare—what a haggard eye you would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder towards the house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had you found every fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you visited the hospital and seen the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable, but still breathing, still thinking, still remembering; you would have understood that life in the lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves of ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lambs, or sheep new shorn. I ask not ortolans, or Chian wine, The fat of rams, or quintessence of swine. Her spicy stores let either India keep, Nor El Dorado vend her golden sheep. And to the mansion house, or council hall, Still on her black splay feet may the huge tortoise crawl. Not Parson's butt my appetite can move, Nor, Bell, thy beer; nor even thy nectar, Jove. If B*** be happy, and in health, his guest, Whom wit and learning charm, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... hath his quiver full of them; and frankly gave her notice that, as his utmost efforts could scarcely maintain their existing family, if she ventured to present him with any more, either single, or twins, or triplets, or otherwise, he would most assuredly drown him, or her, or them in the water-butt, and take the consequences. ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... partook of the change, and I well recall how he came to me just before he landed, in a kind of grenadier uniform, with sword and musket and belts, drawing himself up very stiff and proud-looking as he let down the butt-end of his firelock with a ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... behind? What! have you lost your sense with your estate? Me!—look on me—come from the same condition! How sleek! how neat! how clad! in what good case! I've ev'ry thing, though nothing; naught possess, Yet naught I ever want."—"Ah, Sir, but I Have an unhappy temper, and can't bear To be the butt of others, or to take A beating now and then."—"How then! d'ye think Those are the means of thriving? No, my friend! Such formerly indeed might drive a trade: But mine's a new profession; I the first That ever struck into this road. There are ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... Junior, butt first," I said. I looked him in the eye with all the glare I had. He ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... said the Douglas. "I would sooner bare my breast, within flight shot, as a butt to an hundred Tynedale bowmen. No, by St. Bride of Douglas! I could but say I saw the ill fated youth dead. How he came by his death, your Grace can perhaps better explain. Were it not for the rebellion of March and the English war, I would speak my ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... all events imagine that he was the object of love. In the present piece accordingly he pays his court, as a favoured Knight, to two married ladies, who lay their heads together and agree to listen apparently to his addresses, for the sake of making him the butt of their just ridicule. The whole plan of the intrigue is therefore derived from the ordinary circle of Comedy, but yet richly and artificially interwoven with another love affair. The circumstance which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... on the last day of November, we met with an English ship, and because it was too late that night, it was agreed that they were to give us two or three tons of wine next morning, being, as they said, all the provision of drink they had, save only a butt or two which they must reserve for their own use: But, after all, we heard no more of them till they were set on ground on the coast of Ireland, where it appeared they might have spared us much more than they pretended, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... spur cruelly into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with difficulty ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Irish Party, is still a well-known figure in the world of politics; but my friend Mr. A. M. Sullivan, who died some years ago, belonged rather to the more moderate regime which prevailed in the Irish Party during the leadership of Mr. Butt. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... expect to meet with anything like "Aunt Sally" among May-day games, especially with the "May Lady" for butt! But not the least curious part of a very curious account of May-day in Huntingdonshire, which was sent to Notes and Queries some years ago, is the pelting of the May Lady as a final ceremony of the festival. The May-garlands carried round in Huntingdonshire villages appear ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the man never talks, when he can butt his ideas into you like that without ever saying a word. I suppose he uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife all the time. But I guess she has her innings." He chuckled, and Olaf looked up. "Never ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... one of those stupid crushes," he began, "where all the people outside are trying to butt their way in, and all those inside are wishing to heaven that they were well out again—like so many June bugs and millers on a summer night bumping against both sides of a window with a candle in it?" Hilbrough finished with a humorous little chuckle ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... nigger!" muttered my kinsman of Southern blood. "Impudent dog! I would like to crack his head with the butt of this musket! Hear how he wagged his ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... rude, these gay-spirited young people, but a girl who couldn't play Fox and Geese seemed to them a justifiable butt for ridicule. Determined to succeed, Delight ran from one to another, arriving just too late every time. The unfamiliar exercise wearied her, her cheeks glowed pink with mortification at her repeated failures, and her breath came quickly, but she ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... would have fought if they had seen us; for as soon as we came near enough to be seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded, though not dangerously. But our men gave them no time, but running up to them, fired among them three ways, and then fell in with the butt-ends of their muskets, their swords, armed staves, and hatchets, and laid about them so well that, in a word, they set up a dismal screaming and howling, flying to save their lives which way ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... copied the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat; even the awful heads of houses looked leniently on his delinquencies. The gay, hearty, handsome young English gentleman carried a charm about him that subdued everybody. Though I was his favourite butt, both at school and college, I never quarrelled with him in my life. I always let him ridicule my dress, manners, and habits in his own reckless, boisterous way, as if it had been a part of his birthright privilege to laugh at me ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... with an instinct that sleep could not deny, his left hand kept clasped around the butt of ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... were again sounded; and now it became evident that the leak was rapidly gaining. The general opinion of the men was that the labouring of the brig in the short sea had strained her so seriously as to open more or less all her seams, or that a butt had started. They pumped away for another hour; and then, feeling pretty well fagged out, and finding on trial that the leak gained upon them with increased rapidity, they left the pumps, and began to clear away the boats. The mate made a strong effort to persuade ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... a sinner," exclaimed Sir Everard, springing to his feet, and knocking the butt of his rifle on the ground with a movement of impatience. "Sambo, you young scoundrel, it was all your fault,—you moved your shoulder as I pulled the trigger. Thank Heaven, however, the aim of the Indian appears to have been no better, although ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... him and tried to engage him in talk. He was not asked to dinner again for six weeks; and Fiche, my lord's confidential man, to whom Wagg naturally paid a good deal of court, was instructed to tell him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing to Mrs. Crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes, Milor would put every one of his notes of hand into his lawyer's hands and sell him up without mercy. Wagg wept before Fiche and implored his dear friend to intercede for him. He wrote a poem in favour of Mrs. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... meaning, apparent only to Galloway folk of the ancient time, in the word "cuif." It conveys at once the ideas of inefficiency and folly, of simplicity and the ignorance of it. The cuif is a feckless person of the male sex, who is a recognized butt for a whole neighbourhood to sharpen its ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,(5) shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. You will not be the butt of the villainous Pauson's(6) jeers, nor of Lysistratus,(7) the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... St. Ronan's Well were renowned of old, and are still credited. The lunatic walks round the Temple of St. Molonah, whose ruin near the Butt of Lewis remains. He is sprinkled with water from the well, is bound, and placed on the site of the altar for the night. A cure is expected, if he sleep; if not, the fates are considered adverse, and he returns home. My authority, Dr. ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... the blade loose. Only just in time, for a burly man in a fez was swinging at his head with a rifle butt. Ken ducked under his arm, turned smartly and bayoneted him ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... and he arranges his defences, not forgetting to lay in a large stock of water. The savages return in force, and then—this is most important—at the most thirsty moment of the siege it is discovered that the water is all gone! Generally a stray arrow has pierced the water-butt, but in Masterman Ready the insufferable Tommy has played the fool with it. (He would.) This is the Hero's great opportunity. He ventures to the spring to get more water, and returns with it—wounded. Barely have the castaways wetted their lips with the precious fluid when the attack ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... means of taking the trout were very primitive. They had neither hooks nor lines, but depended entirely on a contrivance made from long, slender branches of willow, which grew on the banks of most of the streams. One of these branches would be cut, and after sharpening the butt-end to a point, split a certain distance, and by a wedge the prongs divided sufficiently to admit a fish between. The Indian fisherman would then slyly put the forked end in the water over his intended victim, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... beside some alder bushes, and smoking his pipe. "You don't mean that the angler is there," exclaimed I. "Yes, I do though," replied mine host, "and see, he has just got a bite." Sure enough the sedentary sportsman put forth one of his hands just as these words were uttered, and grasping the butt of a willow wand, seemed to give it a slight hitch in the air; but no results followed. It was quietly laid aside again, and the ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... vnto you; for in this wind, neither can Reare-admirall Kempthorne come to you, nor you beginne your voyage. I am glad you like Lucan so well. I wish more military men could read him; in this passage you mention, there are noble straynes; and such as may well affect generous minds. Butt I hope you are more taken with the verses then the subject, and rather embrace the expression then the example. And this I the rather hint unto you, because the like, though in another waye, is sometimes practised in the king's shipps, when, in desperate cases, they blowe up the same. For though ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... and etc. He had a better memory than a loan shark, and a encyclopedia would look stupid alongside of him. No matter what the subject was, this guy knowed more about it than the bird which wrote it and would butt in with the figures to prove it. Fin'ly, when I struck a match and he tells me they is 9,765,543 of them used in New York every fiscal year, I went out ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... hours, from playing him all kind of little pranks. Petrea was especially rich in such inventions; and he was too kind, too much delighted with their pleasure, not willingly to assist, or even at times allow himself to be the butt of their jokes. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... rough Northumberland, I dare your quenchless fury to more rage. I am your butt, and I ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... is of oak or other hard wood. Fig. 1 represents it opened for use; in Fig. 2 it is closed for transportation. A is a stout canvas, forming the back and seat; b, b, b are iron butt-hinges; c, c are leather straps, one inch and a quarter wide, forming the arms; d is an iron rod, with nut ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... answered smilingly; "a sore chest he may have tomorrow, but dead he is not, for I turned the lance-point back as I spun it, and it was the butt-end I threw at him!" ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... down on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... about to locate it. It was hanging on a nail at the opposite end of the table,—and Joe stood just beside it. She had no desire to waken his suspicions of her fear. She knew she must put up a bold front, at least. Nevertheless her fingers longed for the comforting feel of its butt. She resolved to watch for ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... decidedly tiresome very butt Solomon infection bluff Czar short although Caesarism ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... position, and standing before a glass, he endeavoured, the pistol in his right hand, to bring the muzzle to bear on his left temple. He found this impossible, and signified his annoyance with a grunt. Then he tried the pistol with his thumb on the trigger and his hand clasping the back of the butt. Here he was ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... carry, and betook themselves home to their old father. When he saw again his twelve sons, whom he had never expected to see more, he was so glad that he wept for joy. The brothers told him how much Esben had done, and how he had saved their lives, and from that time forward he was no longer the butt ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Butt-in!" said he, "I ain't through wid you—not by a whole lot I ain't. Oh, I'll get ye yet, an' I'll get ye good! There won't be nothin' left for nobody else when I'm through wid you. Savvy this—there ain't nobody ever goin' t' queer me with Hermy Chesterton. Oh, I'll get ye ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... chap. You've got over it, as I always told her you would. Young men out of story-books don't die of broken hearts, even if for a month or two they do feel like standing on their head in the water-butt." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... mighty and powerful, had never to do with me. As to the other, I know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel it; the shepherd Cratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he-goat, out of jealousy, came, as he lay asleep, to butt the head of the female, and crushed it. We have raised this fever to a greater excess by the examples of some barbarous nations; the best disciplined have been touched with it, and 'tis reason, but ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... drink, was at the kitchen door fumbling at the butt of his pistol, while his sister had Doctor Jim's gun levelled at ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... life! The fiery old governor strode up and down the chamber with a vehemence that made the bosoms of his councillors to quake with awe; railing at his unlucky fate, that thus made him the constant butt of factious subjects and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... miscreant was, and he determined to chance it. He silently clubbed his Winchester, brought it back over his left shoulder, and, concentrating his utmost strength in his arms, brought down the butt of ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... serpent stung him, and the poison-tree dropped upon this little western flower: when the mercenary servile crew approached him, he had no pedigree to show them, no rent-roll to hold out in reversion for their praise: he was not in any great man's train, nor the butt and puppet of a lord—he could only offer them 'the fairest flowers of the season, carnations and streaked gilliflowers,'—'rue for remembrance and pansies for thoughts,'—they recked not of his gift, but tore him with hideous ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... beyond that natural to a starless night. In the southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush, "butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... so squeamish these days," he drawled, with a slow smile. "He sartin desarved it in the throat. That Pole 'n' me's goin' to butt agin each other some more. I never was wuth shucks when it comes to justice . . . an' I allus suffer fer it after. Look at Bilsy, an' Dutch Henry, an' a ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... unpleasantly modulated voice asks us to say our prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on. I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers. Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols. Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... men here," said Ambrose. "Do what you're told without asking questions. If you make a racket you'll be cracked over the head with the butt of a gun." ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... when he was in full kick, he balanced himself with difficulty, and sent it at the lock with all the force of his arm, and of course broke the door in. In throwing the stone, he lost his balance, came full butt against Dr. Mulhaus, propelled him into the passage, into the arms of the surgeon, who was rushing out infuriated to defend his property, and down went the three in the passage together, the two doctors beneath, and the drunken sawyer on ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... a butterfly net in two sections and the deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was slung from ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... accompanied by heavy skirmishing; and the action began to be general all along the lines. The American army was disposed in three lines of battle; the first extended in front of their earthworks on Butt's Hill, the second in rear of the hill, and the third as reserve a half-mile in the rear of the advance line. At ten o'clock the battle was at white heat. The British vessels kept up a fire that greatly annoyed the Americans, but imparted courage to the Hessians and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... to a lively repast, and Lorraine found herself, instead of an awe-inspiring, distinguished guest, treated with a frank camaraderie that was both amusing and refreshing. They all made a butt of Hal, who was quite equal to the three of them; and when the giant paraphrased one of her (Lorraine's) most tragic utterances on the stage into a serio-comic dissertation on a fruit salad they were eating, lacking in wine, she laughed as gaily as any, and ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... If they were pitted against each other, my bet would be laid on the tiger, though my sympathy might be with the lady. I am not a prophet. I cannot tell you the end of the story. Maybe the fool moose-calf will butt its brains out against the trunk of the tree. That would be no fault of the tree. The tree was there first, and was minding its own business. Maybe the calf will butt and get hurt, and scamper for home. Maybe it ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... "Hey, douse that butt! Can't you ... oh, Mac!" The commanding voice trailed off in a chuckle. Better to clown his way through the inspection, MacNamara thought, than to let Ruiz notice his nervousness. The co-pilot, Ruiz, walked toward ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... stories in height, the first house of more than one story standing on the shores of the southern Ohio. Its roof was the wonder and envy of the whole region for many years. The shingles were of black walnut, elegantly rounded at the butt-ends. They were fastened on with solid walnut pegs driven in holes bored through both the shingles and the laths with a brace and a bit. For there was not a nail in Cedar House from its firm foundation to its fine ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... followed, and then in uncontrolled rage Werner and Glutts attacked Jack and Gif. Half a dozen blows were exchanged, and then Glutts attempted to run away while Werner attempted to use the butt of his gun as a club. Andy tripped Glutts up, and Spouter caught Werner from behind, and as a consequence of the general mix-up the two bullies received a well-deserved drubbing. Then their weapons were discharged and their ammunition was taken ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... mine.' 'Where did you get it?' I asked. 'In San Jacinto,' was his reply. As he still came towards me, brandishing the knife, I drew my gun, and said, 'Stop, or I'll shoot!' He did not stop, and I fired; still he did not stop, so I fired again; and as he did not fall, I knocked him down with the butt of my gun. After he was down, I shot him twice with ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a gap in the fence about the PADI field. It consists of a bamboo spear of which the end is sharpened and hardened in the fire. This is laid horizontally about two feet from the ground, resting on guides. Its butt end is lashed to one end of a springy green pole at right angles to its length; the pole is laid horizontally, one end of it being firmly fixed to a tree, and the other (that carrying the spear) bent forcibly backwards ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... with some curious results. One of the favourite objects of ridicule of the past essayists was the virtuoso. There was something to them inexpressibly absurd in a passion for buying odds and ends. Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay made a special butt of Dr. Woodward, possessor of a famous ancient shield and other antiquities. Equally absurd, they thought, was his passion for fossils. He made one of the first collections of such objects, saw that they really had a scientific interest, and founded at Cambridge the ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... he would speak to his mother and make it easy for me, and Ply says he really meant it; but I thought then that's the way the bad ones always get the others into concealments and lies. So I wouldn't listen a moment, and I ran down, with him after me, saying, 'Hear reason, Mysie.' And I ran full butt up against some-body—Lord Ormersfield it was, I found—but I didn't know then. I only said something about begging pardon, and dashed on, and opened the door. I saw a whole lot of fine people all at five-o'clock tea, but I couldn't stop to ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his mouth with the butt end of her willow riding-switch, to find out what he had in his cheek-pouches. An onion and a few marrowfat peas rolled out, and the little girl, kneeling ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... not keep you. Do I need any proof of your cleverness? Keep for me the flowers of your wit. Show to others no fine surface to call forth flattery, compliments, or praise. Come to me, laden with hatred or scorn, the butt of calumny, come to me with the news that women flout you and ignore you, and not one loves you; then, ah! then you will know the treasures of ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... subordinate, had been increased, it took so rude a form that the ludicrous was not always easily distinguished from the humorous. The Fool was a strange mixture of both, varying from a mere idiot and butt to a man of genius, far superior to his masters. He made shrewd remarks, and performed senseless antics, the city fool, on Lord Mayor's day, was to jump clothes and all into a large bowl of custard. To a certain extent he generally corresponded with his name in ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... brought him down, a tumbling flurry of wings, like Satan's fall from Heaven. When I ran out to possess myself of his Satanic body he was only wounded, however, and was ready to show fight. Then I saw red again. I clubbed him with the gun-butt, going at him like fury. I was moist with perspiration when I got through with him. He was a monster. I nailed him with his wings out, on the bunk-house wall, and Olie shouted and called Dinky-Dunk when they came back from rounding up the horses, which had got away on the range. ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... he—the last-comer. And once more Fred suffered all the pangs of jealousy. It seemed to him that in his loneliness, between sky and sea, those pangs were more acute than he had ever known them. His comrades teased him about his melancholy looks, and made him the butt of all their jokes in the cockpit. He resolved, however, to get over it, and at the next port they put into, Jacqueline's letter was the cause of his entering for the first time some discreditable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to you, but it is to me, if you don't mind," he persisted. "I—I made sure you'd know why I didn't—send you any word or—or anything. But if you didn't see it the right way, I've got to tell you now. It was because—of course, it was because—I just didn't dare butt in. I was afraid you'd feel, if I had the cheek to write a note, or follow up and speak to you in the hotel, that I was—kind of takin' advantage of what was an accident—my luck in gettin' a chance to do a little thing for you. A mighty small thing; 'twouldn't have been visible ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the mess-room shortly after daybreak on a bright June morning with that imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... succeeded Davenant as Poet Laureate,[10] and Howell as Historiographer, with a yearly salary of two hundred pounds. This place he lost at the Revolution, and had the mortification to see his old enemy and butt, Shadwell, promoted to it, as the best poet the Whig party could muster. If William was obliged to read the verses of his official minstrel, Dryden was more than avenged. From 1688 to his death, twelve ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... hanging on by the rigging, their butt ends every now and then striking against her with so terrific a force that I feared they must before long drive a hole through the planking. As far as I could make out through the thick gloom, some ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... in the nicest point,—his self-love. Besides irritating vanity, a constant flow of wit is excessively fatiguing to the listeners. A witty man is an agreeable acquaintance, but a tiresome friend. "The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company," says Mrs. Montagu, "is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... as my head in places and very heavy. It was what we call "blue-joint," mixed with a large coarse grass that grew three square at the butt. I got to the scythes where they had been mowing, told father I could mow that grass, took his scythe, cut a few clips and bent the blade very badly. (He often told afterwards, how much stronger I was than he, said he could mow the stoutest ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... his social position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of some of his associates; while others more polished, though equally perfidious, are on the watch to give currency to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... everyone else had become tired of them. She did not expect gratitude, nor did she get it. In spite of her dependence, Louie managed to convey the impression of Henrietta's inferiority, and the children spoke of her as a butt. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... are generally used, and should be from the tips of the branches where the wood is not too large. Commence at the back part of the shelter, and lay down a row of the boughs with the butt of the branch towards the front. Overlap these with another nearer row and continue the operation, laying the evergreen as evenly as possible until the whole interior is smoothly covered. The projecting ends at the front, should now be secured by the weight of a medium sized log, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... let go his sheet and began to paddle back. This bolsa was nothing but a bundle of tule, or bullrush, bound together with grass-ropes in the shape of a cigar, about ten feet long and about two feet through the butt. With these the California Indiana cross streams of considerable size. When he came ashore, I gave him a good overhauling for attempting to desert, and put him to work getting breakfast. In due time we returned him to his ship, the Ohio. Subsequently, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... perfectly, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs forever.... But after all what can I do if a poor Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them. I can't refuse; butt when they are well, and able to employ a Lawyer, I ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... party, Michael Dennin, contributed his Irish wit to the gayety of the cabin. He was a large, powerful man, prone to sudden rushes of anger over little things, and of unfailing good-humor under the stress and strain of big things. The fifth and last member, Dutchy, was the willing butt of the party. He even went out of his way to raise a laugh at his own expense in order to keep things cheerful. His deliberate aim in life seemed to be that of a maker of laughter. No serious quarrel had ever vexed the serenity of the party; and, now that each had sixteen hundred dollars to show ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the voice they had just heard did not belong to the man for whom they were looking the rioters remained silent with surprise, and during this short interval Sam brought the butt of his gun to the floor with unnecessary force in order that there might be no question ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... and no sooner did I cry to God, but the child gave over weeping, and when we got up from prayer, the rain was pouring down on every side, but in the way where we were to go there fell not one drop; the place not rained on was as big as an ordinary avenue." And so great a saint was the natural butt of Satan's persecutions. "I retired to the fields for secret prayer about midnight. When I went to pray I was much straitened, and could not get one request, but 'Lord pity,' 'Lord help'; this I came over frequently; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... powerful glare was truly awful. Our people told us, that these formidable animals frequently upset canoes in the river, when every one in them was sure to perish. These came so close to us, that we could reach them with the butt-end of a gun. When I fired at the first, which I must have hit, every one of them came to the surface of the water, and pursued us so fast over to the north bank, that it was with the greatest difficulty imaginable we could keep before them. Having fired a second time, the report ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... go up to the hill cafay when our daily hike was done, And sip his beer, and chin with the lads, the crabby son-of-a-gun; He'd growl if you asked him to hold the light, he'd snarl if you asked for a butt, Till at last the gang was 'most ready to put Jim down for ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... he called me up to whip me; called me into his dining-room, locked the doors, then ordered me to pull off my shirt. I told him no, sir, I wouldn't; right away he went and got the cowhide, and gave me about twenty over my head with the butt. He tore my shirt off, after I would not pull it off; he ordered me to cross my hands. I didn't do that. After I wouldn't do that he went and got his gun. and broke the breech of that over my head. He then seized up the fire-tongs and struck me over the head ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... martyr is evident from the words of Pitt himself. In one of his speeches, having accused his rival of filling his speech with everything that was personal, inflammatory, and invidious, he remarked:—"I am not surprised if he should pretend to be the butt of ministerial persecution; and if, by striving to excite the public compassion, he should seek to reinstate himself in that popularity which he once enjoyed, but which he so unhappily has forfeited. For it is the best and most ordinary resource of these political apostates ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... threw a stone at the Established Church, let him die the death. Christianity must be steadily, even ferociously supported; in the policing of an unruly world it was indispensable. But the perennial butt of the paper was the fool who "went about doing good." The young men who lived in "settlements," for instance, and gave University Extension Lectures—the paper pursued all such with a hungry malice, only less biting than that wherewith day ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the chest, and then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and moves on. That roused the mule properly. He closed his eyes and laid into the tank for dear life; you could hear it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... The Mayor looked blue; So did the Corporation too. For council dinners made rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gipsy coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... Rowe the credit of having altered "butt" to boat, and "have quit it" to had quit it, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... lives, apparently, that a poor man on foot might not be able to talk German, which seemed to me an astonishing thing; and as I sat there ordering beer for myself and for a number of peasants (who but for this would have me their butt, and even as it was found something monstrous in me), I pondered during my continual attempts to converse with them (for I had picked up some ten words of their language) upon the folly of those who imagine the world to be grown smaller ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... sharpening the weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately, but "that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, "never ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the butt about mine ears if ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to think of me as a friend, Miss Ross. I can see you are thoroughly capable and independent; but, believe me, India is not like England, and a white woman needs a good many things done for her here if she's to be at all comfortable. I don't want to butt in and be a nuisance; but just remember I'm ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... his cool mien, his satire, were as giant's arms to drag Belllounds back from murder. The rifle was raised, the hammer reset, the butt lowered to the ground, while Belllounds, snarling ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... threatened them with a stick. The Town Councillors did not interfere, and the rabble passed bawling by the Pack-horse. Long before