"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... similar field open in Oude when Government interposes in behalf of the suffering people, and we might prepare for it by converting the Martiniere into a similar school or college. The committee has just expressed to you a hope that Mr. Crank, the officiating principal, may be able to pass an examination in the native languages. This hope can never be realised; and if he does I shall have to record my opinion that he is otherwise unfitted. The power of nominating a principal rests entirely with the trustees; and if ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... to a close when young Johnny Eyre came sailing in from Loch Fyne, himself and a boy of ten or twelve managing that crank little boat with its top-heavy sails. "Are you at work yet, Lavender?" he said. "I never saw such a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... can marry unless he and his bride-elect can show that they will have over a certain income to live upon. In a republican army like ours no man ought to be commissioned unless he will agree to live on less than a fixed amount for each successive grade." They called him "Crank Cranston" in the Eleventh for quite a while, but without affecting in the faintest degree his sturdy stand. Margaret's gowns continued simple and inexpensive, and their mode of living modest as any subaltern's, and many women spoke of them as "close" and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... way he is not a crank," said Mrs. Cristie; "you can't turn him. When he has made up his mind about anything, that matter is settled and fixed just as if it were screwed ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... removed what power would prevent the atheists from producing distinctly anti-Christian plays which might very well cause riots, which certainly would prove a serious counterblast, if discreetly handled, to the efforts of the Church and Stage enthusiasts. One can conceive every kind of crank with money producing a play to advocate his ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... the seed before curing; it is much lighter to handle, and less bulky. It may be done then, or in winter, as you prefer. The seed is removed on a cylinder eighteen inches long, and two and a half feet in diameter, having two hundred wrought nails with their points projecting. It is turned by a crank, like a fanning mill. The corn is held in a convenient handful, like flax on a hatchel. Where large quantities are to be cleaned of the seed, power is used to turn the machine. Ground or boiled, the seed makes ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... was, lying loose in the pit, and sticking to the roots that had pulled up a big, cake of dirt with 'em. I don't know what give him the idea that there was money in it, but he did think so from the start. I guess, if they'd had the word in those days, they'd considered him pretty much of a crank about it. He was trying as long as he lived to get that paint introduced; but he couldn't make it go. The country was so poor they couldn't paint their houses with anything; and father hadn't any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... stimulate him to renewed exertions as it did when he began his career. It is entirely different with the man who is trying to establish himself in the major league. An ambitious young player thinks that the game depends upon him, and is dead sure that every crank agrees with him. Give him a good send-off in the papers, or let his manager commend him for a creditable piece of work, and he will break his neck in his efforts to deserve another installment to-morrow. The public demands snappy ball, and ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... text was as innocent as a baby: 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.' And when he began in the usual way, the dear old goodies in glasses thought he had been wound up like the musical box and had just turned on the crank, so they cuddled in comfortably for forty winks before the anthem. There were two natures in man, and man's body might be good or bad according as spiritual or carnal affections swayed it, and all the rest of the good old change-for-sixpence-and-a-ha'penny-out, you know. But the lesson ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... always ached when she was in a crank, as he called her moods, and he brought her salts, and undid her cloak and bonnet, and kissed her once or twice, while his father, who was hot because she was hot, said it was like an August day all over the house, and opened a window, but shut it almost immediately, for a cloud of snow came drifting ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... of it," Cressler went on, heedless of Jadwin's good-humoured protests. "Yes, I know I am a crank on speculating. I'm going to preach a little if you'll let me. I've been a speculator myself, and a ruined one at that, and I know what I am talking about. Here is what I was going to say. These fellows themselves, the gamblers—well, call them speculators, if you like. Oh, the fine, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... these days," said Beale cryptically. "I can tell you something else, gentlemen, and this is more of a suspicion than a certainty, that there is not a crank scientist who has ever gone under through drink or crime in the whole of this country, aye, and America and France, too, that isn't working for him. And now, gentlemen, if ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... one's heart, And twilight in one's cell, We turn the crank, or tear the rope, Each in his separate Hell, And the silence is more awful far Than the sound of ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... turnip fields, or worse, caught by an apple-baited hook hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his aspirations to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in his life 'hits the keeper into the river,' and reconsiders himself for a while over a crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults, and I have mine. But he is a thoroughly good fellow nevertheless. Civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; a far shrewder fellow too—owing to his dash of wild ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... 'But she is a crank, though!' said Louie. 