it came the Emigrant had recognised the ungainly man. It was Dicky Loony, the town butt. He had chivvied the imbecile a hundred times in just the same fashion, yelling "Black Cat!" after him as these young imps were yelling—though why "Black Cat" neither he nor the imps could have ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... over an undulating country of varied character, now extending in fine downs and plains, now covered with belts of thick Bricklow scrub, with occasional ridges of open silver-leaved Ironbark forest. Among the latter was a rather stunted gum-tree, with a black scaly butt; it was very frequent, and greatly resembled the Moreton Bay ash. The numerous watercourses which I crossed, were all dry; and, when the approach of night compelled us to select a camping place, which we did in a small ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... "Miss Hack-butt," he said, slowly. "I saw her the other day, and what he can see ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... youngster was a morbid sensitiveness in respect of anything like chaff. This was so marked that the least attempt at teasing was enough to send me away in a state of misery. My mates knew this, and accordingly often made me the butt of their cheap witticisms. When I spoke of the burrow and the resemblance of the gravel at its mouth to the diamondiferous soil in which we were working, this was made a pretext ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... have just one chance at them, that's all," grumbled Bob, as he let his hand fondle the butt of a modern repeating rifle, which he carried fastened to ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... vigorously against the proposal, on the ground that, if it were adopted, her name would sound just like Butt, which was already that of a contralto ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... attention to the felled tree once more, studying the innumerable teeth marks, like so many tiny chisel cuts, on stump and butt. Then they noticed the great chips lying about the stump, some of them half as big as ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... bounded gallantly over the sea, leaving in her wake a long silvery train of phosphoric light. Drawing no response from Mr. Higgins, the captain raised his night-glass and scanned along the heavens to the west. "We'll get somethin' out o' that quarter, butt end foremost," said the ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... dramatic piece attributed to Mr. Beddoes, and partaking largely of his well-known eccentricity and genius, called Death's Jest-Book or the Fool's Tragedy. A republication of Mr. Cottle's twenty-four books of Alfred, though the old pleasant butt and "jest-book" of his ancient friend Charles Lamb, is said hardly to deserve even so many words of mention. Nor is there much novelty in A Selection from the Poems and Dramatic Works of Theodore Korner, though the translation is a new one, and by the clever translator of the Nibelungen. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... couldn't get it out of him again, though I told him my distress about the stage-coachman? Did you ever know any thing so selfish? Did you ever know any thing so shabby, so shameful? And then to make me his butt, as he did last night at supper, because there were two or three dashing young men by; I think more of that than all the rest. Do you know, he asked me to eat custard with my apple-pie, just to point me out for an alderman's son; and when I only differed ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... universities that history, law, and usage with them form such a manifold, diversified, and complex mass, that it is not one subject but a world of subjects that we have to deal with in approaching them.' And he pointed out that if any clever lawyer such as Butt or Cairns were employed to oppose the bill systematically, debate would run to such lengths as to make it hopeless. This was a point of view that Mr. Gladstone's more exacting and abstract critics now, and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... to a triangular indentation, which, with footmarks, was imprinted in the soft yellow sand at the foot of a small boulder; and taking the butt of his Winchester rifle, fitted it ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone—oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss—I find him away, and when he gets back, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... overnight. He's hopping mad right now, because he can't say a word in his own defense, but if he doesn't make hell look like a summer holiday for Mr. Bill Peck, I'm due to be mercifully chloroformed. Good Lord, how empty life would be if I couldn't butt in and raise a little riot ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round—for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder—struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained the trees, and, pausing ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... impression was of a red, clawing hand that was closed around the thick butt of a tube of steel ... then down, and still down, he plunged into a bottomless pit of whirling, red ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... under censure by venturing, without his wife's authority, to lean forward and tap on the door-frame with the butt of his whip. At the sound, a shrill voice called instantly from the region of the stove pipe, "Clem! Clementina? Go to the front dooa! The'e's somebody knockin'." The sound of feet, soft and quick, made itself heard within, and in a few moments ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "They wouldn't be but two. 'T wouldn't take my team more 'n half a minute to butt the life out o' ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... confess what I'm doing. You may call me a baby, a fool, a crank or whatever you like,—I don't care. I've just got to see her, and this is the only way. Do you think I'd spoil things for her, now that she's made good? Think I'd butt in and queer it all? I'm no good, I'm a rotter, and I'm going to the devil as fast as I know how, Simmy. That's my affair, too. But I'm not mean enough to begrudge her the happiness she's found in spite of all us damned Tresslyns. Now, run along, Simmy, and don't worry about anything happening to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the presence of the men until they were directly behind him. Then he turned, only to be met with a blow on the head with the butt of a pistol, and he sank to ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... greater range of artillery, and sheltered position in the hills, and they pressed with increased courage to the attack. The Germans did not await them quietly but threw themselves on them, so that in many cases it came to a hand-to-hand fight, and serious work was done with bayonets and the butt-ends of rifles. At length the French began to retreat, and the Germans with loud "Hurrahs!" flung themselves after them. But the pursuit was soon abandoned, as they had to withdraw under the fire from the Talant and Fontaine positions, and then, after a short rest, the French again ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... you know. Dad won't say a word, and Sandy makes wise remarks about girls who try to butt into men's affairs. I'm left out, and it's the first time that has ever happened to me. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... of them. On the road home they stood up on the wagon seats and shouted at the stars. Sometimes they fought long and bitterly and at other times they broke forth into songs. Once Enoch Bentley, the older one of the boys, struck his father, old Tom Bentley, with the butt of a teamster's whip, and the old man seemed likely to die. For days Enoch lay hid in the straw in the loft of the stable ready to flee if the result of his momentary passion turned out to be murder. He was kept alive with food brought by his mother, who also kept him informed ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... moment there was a crash of rifle shots, and the men around him fell by scores. It seemed almost miraculous that he himself was untouched, but, before he had time to say another word, a huge German struck him with the butt-end at his revolver, and he felt himself ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It would have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both, had been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of his own merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would—being a brute only in the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... this petition the more readily that his Emir, he could see, regarded the most exquisite of dragomans simply as a standing joke. They laughed together at his superstition and his boastfulness. But their butt was really serviceable in small ways, knowing where to hire good horses at the lowest price, and pointing out in the course of their rides objects of interest of the very existence of which Iskender had ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... desiring to think well and wisely about a poker will begin somewhat as follows: Among the live creatures that crawl about this star the queerest is the thing called Man. This plucked and plumeless bird, comic and forlorn, is the butt of all the philosophies. He is the only naked animal; and this quality, once, it is said, his glory, is now his shame. He has to go outside himself for everything that he wants. He might almost be considered as an absent-minded person who had gone bathing and ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... balls, and both taking effect, crippled his arm a good deal. Two savages immediately ran towards him; and he, towards the door; and just as he was in the act of entering it, one of them had approached so closely as to strike at him with the butt end of his gun. The breech came first in contact with the facing of the door, and descending on his head, seemed to throw him forward into the house, and his wife closing the door, no attempt was made by the savages to force it open. Still, however, they did not feel secure; and as soon as they ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... at the rear end of the hall was fastened. The Spider broke the glass just below the catch with the butt of his gun. He raised the window and slid into ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... table-waiter, pet, butt for his jests, tool, man of all occasions. He considered himself a part of Mr. Belcher's personal property. To be the object of his clumsy badinage, when visitors were present and his master was particularly amiable, was equivalent ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... But by this I had leapt to my feet; and it was time, for he was almost on me. Spear had I none; so I dragged out the standard shaft from the ground where I had struck it, and levelled that sharp butt end full at his chest. Overhead was his axe again, and I had no shield to stop the blow; but I must leap ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Win coolly. "I believe it was an English admiral who backed Dewey up at Manila when the Germans tried to butt in. After that battle somebody wrote a poem about it and wrote the truth, too. This is what ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... their top limbs at a much earlier period in a similar manner. Neither had this been but a partial tempest, for to the very base of the mountain the same effects were visible. The trees on its side were of a much grander character than those in the forest, and consisted principally of black-butt and bluegum eucalypti measuring from six to eight feet in diameter. The rock was syenite, so ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the manner in which he distributed his patronage. In short, they were discontented with the share they received of the loaves and fishes, and thus the target of their adulation during the summer of hope, became the butt for their abuse in the winter ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... my fault, Judge," the boy piped, sniffling. "Honest to Gawd it wasn't! That sour-headed bay stud of Henderson's swung his ugly butt under the mare's nose, 'n' just as I'm takin' back so the dog won't kick a leg off her, that mutt of ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... shirt with a flowing black tie, and a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. His belt, under the unbuttoned coat, was of elaborately stamped leather, with a pocket at one side from which a heavy, gold watch chain was looped to a silver ring, and with an ornate holster at the other where the black butt of a revolver was ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... the cartridges in the chambers of the revolvers, the shining brass gleaming beside the dull steel. He gripped the pistols by the barrel, and held out the butt-ends to the sergeant-major. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... wouldn't butt in on the young ladies' day together," returned John. Benny's recital had touched him, but he could not forbear a smile at the youngster's courage of conviction. "I tell you, I'm the aggrieved party in ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... her refusal, a chance of sneering at him—certainly a ground for thinking less of his standing than before—he went home to the Old House, and walked indecisively up and down his back-yard. Turning aside, he leant his arms upon the edge of the rain-water-butt standing in the corner, and looked into it. The reflection from the smooth stagnant surface tinged his face with the greenish shades of Correggio's nudes. Staves of sunlight slanted down through the still pool, lighting it up with wonderful distinctness. Hundreds ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... In large part the rationalists were willing to leave the question of religion on one side if the ecclesiastics would let them alone. This is true in spite of the fact that the pot-house rationalism of Germany and France in the eighteenth century found the main butt of its ridicule in the priesthood and the Church. On its sober side, in the studies of scholars, in the bureaux of statesmen, in the laboratories of discoverers, it found more solid work. It accomplished results which ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... pervades its pages. Its sixteen volumes are so many tickets of admission to the vast and devious vaults of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through which we wander, tasting a thimbleful of rich Canary, honeyed Cyprus, or subacidulous Hock, from what dusty butt or keg our fancy chooses. The years during which this Review was published were altogether the most fruitful in genuine appreciation of old English literature. Books were prized for their imaginative, and not their antiquarian value, by young writers who sat at the feet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... arms round each of the household when he was "boun," and every one of them went out of doors with him; he leans on the butt of his spear and leaps into the saddle, and ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... once that the voice they had just heard did not belong to the man for whom they were looking the rioters remained silent with surprise, and during this short interval Sam brought the butt of his gun to the floor with unnecessary force in order that there might be no question about his ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... engineers for the transcontinental Siberian railway. When you take "The Flying Scotchman" from London to Edinburgh you ride in a Pullman car, with all the appurtenances, even to a Gould coupler, a Westinghouse air-brake, and a dusky George from North Carolina, who will hit you three times with the butt of a brush-broom and expect a bob as recompense. You feel ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... and took an interest in many of the people in his own country his delight was unbounded. The height of his ambition seemed to be to have "tin min undher him," and his greatest trial was "huntin' thim tarmints of cows." He was the butt of all the jokes and tricks in the camps round, yet he took everything good-naturedly; "the boys must have their laugh sometimes," being his only comment. He said he was only thirty-seven, but, according to his own ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Joy, perhaps because she flushed so prettily as her slight anger rose. But whatever the reason she was always the butt for their good natured teasing. And no matter how much she resented it, she turned it off with a joke. Yet it could be seen that she always turned to Shirley Williams, who ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... Silence. It seems difficult at first to fall lower than the squire; but this fool, great as he is, finds an admirer and humble foil in his cousin Silence. Vain of his acquaintance with Sir John, who makes a butt of him, he exclaims, 'Would, cousin Silence, that thou had'st seen that which this knight and I have seen!'—'Aye, Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight,' says Sir John. To Falstaff's observation, 'I did ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... demanded, in a voice almost inarticulate with fury, his hand resting meanwhile upon the butt of a pistol that was stuck in ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... No doubt it was he—the last-comer. And once more Fred suffered all the pangs of jealousy. It seemed to him that in his loneliness, between sky and sea, those pangs were more acute than he had ever known them. His comrades teased him about his melancholy looks, and made him the butt of all their jokes in the cockpit. He resolved, however, to get over it, and at the next port they put into, Jacqueline's letter was the cause of his entering for the first time ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... with such articles as were voted too shabby for the family wear. All work which was dirty or disagreeable, fell to Agnes as a matter of course. The widow's two daughters, Joan and Dorothy, respectively made her the vent for ill-temper, and the butt for sarcasm; and if, in some rare moment of munificence, either of them bestowed on her a specked apple, or a faded ribbon, the most abject gratitude was expected in return. She was practically a bond slave; for except by running away, there was no chance ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... labour without fail. His steed paced the lanes of the slums and the weed-grown enclosures within the old ramparts, between the black, lightless cluster of huts, like cow-byres, like dog-kennels. The horseman hammered with the butt of a heavy revolver at the doors of low pulperias, of obscene lean-to sheds sloping against the tumble-down piece of a noble wall, at the wooden sides of dwellings so flimsy that the sound of snores and sleepy mutters within could be heard in the pauses of the thundering clatter of his ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... how to fight against thee "with the sword of his mouth," and to make thee a butt for his arrows; and this is a dispensation most dreadful (Rev 2:16; Job 6:4; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... seek, ye rebel knaves—what make you there beneath?' 'The bays, the bays! we want the bays! we seek the laureate wreath! We seek the butt of generous wine that cheers the sons of song; Choose thou among us all, Sir ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... counsellors as to the proportions of ingredients and the process of mixing may be productive of the reverse of safety. But somehow a man with a specialty is always forthcoming, and that specialty is pudding-making. Most likely he has been the butt of the room—a quiet, quaint, retiring, awkward fellow who seemed as if he never could do anything right. But he has lit upon his vocation at last—he is a born pudding-maker. He rises with the occasion, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... cold and prostrated with the heat, she had been blown about by Chicago wind until it was strange there was any of her left in one piece, she had had front doors—yes, and back doors too, slammed in her face, she had been the butt of the alleged wit of menials and hirelings, she had been patronised by vapid women as the poor girl who must make her living some way, she had been roasted by—but never mind—she had had a beat or two! And now ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... I will not endure this! Why are you always making me your butt,—insulting me, sir, even in your father's house? You do not understand me; and I do not care to understand you. If my presence is disagreeable to you, I can easily relieve you of it!" and the dark youth turned to go away like ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... I've no right to butt in like this," she said, as if recalled to herself. "I beg pardon of both of you. Good-by," and she ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... condemned to the galleys. Nevertheless, much censure fell to the share of the queen. It was the beginning of the end of her reign as a favorite whose faults could be condoned. She was beginning to reap the fruits of her former dissipations. In about 1787, when she least deserved it, she became the butt of calumny, intrigues, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... took him into the mouth of a little gorge, and, as he bent down to seize the end of a big stick, he heard just ahead a rustling that caused him with instinctive caution to straighten up and spring back, his hand, at the same time, flying to the butt of the pistol in his belt. A figure, tall and menacing, emerged from the darkness, and he ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on the benignant scheme of social nature, like the other instincts that rule the animal creation. But of all the most numerous are the men, who have ever more their own dearliest beloved self, as the only or main goal or butt of their endeavours straight and steady before their eyes, and whose whole inner world turns on the great axis of self-interest. These form the majority, if not of mankind, yet of those by whom the business of life is carried ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... all in all, anger was coming to be the one constant quantity in the procession of varying emotions. By what right did this hollow, insincere, mocking world, of whose very existence he had been in utter ignorance, make him a butt for its well-bred sneers? Its fashions and fripperies and meaningless forms were not beyond learning; and, by Heaven! he would learn them, too, and put them all to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... daughter has been engaged to Mr. Preston for some time— years, I believe,—and has at last chosen to break it off,—and has used the Gibson girl—I forget her name,—as a cat's-paw, and made both her and herself the town's talk—the butt for all the gossip of Hollingford? I remember when I was young there was a girl called Jilting Jessy. You'll have to watch over your young lady, or she will get some such name. I speak to you like a friend, Clare, when I tell you it's my opinion that girl of yours will get herself into some ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Corentin and spoke to him in a low voice: "I know these premises well," he said; "I have searched everywhere; unless those young fellows are buried, they are not here. We have sounded all the floors and walls with the butt end of ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... cleared he congratulated himself for his repression. During his struggle with Gore his hand had come in contact with the butt of the mate's electrogun. He could easily have pulled it out of its holster and turned it against its owner. But this hasty action would not only have assured his own death, but would have destroyed the only chance the I.F.P. had of learning "The ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... contrary, is pernicious in its effects, inasmuch as it occasions, not unnaturally, a feeling of soreness on the part of those, whether individuals or a nation, who are made the subject of it. Japan has too often been the butt of the humourist. I have no desire to deprecate humour, which no doubt gives a savour to life, but that humour which is only exercised at the expense of others, in my opinion, needs reprobation. As I have said, Japan among nations has been subjected to too much of ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... Shakespeare; yet he is always in measure here; never what Johnson would remark as a specially 'good hater'. But his laughter seems to pour from him in floods; he heaps all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the butt he is bantering, tumbles and tosses him in all sorts of horse-play; you would say, roars and laughs. And then, if not always the finest, it is always a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty; never. No man who can laugh, what we ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... measured tread of the sentry as he passed, a member of the Citizens' Patrol, like her brother. Suddenly she heard a shot, and extinguishing the candles hastily she peered out of a window from behind the curtains. The sentry was pounding on a door opposite with the butt of his rifle. It was the home of an eccentric old bachelor who possessed a fine collection of ceramics and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... way of passing his life than in dangling about women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He did—it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments—he did know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... last the men at the gate drew back for a time; but from the side attacks came a new danger. With spear butt and seax they were trying to undermine the stockade, and one could hear the creaking of the stout timbers as they tried to tear them down. It would have gone hardly with us had there been but a few more men, or if these had brought pick and ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... struggle that was pleasant to witness. No sooner had the fish discovered that the hook was in his jaw, than away he dashed towards the middle of the lake. The rod was bent into a semicircle, but the game was fast; with the butt firm between his knees and his thumb pressing the reel, the sportsman gave him a hundred and fifty feet of line, when his efforts began to relax, and as Smith began to reel him in, a moment of dead pull, a holding back like an obstinate mule occurred. The trout ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... seemingly been detailed to the command of the night-guard; so, as a last resort, I turned aside and sought De Croix. I found him seated cross-legged on a blanket beneath one of the cottonwoods, a silver-backed mirror propped against a tree-butt in his front, while the obsequious darkey was deliberately combing out his long hair and fashioning it anew. The Frenchman glanced up at me with a welcoming smile ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... written a poem. Well, just as I was sittin' down, I whispered, 'How is our learned Lepsius?' to Burton major. Old Butt grinned like an owl. He didn't know what I was drivin' at; but King jolly well did. That was really why he hove us out. Ain't you grateful? Now shut up. I'm goin' to write the 'Ballad of the ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... cannonading that had continued since nine in the morning was now accompanied by heavy skirmishing; and the action began to be general all along the lines. The American army was disposed in three lines of battle; the first extended in front of their earthworks on Butt's Hill, the second in rear of the hill, and the third as reserve a half-mile in the rear of the advance line. At ten o'clock the battle was at white heat. The British vessels kept up a fire that greatly annoyed the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... with nostrils, and small red eyes, squinting and bloodshot; by turns supplicating or angry, she implored and scolded; but they laughed more at her complaints than at her threats. This woman was the butt of the prisoners. One fact alone, however, should have saved her from their bad treatment; she was about to become a mother. But her ugliness and imbecility, and the habit they had of looking upon her as a victim devoted to the general amusement, rendered ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... fellow, more warlike than the rest, suggested that as we had some Enfields on board, we should make "a little bit of a fight," or at least "make one butt at a gunboat." I was relieved to find that these insane proposals were not received with ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... still fell and the wind still blew; but we found a double-bedded room with plenty of furniture, real water-jugs with real water in them, and dinner: a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. After having been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the elements during the whole of the next day, these comfortable circumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. There was an English fruiterer at dinner, travelling with a Belgian fruiterer; in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... struck that hand again and again with the heavy butt of her riding-whip, but it did not loosen ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the bare idea, Miss Dimpleton burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, so loud, that a fat man, who was walking before her, carrying a dog under his arm, turned round quite angrily, believing himself to be the butt. Miss Dimpleton, resuming her composure, made a half-courtesy to the stout person, and pointing to the animal under his arm, said: "Is your ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... without some of them, a thing (in my opinion) not a little to be wondered at. We have also osprays, which breed with us in parks and woods, whereby the keepers of the same do reap in breeding time no small commodity; for, so soon almost as the young are hatched, they tie them to the butt ends or ground ends of sundry trees, where the old ones, finding them, do never cease to bring fish unto them, which the keepers take and eat from them, and commonly is such as is well fed or not of the worst sort. It hath not been my hap hitherto to see any ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... is but one of the night-watch, armed with an enormous halbert which might have done good service in the thirty years' war. The faithful nachtwachter strikes it upon the ground with the butt-end at regular intervals, so that sinful depredators may have timely notice of his approach. As it has a large hook at the back it is said to be admirably adapted for catching thieves by the leg, if its opportune clattering does not keep ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the afternoon in my walking I came upon a great hulking fellow in the act of wresting food from an old woman and a young girl who evidently had joined their fortunes. No soldiers were about and I had the satisfaction of laying him out with the butt of my pistol. He went down in a heap. I did not stay to see whether ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... many cases the name "Butts" refers to the fact of the land, under the common-field system, abutting on meadows or roads, e.g. "Butt-close," in the parish ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... with age and shorn of all its symbols. Lambs frisk among the boats; impudent kids nibble the drooping ears of patient mules. Hinds in white jackets and knee-breeches made of skins, lead shaggy rams and fiercely bearded goats, ready to butt at every barking dog, and always seeking opportunities of flight. Farmers and parish priests in black petticoats feel the cattle and dispute about the price, or whet their bargains with a draught of wine. Meanwhile the nets are brought on shore glittering with the fry of sardines, which are ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... beard against grey beard for a million!'—and fired: I slapped at him, and I believe hit him, for he staggered; but rallied again, and was clearing the bank between him and me, when Pugh ran up, and with the butt end of his firelock knocked him down again, jumped after him, and battered his brains out, just as he was opening a clasp knife to defend himself.'"—The ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... belonging to the Church of the Petits-Peres. He went with his meerschaum pipe that cost nearly sixty pounds, and he took a girl from the Palais-Royal. He was lucky, for he managed to escape, but they took me to the police station, belabouring me with the butt-end of their guns. Fortunately Dulaurens caught sight ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... stoker on the coastwise freighter San Gardo, was the butt of the ship; every man of the crew imposed on his good nature. He was one of those persons "just fool enough to do what he's told to do." For thirty of his fifty years he had been a seaman, and the marks of a sailor's life were stamped hard on his face. His ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... course she's a darling—there's no one like her; and she recovered herself in a minute, and walked with me a long way, and then suggested that I should wear the marguerites. Of course I had to go into the flower-garden to find Birchall and coax him to cut enough for me. Then I had to get Sarah Butt to help me to make the wreath, for I never made a wreath before in my life. But Sarah would do anything in the world that Betty suggested, she is so frightfully ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... Naliele on the 13th of August, and, when proceeding along the shore at midday, a hippopotamus struck the canoe with her forehead, lifting one half of it quite out of the water, so as nearly to overturn it. The force of the butt she gave tilted Mashauana out into the river; the rest of us sprang to the shore, which was only about ten yards off. Glancing back, I saw her come to the surface a short way off, and look to the canoe, as if to see if she had done much mischief. It was a female, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of Socrates because his ungainly figure, and the oddity (atopia) attributed to him even by Plato, made him an excellent butt; yet also because he felt strongly that it was better for the young Athenian to spend his days in the Palaestra, or "where the elm-tree whispers to the plane," than in filing a contentious tongue on barren logomachies. That Socrates in fact discussed only ethical problems, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... fearful blow, the butt of the heavy Army revolver landing on the fellow's jaw and ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... presently I met Joe Shanks, the butcher's son, who brought us our chops. Joe was a stout young man, about twenty-one, red-faced, burly, and greasy. We used to have many jokes with Joe; even Smugg had before now broken a mild shaft of classical wit on him; in fact, we made a butt of Joe, and his good-humored, muttony smile told us that ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... two more vigorous thrusts to which I responded with such vigor that it made his testicles butt against my bottom, and the next moment we were both dissolved ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... fear, either of Caesar or his lion, marred this impression. His bow, as he approached the potentate, was neither abject nor awkward, and Caesar felt bitter wrath at the thought that this splendid youth, of all men, should have selected him as the butt of his irony. He would have regarded it as a peculiar gift of fortune if this man—such a brother of such a sister—could but love him, and, with the eye of an artist, discern in the despot the great qualities which, in spite of his many crimes, he believed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... clothes. There would be loud talking and laughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that would disgust her—they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would be wholly out of her place—a butt for impertinence—perhaps worse. And there would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere—of making free with the old ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I felt that he was watching the struggle which was going on behind my back. I heard Isobel shriek, and the sound maddened me. I left it to the Baron to do his worst. I sprang backwards, and brought the butt end of my revolver down upon the skull of the man who was dragging her across the lawn. Then I passed my arm round her waist, and called out once more to the Baron who had passed through the gate, and was coming ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... watching the English build their fort, I thought that I saw a figure flitting through the bush to the rear. I dared not fire. One shot would have betrayed us to the English. But I pointed my gun. The thing came gliding noiselessly nearer. I clicked the gun-butt without firing. The thing paused. Then I called M. Radisson, who said it was Le Borgne, the wall-eyed Indian. Godefroy vowed 'twas a spy from Ben Gillam's fort. The Indian mumbled some superstition of a manitou. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... and feeling the hook in his horrid jaw, tugged most fiercely to release himself, but in vain. Twelve sailors hauled him in, when, with distended jaws, he seemed to look out for the legs of the men, whereupon they rammed the butt-end of a harpoon down his throat, which put a stop to all further proceedings on his part. He was said to be quite young, perhaps the child of doting parents. The juvenile monster had, however, already cut three rows ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... apartment, nearly square, was dimly flooded by the sparse light sifting down through the single hatch-opening above, so that, in spite of its large dimensions, it had a cramped and stuffy appearance. The vast butt of the mainmast arose directly in front of me, and, upon a narrow bench surrounding it, a dozen soldiers were lounging, while near the entrance to the passageway, scarcely more than a shadow in that dimness, stood a sentry, stiff ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... to teach us the sweet lesson of charity, 'had not where to lay his head.' The lesson he came to teach, you certainly have not learned, or you would never have made my poverty and my misfortunes the butt of ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... and twelve sailors, outside of a general roustabout and butt named "Sandy," who cleaned up the forecastle and the hunters' quarters, where they messed apart, and helped Tamada, the cook, in the galley with his pots and dishes. But now there was no work in prospect for the hunters, and ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... revival of our own time sought for one mind on which to lay the burden of its anger, one hard master or pedant who could be made responsible for the drying up of the wells, Malherbe again was found. He became the butt of Hugo's splendid ridicule. He was the god of plaster that could not hear or speak or feel, but which fools had worshipped; a god easy to break to pieces. His austerity—for them without fullness—his meagre output, his solemn reiterated code of "perfect taste," moved them to a facile but ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... Tityrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he butt thee!' Come, Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering surroundings, but not garbling; and every time you know you substituted flocks for goats. Proceed, and do not insult ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... judge has just declared that he finds nothing amiss in him; but the rabble cry out, all the more, "crucify him." While ardently loved by a devoted few in that tumultuous crowd, he is, to all the rest, an object of severest scorn, the butt of ribald jest. Wearing his crown of thorns, he is made to bear, till he faints under his burden, the very instrument of his torture. His Roman executioners, giving to him the punishment accorded to thieves and ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... turning rose-grey, when the alarm of an attack came down the line. Instantly the huddled, sleeping bodies that lay at the side of the trench started into being, and in the moment's pause that followed, Michael found himself fumbling at the butt of his revolver, which he had drawn out of its case. For that one moment he heard his heart thumping in his throat, and felt his mouth grow dry with some sudden panic fear that came from he knew not where, and invaded him. A qualm of sickness ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... now," said Harry. "Hold the butt close against your shoulder. Take your time, and aim right at the ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... for you,' said the gentleman. 'I am accustomed to do it for one of my shepherds. But recollect you will have to do a great deal of work for your high wages. The cows are wild, and must be bailed up and foot-roped. You may get an ugly kick or butt'—— ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... bear, which he did not discover till he was within ten feet of him. His horse started, and wheeling suddenly round, threw M'Neal almost immediately under the bear, which started up instantly. Finding the bear raising himself on his hind feet to attack him, he struck him on the head with the butt end of his musket; the blow was so violent that it broke the breech of the musket and knocked the bear to the ground. Before he recovered M'Neal, seeing a willow-tree close by, sprang up, and there remained ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... of them into an appointed corner, and you butt the other,' said Ferdinand,'it will ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... little tenderness, except perhaps in bad times, and they showed none now. Nor mercy. The situation would have been ridiculous had it not been so utterly tragic—to have failed without trying! Edwards's escape became camp offal. We became the butt and the byword of the camp, so that I honestly regretted not having pushed on alone. I felt sure that the almost certain capture and more certain punishment would have been more bearable than this. There was nothing that I could say in my own defense except at the other man's expense—which would ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... grunt, for Harlan had almost anticipated his thoughts, Laskar's right hand swept toward the butt ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... quarrels. If there was a disagreeable story about the father or grandfather of any of the princes, he knew it and told it, so that he got a blow from the baton of Agamemnon, and Aias gave him a kick, and Idomeneus drubbed him with the butt of his spear for a tale about his grandmother, and everybody hated him and called him a nuisance. He was for ever jeering at Ulysses, who was far away, and telling tales about Autolycus, and at last he ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... pocket knife and scratched on the silver mounting of the pistol's butt the legend: "To Si Watkins, in memory of a visit; from Guilford Duncan, ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... selected, they are cut down and trimmed, stripped of bark, and roughly dressed. They are then carried or dragged to the site of the hogan and there laid on the ground with their forked ends together somewhat in the form of a T, extreme care being taken to have the butt of one log point to the south, one to the west, and one to the north. The two straight timbers are then laid down with the small ends close to the forks of the north and south timbers and with their butt ends pointing to the east. They must ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... was immediately diverted by the sight of a dark body starting up from the long grass in the slough. At the same instant he heard the sharp crack of Arnold's gun. Alf darted the butt of his rifle to his shoulder, to be in readiness for an emergency shot; but, before the position was attained, something launched down upon him from the trees—bearing him forwards into the willow bush, while the forest echoed with the snarls of ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... themselves honest, useful, and even estimable, for which society has agreed to entertain a feeling of contempt. It is, for instance, very difficult to think of a curate as anything except a butt for satirists, or to be respectful to the profession of tailoring, although many a man for private pecuniary reasons is meek before the particular individual who makes his clothes. Yet the novelist and the playwright, who hold the mirror ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... the men had dressed down had been lifted from their supports, the cod livers dumped into the gurry-butt, and the tables removed from the rails. The two men on the first watch were sharpening the splitting knives on a tiny grindstone and walking forward occasionally to see that the anchor and trawl buoy ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Antonio Oroboni, a native of Fratta, near Rovigo, and only twenty-nine years of age. Alas! we were soon interrupted by the ferocious cries of the sentinels. He in the gallery knocked as loud as he could with the butt-end of his musket, both at the Count's door and at mine. We would not, and we could not obey; but the noise, the oaths, and threats of the guards were such as to drown our voices, and after arranging that we would resume our ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... and probably his spirit having chafed itself smooth by such constant attrition, he became, to all seeming, calmer; but it was only the calm of a broken and weary heart. Such was Major Jones at the time, when, "suadente diabolo," it seemed meet to Fathers Mooney and D'Array to make him the butt of their raillery. At first, he could not believe it; the thing was incredible—impossible; but when he looked around the table, when he heard the roars of laughter, long, loud, and vociferous; when he heard his name bandied from one to the other across the table, with some vile ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... nose hooked, his face narrow, his forehead very high, the whole elaborately tattooed. I may say I have never entertained a guest so trying. In the least particular he must be waited on; he would not go to the scuttle-butt for water; it must be given him in his hand; if aid were denied him, he would fold his arms, bow his head, and go without; only the work would suffer. Early the first forenoon he called aloud for biscuit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after Miss Brass had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton. It was a very dark miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate, which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold no more than a little thin sandwich of fire. Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... property in for a song, as it would find no other purchaser if it had such an evil reputation. Now, maybe somebody wants this quarry for thirty cents, and this is his way of scaring other would-be purchasers away. We don't want to butt in on any ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... unpardonable sin. Luther has done two things to the Pope: he has denied that the Pope exists by divine right, and he has in the most scurrilous manner spoken and written about the Pope and made his vaunted dignity the butt of universal ridicule. The indictment is true, but when the facts are stated, it will be seen to recoil on the heads of those who ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... has had another momentous consequence. It has brought the Nationalist or Parnellite party into friendly relations with the mass of English Liberals. When the Home Rule party was founded by Mr. Butt, some fifteen years ago, it had more in common with the Liberal than with the Tory party. But as it demanded what both English parties were then resolved to refuse, it was forced into antagonism to both; and from ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... duly consecrated, was taken by Jowahir, my master, who, holding it by the point, said, 'Thugs, shall I strike?' then as they said, 'Strike, Jemadar!' he struck the cocoa-nut with the butt end of the pickaxe and broke the nut in pieces. This was hailed by all as a propitious omen from the great Bhowanee or goddess, and a part of the nut having been burnt in the fire, portions of the rest of it were given ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... to burst within his breast, he saw his house gutted of everything—his chests torn open, his tools taken, his wife's poor finery divided, and her twenty-dollar sewing machine the subject of a wrangle that ended in its being smashed under the butt of a gun. It was horrible to look on, impotent and raging, and see the fruit of three years the prey of these yelling savages; to realize that he must begin again from the bottom; that all his labor, and ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... of disorder that the mother State could succor her infant settlements scarcely more than had they lain on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, instead of the Alleghenies. Thus trammeled, Kentucky could do little more than, like a tethered bison, butt at the dangers which year in and year out beset her on every side. To be sure, conventions composed of her best men, and having for their object her erection into a separate State of the Union, had been for the last ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... another crowd of them with a poor frightened man in the centre. He was crying out—"For me, I am a man of peace—gentlemen, I am no spy. I have lived all my life in the Rue Scribe." But one after another struck at him, some with the butt-end of their rifles, some with their bayonets, those behind with the heels of their boots—till that which had been a man when I stood on one side of the street, was something which would not bear looking upon by the time that I had ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... horse and the swaying of the carriage forbade him to take careful aim. Desmond felt the wind of the bullet as it whizzed past him. Next moment he leaned slightly sidewise, and, never loosening his hold on the reins with his left hand, he brought the weighty butt of his whip with a rapid cut, half sidewise, half downwards, upon the horseman's head. The man with a cry swerved on the saddle; almost before Desmond could recover his balance he was amazed to see the horse dash suddenly to the right, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... do it entirely for her sake, if there were no other reason. But to shame myself by taking that which belongs to another, as though it were my own property! To live a coward in mine own esteem! Though I may be the laughing-stock and the butt of all those around me, I would still be a man to myself. I ought to have felt that it was sufficient when she told me that some of her thoughts must still be given to you. She is yours, Mr Gordon; but I doubt much whether you ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... these 'disciples' assure us that when Jesus said, 'Resist not evil', 'If a man smite thee upon he right cheek turn unto him also the left', He really meant 'Turn on to him a Maxim gun; disembowel him with a bayonet or batter in his skull with the butt end of a rifle!' When He said, 'If one take thy coat, give him thy cloak also,' the 'Christians' say that what He really meant was: 'If one take thy coat, give him six months' hard labour. A few of the followers of Jesus admit that He really did mean just what He said, but they say ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... certain concealed sympathy in the writ of the great lords, and we cannot help suspecting that it was the Puritan citizens who felt themselves hit and who brought the complaint. If the lords had been the butt of the mockery, no doubt the proceeding of the actors would have appeared to them much worse than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... didn't never whip me, but Miss Julia whipped me every day in the mawning. During the war she beat us so terrible. She say, "Your master's out fighting and losing blood trying to save you from them Yankees, so you kin git your'n here." Miss Julia would take me by my ears and butt my head against the wall. She wanted to whip my mother, but old Master told her, naw sir. When his father done give my mammy to Master Sam, he told him not to beat her, and iffen he got to whar he ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... a narrow cellar whither the pilgrim had preceded him. There stood his companion beside a full butt of burgundy, holding in his hand a massive silver cup, foaming over with the generous beverage, and with the other he pointed exultingly to his prize. The scene seemed like a dream to Ulric. The place was wholly unknown to him. The circumstances ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... playing mild girlish games, with infinite clamour and chatter, running races as far and fast as their black petticoats would allow, twisting their long overcoats and red sashes meanwhile round a battered old noseless bust that stood for Domitian at the end of a long ilex-avenue, and was the butt for all the slings and arrows of the day,—poor helpless State, blinded and buffeted ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pistol-shot that does not miscalculate. Orgies are lavish in all physical pleasures; is not that the small change for opium? And the riot that makes us drink to excess bears a challenge to mortal combat with wine. That butt of Malmsey of the Duke of Clarence's must have had a pleasanter flavor than Seine mud. When we sink gloriously under the table, is not that a periodical death by drowning on a small scale? If we are picked up by the police and stretched out on those chilly ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one (p. 017) occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown round those ancient mountains, nothing had ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... was young, I was no more used to lie than the sheep whose milk I sucked or the he-goats with which I would butt in the joy of my strength and beauty. Lies were unknown In those times, nor had the sheep's fleece yet learned to assume factitious hues; and my soul has remained unchanged from that day to this. See, I go naked as in the golden age ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... with her little brother Next to an overturned barrel of water. In rags, a beast of a person lies gulping food Like a cigarette butt on the yellow sun. Two skinny goats stand in broad green spaces On pegs, and their ropes sometimes tighten. Invisible behind monstrous trees Unbelievably at peace ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... I shall tell you, that the fishing with a natural-fly is excellent, and affords much pleasure. They may be found thus: the May-fly, usually in and about that month, near to the river-side, especially against rain: the Oak-fly, on the butt or body of an oak or ash, from the beginning of May to the end of August; it is a brownish fly and easy to be so found, and stands usually with his head downward, that is to say, towards the root of the tree: the small black-fly, or Hawthorn-fly, is to be had on any hawthorn bush after the leaves ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... keeping abreast of the boats as well as they were able, crying out taunts and imprecations; and one, more zealous in his passion, went to the top of a hill and struck the earth three times with the butt of his gun,—the registration of a mighty oath against the ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... mistress of the king. This made me impatient, and by degrees deprived me of my natural gaiety. One day when the king was with me, he perceived my want of spirits. "What ails you?" said be, with the greatest solicitude. "What ails me!" replied I, "I wish I were dead, rather than see myself the butt of all the scandal of the foul-mouthed gossips of your court." The king, suspecting the confidence I was about to repose in him, was sorry he had asked for it, and was silent. He began to play a tattoo with his fingers ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... found that some of the Genoese team were old friends, for in the morning I had seen them in the water and on the sand at the Lido, and wondered who so solid a band of brothers could be. Then they played a thousand pranks on each other, the prime butt being the dark young Hercules with a little gold charm on his mighty chest, which he wore then and was wearing now, who guarded the Genoese goal and ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... his master-stroke. "Jennie explained to me that she was a free-lover; she told me all about free love. I told her I didn't believe in it, but you know, Sadie, when Jennie believed in anything, she would stand by it and act on it. So I felt certain it wouldn't do any good for me to butt in." ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... the midst of the pursuers and very nearly found the death which he sought. He was wounded in several places: he was struck to the ground; and in another moment his brains would have been knocked out with the butt end of a musket, when he was recognised and saved. The colonists lost only twenty men killed and fifty wounded. They took four hundred prisoners, seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels of powder, all the drums and all the colours of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in a boat upon this very creek of the Salcombe estuary. He had brought down his first mallard with that, and he lifted it and slid his left hand along the under side of the barrel and felt the butt settle comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder. But his weapons began to talk over loudly in his ears, even as Ethne's violin, in the earlier days after Harry Feversham was gone and she was left alone, had spoken with too penetrating a note to her. As ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... ten minutes, then, with the dagger in his hand, he walked cautiously towards my hammock. He was within 3 metres of me when I jumped up, seizing Filippe's rifle, which I had placed by my side in the hammock. With the butt I struck the Indian a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... convictions—and, confound it! they were the convictions of England, after all—met with scurrilous derision; and here Master Randall nursed a dull and inarticulate resentment in a world out of joint, where the winning side was a butt for epigrams. To win, and be laughed at! To have the account reopened in lampoons and witticisms, contemptible but irritating, when it should be closed by the mere act of winning! It puzzled him, and he brooded over it, turning sulky in the end, not ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... opened his mouth with the butt end of her willow riding-switch, to find out what he had in his cheek-pouches. An onion and a few marrowfat peas rolled out, and the little girl, kneeling ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and ire he rose to mete out justice to this highwayman. Had the butt of his whip hit Shelby he would have seen more stars than twinkled overhead. But it didn't. It was caught in one hand, given a dexterous twist and sent flying into the road as Shelby said in ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... who, though brown, considered herself a white woman, insisted on marrying either him or his servant Richard. Being above twenty, she was considered past her prime; but had it not been for her stoutness, which made her look like a walking water-butt, she would really have been handsome. Finding that neither of the white strangers would accept her offers, she endeavoured to entrap them by giving a wife to Pasco, by which, according to the customs of the country, she obtained some sort of claim over his master. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... near by, they wanted to become acquainted with their neighbors. One of them made up an errand and went into the new house and asked for a light for his pipe. But as soon as he got inside the door the sheep gave him such a butt that he fell head foremost into the hearth. Then the pig began to bite him, and the goose to nip and peck him, and the cock upon the roost to crow and chatter, and as for the hare, he was so frightened that he ran about aloft and on the floor and scratched and ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... entirely of huge red cedar logs it was two stories in height, the first house of more than one story standing on the shores of the southern Ohio. Its roof was the wonder and envy of the whole region for many years. The shingles were of black walnut, elegantly rounded at the butt-ends. They were fastened on with solid walnut pegs driven in holes bored through both the shingles and the laths with a brace and a bit. For there was not a nail in Cedar House from its firm foundation to its fine roof. Even the hinges and ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... larger than common. The bony buttresses of the forehead over the eyes, too, as they rose above the strong lower face, were emphasised, looking truly as though, if tongue and pen failed to make a way, the shoulders could push one, and, if worse came to worst, the head would butt one. Next to Luther was a head of Christ; then in the same line, with nothing in the position or quality of the pictures to indicate that the subjects were any less esteemed, a row of royal personages, whose military trappings were ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... light of a martyr is evident from the words of Pitt himself. In one of his speeches, having accused his rival of filling his speech with everything that was personal, inflammatory, and invidious, he remarked:—"I am not surprised if he should pretend to be the butt of ministerial persecution; and if, by striving to excite the public compassion, he should seek to reinstate himself in that popularity which he once enjoyed, but which he so unhappily has forfeited. For it is the best and most ordinary resource of these political ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... stopped whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me. Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that I was not getting this snap for nothing. All of this I did not in the least understand, for I was not much ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... very perfectly, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs forever.... But after all what can I do if a poor Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them. I can't refuse; butt when they are well, and able to employ a ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling off the pillow-cases. Then she would butt her woolly head among the pillows, until it was covered with feathers sticking out in all directions. She would climb the bedpost, and hang head downwards from the top; wave the sheets and covers ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... describe the where— Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay, No doubt, in little compass, round or square; But pity him I neither must nor may His suffocation by that pretty pair; 'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and found her on the portico, in her riding-habit. She was whipping one of the maids with the butt end of her riding-whip. I rushed up and released the poor creature, whose cries were really heart-rending, when my wife turned on me, like a fury, and struck two blows over my head. One of the scars is on my ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Jap's voice became savage. "You come along with me—quick an' quiet. This old Colt ain't loaded, but ef I hit you over the head with the butt of it, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... it, in spite of you, and I know to whom to apply. Do you think you can play fast and loose with me and my love? No, no! I used to believe in you; I turned, a deaf ear to your traducers. My mad passion for you became known; I was the jest and the butt of the town. But you have opened my eyes, and at last I see clearly on whom my vengeance ought to fall. He was formerly my friend, and I would believe nothing against him; although I was often warned, I took ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and put the butt down in the trench bottom, slipped his bayonet out, and holding the rifle near the muzzle with one hand, with the other placed the point of the bayonet to the trigger of the rifle. He removed it instantly and returned it to ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... an arm, bringing a howl of pain and several minutes of cursing. The unexpected resistance, once the surprise was over, infuriated the rum-sodden men. One of them yelled: "Sock him; Shorty!" A ray-gun's butt was slapped down on Friday's head; the negro rolled over, stunned. Then he was picked up without resistance and borne out into the night, where fantastic figures cavorted around the ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... not do for me to find merit in American manners —for are they not the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe? Still, I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in our manners; a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming as she chooses, and she will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... some running stream, where there is plenty of red willow, has been fixed upon for a camping-place, and a fire has been lighted, the squaws cut a quantity of the willow, and, making a rude framework of the larger branches, of which the butt-ends are fixed firmly into the ground, and the small ends bound together to look like a small dome, they weave the smaller branches and twigs in and out until the whole affair looks like a great leafy basket turned upside down. The entrance ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... six-foot odd in his stockings, straight, stalwart, and confident. His face is broad and strong, his close-cropped head is firm and proud on his shoulders—firm and proud as a young bull's. It is a head made, indeed, rather to butt than to think with; it is visited with no effeminacy of thought or dream. It has another striking quality: it is hardly distinguishable from any other head in the room—for I am in an assemblage of true men all, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... another quarter of an hour, when all at once, as if struck by an electric shock, it flashed across my mind, "Peradventure, I might be lost for the night!" and be obliged to make my bed in Open Desert. I have seen in my life-time people strike a dead wall, as a convenient butt against which to vent their ill-disguised rage. I now must have a victim for my vexation. It was not wanting. I felt something heavy and dragging in my pocket. The half hour's running about had reminded me of some until now ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... wits, musicians and literati whom a traditional morgue still excluded from many aristocratic houses. Yet in spite of his hospitality (or perhaps because of it) the Procuratore, as Odo knew, was the butt of the very poets he entertained, and the worst satirised man in Venice. It was his misfortune to be in love with his wife; and this state of mind (in itself sufficiently ridiculous) and the shifts and compromises ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... "In the old attacks you used to see the British dead lying outside the machine-gun emplacements like birds outside a butt with a good shot inside. Now, these ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... in so many yeres they have nott founde the menes to make a bourse! but must walke in the raine, when ytt raineth, more lyker pedlers then marchants; and in thys countrie, and all other, there is no kynde of pepell that have occasion to meete, butt they have a plase meete for that pourpose." Indeed, Clough got quite excited over the thought that London, of all cities in the world, possessed no decent accommodation for merchants transacting their everyday business, and declared ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... glued to his seat in mingled fear and wrath. Was he to be the butt of those overbearing sophomores? He thought he could do nothing but hang on with all his might. The ascending student jumped upon the fourth bench and, reaching up, laid hold of Ken with no gentle hands. His grip was so hard that Ken had difficulty in stifling a cry of pain. This, however, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... contents into his palm—four loaded shells, suety and slick with grease, and one that had been recently fired; and it was discolored and flattened a trifle. Each of the four loaded shells had a small cap like a little round staring eye set in the exact center of its flanged butt-end, but the eye of the fifth shell was punched in. He turned the empty weapon in his hands, steadying its mechanism, and as he did so a scent of burnt powder, stale and dead, came to him out of the fouled muzzle. He wrinkled his nose and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... variety of individualities a herd of cows presents when you have come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and disposition. Some are timid and awkward and the butt of the whole herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face like certain persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly-fed one a pitiful and forlorn look. Some cows have a ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... had his hand on the butt of the .44 Magnum under his left armpit, and he even had time to be grateful, for once, that it wasn't a smallsword. The women were in the back seat, frozen, and he yelled: "Duck!" and felt, rather than saw, both of them sink down onto the floor ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... Half-a-dozen rifles rang out in different directions, and in an instant West suffered for his thoughtless unselfish act, for he felt as if someone had struck him a cruel blow with a sjambok across the face from the front, while someone else had driven the butt of his rifle with all his force full upon his shoulder-blade—this blow from the back driving him forward upon his knees and then causing him to fall across Ingleborough. Then for a few moments everything seemed ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... down, making a lunge with his sword, sure of killing his adversary. But the old fellow, squarely hitting the blade, the point of which would have pierced his stomach, turned it aside, and with the butt end of the whip struck the soldier a sharp blow on the temple and he fell to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... thrill, The master thundered, "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came—— A great, green, bashful simpleton, The butt of all good-natured fun. With smile suppressed, and birch upraised, The thunderer faltered—"I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude! Before the whole set school ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... should 'ave been there to see it. They were all round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop 'oles. Then they began to bomb me from the other side. 'Twas ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... animals frequently give us great trouble? Whenever a wild pig, a tiger, or a buffalo, takes it into his head to scratch himself, he uses one of our telegraph-posts if he finds it handy. Elephants sometimes butt them down with their thick heads, by way of pastime, I suppose, for they are not usually fond of posts and wire as food. Then bandicoots and porcupines burrow under them and bring them to the ground, while kites and crows sit on the wires and weigh them down. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... has rather unfairly caricatured, as Vadius in Les Femmes savantes, the great scholar Gilles Menage, whose Dictionnaire etymologique, published in 1650, was long a standard work. Moliere's mockery and the fantastic nature of some of Menage's etymologies have combined to make him a butt for the ignorant, but it may be doubted whether any modern scholar, using the same implements, could have done better work. For Menage the one source of the Romance languages was classical Latin, and every word had to be traced to a Latin word of suitable form ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... across the hall, and Isabel Boncassen followed him very slowly. When she entered the room she found him standing with a cue in his hand. He at once shut the door, and walking up to her dropped the butt of the cue on the floor and spoke one ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... sighs, contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion. It was not the first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it, like our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage, and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye. He hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little nearer to the window to enjoy the sight. What was his surprise, however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted the steps, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much feared, the cold steel? The momentary hesitation ended the debate, for the Guard was almost upon him. Quickly he prepared for the shock, and, parrying the Hun's first thrust, he gave him the upward stroke with the butt of his gun; but the Hun kept coming, and he quickly brought his gun down—his second stroke cutting the head with the blade of his bayonet. The Prussian reeled but was not finished, and as he came again our friend pricked ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... man's as ill as that, I have no desire to butt in for an interview," he said. "Oblige me by ascertaining at your earliest convenience whether or not I may be of service to Mr. Kent in ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... wounded, in the hat brim. And this gave rise to a most amusing scene. Robert Fulton was a driver to the limber of the third gun. He was a large, soft, man, and was, by no means, characterized by soldierly bearing, or warlike sentiments. On the contrary, he was something of a "butt," and was always desperately unhappy under fire. He could dodge lower off the back of a horse at sound of a shell, than any man living. His miraculous feats, in this performance, afforded much diversion, whenever the guns went under fire, to us all, except ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... right hand swept to his revolver holster and came on upward clutching the weapon's butt. The movement was so quick that before those who were looking at him really grasped its meaning the hot rocks were bandying echoes of the report. The Mexican was sliding from his saddle, quite dead. The outlaw was spurring his pony ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... torch, pulled out the wick and stamped it into a patch of burnt ground, threw the torch back from the fire line, and started clubbing the fire out of the grass with the butt of ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... made a detour through the woods so as to approach the cabin on the side away from the path, where there was little likelihood of those inside keeping a lookout. Very cautiously they advanced from the concealment of the woods, Frank Brandon with his right hand on the butt of a deadly looking automatic pistol. They crept close to the wall of the cabin, and listened intently for some ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... said, gravely, with the calm which presages a storm; "our Royal person must be no butt for raillery. This sceptre appears light, my lords, but he who ridicules it shall be crushed thereby as with a block of iron. I believe that our holy father the Pope is somewhat indebted to us, so that we do not fear his displeasure ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the boy leapt convulsively from Nurse Beaton's arms, rushed blindly into the wall and endeavoured to butt and bore his way through it with his head, screaming like a wounded horse. As the man and woman sprang to him he shrieked, "It'th under my foot! It'th moving, moving, moving out" and fell to ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... crude. They didn't have to be crude. They just let him butt his head against a stone wall. Everything he tried was blocked, or else it didn't lead anywhere. Like this Berlin Conference. It's a powder keg. Dad gambled everything on going there, forcing the delegates to face facts, to really put their cards on the table. Ever since the United Nations ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... — Naisi and his brothers. LAVARCHAM. We are lonely women. What is it you're wanting in the blackness of the night? NAISI. We met a young girl in the woods who told us we might shelter this place if the rivers rose on the pathways and the floods gathered from the butt of the hills. [Old Woman clasps her hands ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... think well and wisely about a poker will begin somewhat as follows: Among the live creatures that crawl about this star the queerest is the thing called Man. This plucked and plumeless bird, comic and forlorn, is the butt of all the philosophies. He is the only naked animal; and this quality, once, it is said, his glory, is now his shame. He has to go outside himself for everything that he wants. He might almost be considered as an absent-minded person who had gone ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half-a-dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... of authority and influence uttered with such terrible license. He attacked the gods, the politicians, the philosophers, and the poets of Athens; even private citizens did not escape from his shafts, and women were subjects of his irony. Socrates was made the butt of his ridicule, when most revered, and Cleon in the height of his power, and Euripides when he had gained the highest prizes. He has furnished jests for Rabelais, and hints to Swift, and humor for MoliEre. In satire, in derision, in invective, and bitter scorn, he has never been surpassed. No modern ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... George Hardy being at William Morse his house, affirm that ye earth in ye chimny cornar moved and scattered on us. I was hitt with somewhat; Hardy hitt by a iron ladle; somewhat hitt Morse a great blow, butt itt was so swift none could tell what itt was. After, we saw itt was ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... the rest of us war either gashed by thar knives or had got ugly cracks. However, six of them war lying in the boat when we hauled it alongside; two war stone-dead, the other four had been stunned with the butt ends of the muskets, or cut down by the darkies' sabres. We took 'em down to the next place and handed 'em over to the sheriff; and as thar happened to be a lot of boats waiting thar for the wind, you may guess it warn't many hours afore they ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... he became interested in Bertie, when that young adventurer insisted on showing him an automatic 44-calibre pistol. Bertie explained the mechanism and demonstrated by slipping a loaded magazine up the hollow butt. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Singularly disposed, he ever after treated these gifts with virulent ridicule, and never was heard to utter any serious remarks concerning this transaction. The clairvoyant after this event was the butt of his satire and jests, and received them without revenge so long as Henry remained, which was about five years—a reckless, abandoned, evil-minded person, eventually severed by that same power which he strove incessantly to ridicule. All these strange operations ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... help gaping. Somehow one didn't associate Voules with engagements. Then it struck me that I'd no right to butt in on his secret sorrows, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... wake, and find my neighbour with his head upon my shoulder. It seems a shame to cast him off; he looks so trustful. But he is heavy. I push him on to the man the other side. He is just as happy there. We roll about; and when the train jerks, we butt each other with our heads. Things fall from the rack upon us. We look up surprised, and go to sleep again. My bag tumbles down upon the head of the unjust man in the corner. (Is it retribution?) He starts up, begs my ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... for Kirstie and the credit of the Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the day over for her old-world tales and local gossip, bidding farewell to her last link with life and brightness and love; and behind and beyond, she saw but the blank butt-end where she must crawl to die. Had she then come to the lees? she, so great, so beautiful, with a heart as fresh as a girl's and strong as womanhood? It could not be, and yet it was so; and for a moment her bed was horrible to her as the sides of the grave. And she looked ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shall pasture the ewes, There the spotted goats browse, And the kids shall arouse In their madness of play; They shall butt, they shall fight, They shall emulate flight, They shall break with delight O'er the mountains away. And there shall my Mary With her faithful one tarry, And never be weary In the hollows ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sprang forward, flew across the gang-plank just as it began to move, and leaped on deck with such energy as to run his head full butt into the chest of a passing ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... writers—not only those who compose his following—as a person of extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the salons made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies. According to the Memoires authentiques pour servir a l'histoire du Comte de Cagliostro, Saint-Germain was the "Grand Master of Freemasonry,"[446] and it was ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... smiled wearily. "Let's go and see the men at drill," he remarked. "We've got a corporal here who's A1 at instruction." As we passed, the sentry brought his right hand smartly across the small of the butt of his rifle, and, seeing the Major behind us, brought the rifle to ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... was against the side of the fort. Then, instead of using it as a battering ram, they lifted it higher until, with an exertion that must have been very great, it was raised even with the log wall. A combined effort rested the butt on the support, the trunk sloping downward, until the top reached the ground, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... right hand into the muzzle of an heavy gun, a fowling-piece of about six or seven foot barrel, did lift up the gun, and hold it out at arms end; a gun which the deponents, though strong men, could not, with both hands, lift up, and hold out, at the butt end, as is usual. Indeed, one of these witnesses was overpersuaded by some persons to be out of the way, upon G. B.'s trial; but he came afterwards, with sorrow for his withdraw; and gave in his testimony; nor were either of these ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... shuddered before, my heart stood still now with a nameless dread, for sure enough, from both the 'butt' and the 'ben' of the so-called ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... he was diving to the right, breaking his fall with the butt of his auto-carbine, rolling rapidly toward the cover of a rock, and as he did so, the thinking part of his mind recognized what was wrong. The tank-tracks had ended against the vine-grown side of the ravine, what he had ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... was quicker. He dug his spur cruelly into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with difficulty reined him in a few paces ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with the Church," but they took the surest road to level it. They corroded the foundations of Christian belief. By encyclopedias and pamphlets they first attacked with sneer and jibe, the person of the priest, then the sacraments he administered became the butt of their mockery, and they finally flouted the gospel he preached. And while the agents of evil were busy, the good cures of France sounded no trumpet of alarm, but dreamed themselves into the comforting delusion that all would blow over, till the ground under ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... gripped the butt of his revolver. Then with a bitter smile he put it back in its place. Why should he hurt or kill anything that was alive? Death seemed sure enough for ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... &c. If men truly virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but a poor investment of their moral capital. Was Job so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the world's scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like some old dreary stump which the lightning has scathed, rotting away in the wind and the rain? Happy! if happiness be indeed what we men are sent into this world to ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... minutes there was a hand-to-hand fight, the Americans using the butt-ends of their muskets, the English their bayonets. The soldiers were exhausted with the climb up the hill and their exertions under a blazing sun, and the great majority of the defenders of the redoubt were, therefore, enabled to retreat unharmed, as, fresh and active, ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... of heroism: the collective behaviour of a crowd is of so much more importance to the world and so much more a test—if a test be wanted—of how a race of people behaves. The attempt to record the acts of individuals leads apparently to such false reports as that of Major Butt holding at bay with a revolver a crowd of passengers and shooting them down as they tried to rush the boats, or of Captain Smith shouting, "Be British," through a megaphone, and subsequently committing suicide along with First Officer Murdock. It is only a morbid sense of ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... Several times lately Olga had, so to speak, run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find another name for them: they would ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to come out with the other Europeans, as he had something to tell him. Theodore sat upon a rock, about twenty yards in front of us; between him and ourselves stood a few of his high officers, and behind us a deep line of soldiers. He was still angry, breaking the edges of the rock with the butt-end of his lance, and spitting constantly between his words. He at once addressed himself to the Rev. Mr. Stern, and asked him, "Was it as a Christian, a heathen, or a Jew, that you abused me? Tell me where you find in the Bible that a Christian ought to abuse? When you wrote your book, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... corruption, for which I had once already been prosecuted, condemned, and punished. Confidently I demanded my release, and Philip must have ground his teeth in rage to see his prey escaping him, to see himself the butt of scorn and contempt for the wrongs that it became clear he ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... bays and a chestnut sorrel—the latter clearly a race-horse. They were all good horses. There were rifles leaning against the trees within reach of the sleeping men; and from under the coat which one of them was using for a pillow there stuck out the butt of a ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... exemplified what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a very witty image from one of Cibber's Comedies: 'There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it[847].' Another was this: when a gentleman[848] of eminence in the literary world was violently censured for attacking people by anonymous paragraphs in newspapers; he, from the spirit of contradiction as I thought, took up ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... that Lady Geraldine would feel the want of her butt; however, I found that Miss Tracey's place was supplied by Captain Andrews, one of the Castle's aides-de-camp; and when Captain Andrews was out of the way, Lord Kilrush and his brother O'Toole were good marks. High and mighty as these ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... from his shoulders, but he still had his pistol, and he kept one hand on the butt, resolved not to be taken. He heard the horsemen crashing here and there among the bushes and calling to one another. He knew that they pursued him so persistently because they believed him to be one who had spied upon ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was the butt of ridicule among the scholars because of his awkwardness, his simplicity, and his ingenuousness. His comrades dubbed him "Harry Oddity of Follyville," a nickname that carried no reproach with it, but was intended to express good-natured appreciation of his characteristics. Mr. Quick tells us ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... heavy sword and he hewed at the butt of the spear. The edge of the sword turned. The blade leaped back in his hand as if it had been struck against an anvil. And Jason, feeling within him a boundless and tireless strength, ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... better than owt, for a mon can bash t' faace wi' thot, an', if he divn't, he can breeak t' forearm o' t' gaard. 'Tis not i' t' books, though. Gie me t' butt.' ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... at him, then?" I insisted. "No, I beat him up with the butt of my gun for shootin' you," ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... her breath with a little gasp, for she saw Pobloff, with a quick writhe of his thin body, free his imprisoned right arm, and strike with the metal butt ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... away and any large lateral roots that are too large to bend well we cut them off, and we take all the fibrous roots we can and put them in this pot. Put your soil around it first, and when you have it nearly full, just the same as if you take your son and lay him on your knee and spank the butt good and put the soil around the roots. Then pack it with your thumb ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... knew where the miscreant was, and he determined to chance it. He silently clubbed his Winchester, brought it back over his left shoulder, and, concentrating his utmost strength in his arms, brought down the butt of this ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... are removed by two ramrods, screwed together by the locking-bolt being omitted. I needn't again go over the twenty-four different screws, but, in ease of accident, it will be well to retain their various outside thread diameters in your memory, specially not forgetting that those of the Butt Trap Spring, the Dial Sight Pivot, and the Striker Keeper Screw, stand respectively at .1696, .1656, and .116 of an inch. Of course you will remember the seven pins, and that, if anything should go wrong with the Bolt Head Cover Pin, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... understand that a new-chum is, throughout the colonies, regarded as food for mirth. He is treated with good-humoured contempt and kindly patronage. He is looked upon as a legitimate butt, and a sort of grown-up and incapable infant. His doings are watched with interest, to see what new eccentricities he will develop; and shouts of laughter are raised at every fresh tale of some new-chum's inexperienced attempts and failures. Half the stories that circulate in conversation ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... a very simple residence. The main building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square. The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his head through. Attached to this is a room for the jailer. In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet high. Between this cage and the wall ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... myself looking down at one of those thick-set Burmans whom I always associated with Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-dotted mass, and a heavy stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him. I started back appalled as ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... ran the faster for his pain and terror. Thus unnoticed and safe myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that the wolf had ate his way into the horse's body; it was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage, and fell upon him with the butt-end of my whip. This unexpected attack in his rear frightened him so much, that he leaped forward with all his might; the horse's carcass dropped on the ground; but in his place the wolf was in harness, and I on my part whipping him ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... fire." In taking aim in the offhand shots the gun's barrel was brought upward so the target was always in full view, and as the bead was drawn the body was tilted backward until an easy balance for the long barrel was found. The elbow of the arm against which the butt of the rifle rested was lifted high, awkwardly high, but this position prevented any nervous backward jerk or muscular movement of the arm that might sway the barrel. Only the weight of the forefinger was needed to spring the hair-trigger. When the gun-sights were nearing the tip of the black triangle, ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... out, so we slipped into a well of yellow mist and felt around for each 'other until a square block of light suddenly opened in mid air and four terrified women appeared in the doorway of the house through which the cabman was endeavoring to butt himself. They begged us to come in, and we did— Being Christmas and because the McCarthy's always call me "King" I had put on all my decorations and the tin star and I also wore my beautiful fur coat, to which I have ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the flour was obtained, and the raisins; the beef-fat, or "slush," from Old Coffee; and the requisite supply of water from the scuttle-butt. I then went among the various cooks, to compare their receipts for making "duffs:" and having well weighed them all, and gathered from each a choice item to make an original receipt of my own, with due deliberation ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... from a rather disagreeable position, so that they were able to bring off a wounded trooper. Nightly the cavalry camp went to sleep in the belief that a general attack would open on the enemy's position at dawn. Day after day the expected did not happen. Buller had other resources than to butt his head against the tremendous entrenchments which were springing up before him. Everyone discussed every conceivable alternative, and in the meanwhile it was always 'battle to-morrow,' but never 'battle to-day.' And so it has continued until this moment, and the great event—the main trial ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... correct. Heavy spurred boot-heels crossed the porch floor; there was a thundering knock with the butt-end of a riding-whip on ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... motion in resuming order from any position; piece to strike ground gently. In resuming the order from any position in the manual, the motion next to the last concludes with the butt of the piece about 3 inches from the ground, barrel to the rear, the left hand above and near the right, steadying the piece, fingers extended and joined, forearm and wrist straight and inclining downward, all fingers of ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... him down" for a story; and as it requires more brains to tell a story than to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself. He maundered and wandered, and stopped, and went on, and lost one thread and took up another, and got into a perfect maze. And while he was thus entangled, a servant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... number front rank: butt between his feet, barrel to front. Even number rear rank passes piece to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... taking some years to build. That belief was about the unlikeliest thing imaginable from every natural standpoint, with God left out. And God is practically left out, except as a very last questionable consideration, then, and ever since, and to-day. Probably Noah was the butt of gossip and ridicule, quite possibly of scandal and reproach, year after year, by the whole race; and he would feel it, and feel it for his family's sake. That boat and its dreaming builder were the standing joke of the time. He was regarded ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... such adjectives to Judas Maccabeus as to Jesus; and even St. Luke, who makes Jesus polite and gracious, does not make him meek. The picture of him as an English curate of the farcical comedy type, too meek to fight a policeman, and everybody's butt, may be useful in the nursery to soften children; but that such a figure could ever have become a centre of the world's attention is too absurd for discussion; grown men and women may speak kindly of a harmless creature who utters amiable sentiments and is ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... the Count was kept pretty busy for the next minute or so. He rushed, leaping and yelling, roaring and dodging, from side to side and corner to corner, and then made a frantic bolt for the outer staircase, but he had only got half-way up when his head fell with a splash into a water-butt below, while his body slid down to the bottom of the steps, where it lay ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... cases the name "Butts" refers to the fact of the land, under the common-field system, abutting on meadows or roads, e.g. "Butt-close," in the ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... that we need to cross by. The only problem is, whether our general is going to strike with his right arm at Mitchell's Ford, his left arm at this very Warrenton road we are on, or whether he means to butt the middle of the line of Beauregard's battle to break him ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... and I have often found particularly good shots to possess an almost telescopic vision. In the ordinary use of the rifle, the barrel is guided by the eye, but there are sportemen who fire with the butt of the gun at the hip. In this case, as in the use of the sling, the lasso, and the bolas, in hurling the knife (see Babinet, Lectures, vii., p. 84), in throwing the boomerang, the javelin, or a stone, and in the employment of the blowpipe and the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... sheet and began to paddle back. This bolsa was nothing but a bundle of tule, or bullrush, bound together with grass-ropes in the shape of a cigar, about ten feet long and about two feet through the butt. With these the California Indiana cross streams of considerable size. When he came ashore, I gave him a good overhauling for attempting to desert, and put him to work getting breakfast. In due time we returned him to his ship, the Ohio. Subsequently, I made ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of temper, Carl brutally clubbed his assailant into insensibility with the revolver butt and dragged him heavily to the tonneau of his car, throbbing unheeded in the darkness. Having assured himself of his guest's continued docility by the sinister adjustment of a handkerchief, an indifferent ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... unregenerate mind Is proper soil wherein to seek and find The seeds of latent evil, which may spring— And springing, grow, till they destruction bring. Even so it was with WILLIAM'S carnal heart, Some mischief settled in its fleshy part. Nor was this all; he oft became the butt Of journeymen or 'prentice, who would glut Their hardened hearts by showing greatest spite 'Gainst him for following what he thought was right. Often that wicked youth, in wantonness, Would try all means to give him ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... practice of his craft. Insight into the physiological basis of his life-work can save the artist, it seems, from those periods of black despair which he once used to employ in running his head against a concrete wall, and raging impotently because he could not butt through. Now, instead of laying his futility to a mysteriously malignant fate, or to the persecution of secret enemies, he is likely to throw over stimulants and late hours and take to the open road, the closed squash-court, and the sleeping-porch. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... for the fence between the orchard and hen house, near the spot where Edith was standing. She had placed her right foot on the second board of the fence just ready to jump, when Jerry arrived just in time to take advantage of the opportunity presented. With one strong butt he hoisted her clear of the fence, landing her on all fours on the soft, plowed ground on the other side. She jumped up quickly, spitting out a mouthful of the soft earth she had scooped up. Bob and Edith ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... him in it, stalking through the terrible dances, a heroic figure at last. He shuddered every time he found himself on one leg; he got sternly into everybody's way; he was the butt of the little noodle of an instructor. All the social tortures he endured grimly, in the hope that at last the cork would come out. Then, though there were all kinds of girls in the class, merry, sentimental, practical, coquettish, prudes, there was no kind, he felt, whose heart he ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... wall-plate, averaged about 19 ft. for the 141/2-ft. circular sewer and 191/2 ft. for the 15-ft. sewer. The arch timber segments in the cross-section were 10 by 12-in. North Carolina pine of good grade, with 2 in. off the butt for a bearing to take up the thrust. They were set 5 ft. apart on centers, and rested on 6 by 12-in. wall-plates of the same material as noted above. The ultimate strength of this material, across ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... the Pyrenees and the Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic, a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New World ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... he called a fish-whip, made from the whipray, a fish quite new to us, but indigenous to these waters. With a body shaped like a flounder, it has a tail often ten feet long, tapering from about one inch in thickness at the butt to an eighth of an inch at the small end. When dried this resembles whalebone, and makes a good coach-whip. There is a great variety of fish in and about the Bahamas. We saw, just landed at Nassau, a jew-fish, which takes the same place here that the halibut fills at the North, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... do my best to see after Jane and to counteract the family.... I've not gone there or written, or anything yet, because I didn't want to butt in. But ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... criticised the musical conditions of Leipzig adversely. The progressive LISZTVEREIN, of which he was soon the leading spirit, alone escaped; the opera, bereft of Nikisch, and the Gewandhaus, under its gentle and aged conductor, were treated by him with biting sarcasm. But his chief butt was the Conservatorium, and its ancient methods. He asserted that not a jot of the curriculum had been altered for fifty years; and its speedy downfall was the sole result to be expected and hoped ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about—supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long bare dining-room, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... to be broken out of the drifts and rolled upon the sleds with the aid of the men's canthooks. It was a mystery at first to Nan how they could get three huge logs, some of them three feet in diameter at the butt, on to the sled; two at the bottom and one rolled upon them, all being fastened securely with the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... would like to have thought and said, but did not," and, "Introducing to each other words which never had thought of being acquainted." Both of these perhaps hit the modern forms of the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiere, taces and the rest, and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter with the butt of malmsey. ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... waiting for him, and as soon as the Dragon had taken the Princess by the hand to carry her off he spread the salve upon his back, pressed him against the wall, and set his dogs upon him. At the same time he belaboured him with the butt-end of his musket, till the Dragon was quite exhausted and began to beg off, promising to give a written agreement never again to molest the Princess. When he had written the paper in his own blood and signed it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... crowd, and would have been trampled in the mud beneath the feet of those who hated her lover had not Geoffrey Ripon darted from the ranks and snatched it up to his infinite peril, for the trooper at his side struck him with the butt of his carbine. "See," he said to Dacre, who was stalking on in unconscious revery; "see, she has thrown you a rose. Be of good cheer, man." And Geoffrey could not help thinking that if the one he loved had dropped a rose at his feet, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... youngster cried, glowering into the speaker's face. "That the feller Buck called an outlaw passon?" he demanded. His right hand slipped to the butt of his gun. "Say you," he cried threateningly, "if you got anything to say I'm right here ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... unbearable. I had never done such work before, and was not built for it. I did my best to keep up with the gang, but my chest heaved and my heart beat as though it would burst. There were nineteen Irishmen in the gang—big, rough fellows who had picked me out, as the only "Dutchman," as the butt for their coarse jokes; but when they saw that the work was plainly too much for me, the other side of this curiously contradictory, mischief-loving, and big-hearted people came out. They invented a thousand excuses to get me out of the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... innocent, too transparently a child of nature. Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is rough; Pendennis is a bit of a puppy; Clive Newcome is not much of a hero; and as for Dobbin he is almost intended to be a butt. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... I mean—all the money I had left yesterday, and I couldn't get it out of him again, though I told him my distress about the stage-coachman? Did you ever know any thing so selfish? Did you ever know any thing so shabby, so shameful? And then to make me his butt, as he did last night at supper, because there were two or three dashing young men by; I think more of that than all the rest. Do you know, he asked me to eat custard with my apple-pie, just to point me out for an alderman's son; and when I only differed ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