'Why, if you make free with her things a bit, or if you call 'em by the wrong names, she'll fly at you! How's anybody to know ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is to be frozen into the tin can, put the beater in this, and put on the cover. Place in the tub, being careful to have the point on the bottom fit into the socket in the tub. Put on the cross-piece, and turn the crank to see if everything is in the right place. Next comes the packing. Ice should be broken in large pieces, and put in a canvas bag, and pounded fine with a mallet. Put a thick layer of it in the tub (about ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... the platform moves to its position. All that is necessary in the construction of this part of the work is to make a set of ways, and a sliding platform that will run with ease from one side of the stage to the other. A rope attached to the platform, and fastened to a crank below the stage, will propel the Goddess to her position. The ways and platform can be hidden from view by a strip of board, painted to imitate the floor of the room. A small quantity of the whitish-blue fire may be burned near the spot where the Goddess appears. The light should be very dim, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... I have witnessed, none has appeared to me more curious than a susceptibility of certain minds to become imbued with a violent antipathy to the theory of gravitation. The anti-gravitation crank, as he is commonly called, is a regular part of the astronomer's experience. He is, however, only one of a large and varied class who occupy themselves with what an architect might consider the drawing up of plans and specifications ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... front of the empty hearth, And he neither ate nor drank. In three days they found him, dead and cold, And they said: "What a queer old crank!" ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... "any presentiment, any extravagance as most in nature," is not commonly called a Transcendentalist, but is known colloquially as a "crank." The person who does not thank, by word or look, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire or water, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... The advantage of this weapon over the steel crossbow (used by the Genoese) lay in the fact that it could be discharged much more rapidly, the latter being a cumbrous affair, which had to be wound up with a crank for each shot. Hence the English long bow was to that age what the revolver is to ours. It sent an arrow with such force that only the best armor could withstand it. The French peasantry at that ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... cowardice Goody-goody puerilities and dreary moralities Habit of assimilating incredibilities Human pride is not worth while Hunger is the handmaid of genius If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank Inherited prejudices in favor of hoary ignorances It is easier to stay out than get out Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to Meddling philanthropists Melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy Moral ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... nothing but a hermit like those of the fourth century—he was naturally and constitutionally so odd. Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau were three consecrated cranks: rather be crank than president. All the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... steam-navigation from the State of New York. Fulton took out two patents for his invention; but unfortunately they were not adequate to his protection, for they covered only the application of the steam-engine to the turning of a crank in producing the rotary motion of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... wind got round to N. and there was no appearance of its abating. At eight, the captain well satisfied that she was very crank and ought to have had more ballast, agreed to make for Bacon Island Road, in North Carolina; and in the very act of wearing her, a sudden gust of wind laid her down on her beam-end, and she never rose again!—At ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... Number Seven interrupted me by calling out, "Give us some of those cranks' letters. A crank is a man who does his own thinking. I had a relation who was called a crank. I believe I have been spoken of as one myself. That is what you have to expect if you invent anything that puts an old machine out of fashion, or solve a problem that has puzzled all the world up to your ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... time we were looking the Great Panjandrum Himself, with his little round button-at-the-top on his head, was turning a crank in the side of the wonderful Pantoscopticon, which had a hopper on the top of it like that of an old-fashioned coffee-mill. As he ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... Work too vast for us to perceive? Are our passions and desires mere whips and traces by the help of which we are driven? Any theory seems more hopeful than the thought that all our eager, fretful lives are but the turning of a useless prison crank. Looking back the little distance that our dim eyes can penetrate the past, what do we find? Civilizations, built up with infinite care, swept aside and lost. Beliefs for which men lived and died, proved to be mockeries. Greek Art crushed to the dust by Gothic bludgeons. Dreams ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the drum Hiram passed two lengths of Number 9 wire through large screweyes, making a double loop into which the hook of a light timber chain would easily catch. Into one end of the drum he drove a headless spike, upon which the hand-crank of the grindstone fitted, and was ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Both vessels are employed by the same house, and take out the same freight. You must, however, please yourself, Mr. Lyndsay. The Flora has a great number of passengers of the lowest cast,—is old and crank; with the most vicious, morose captain that sails from this port. I know him only too well. He made two voyages for me; and the letters I received, complaining of his brutal conduct to some of his passengers, I can show you ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... thousand pounds at thirty miles an hour over even the softest snow, as its cylindrical supports did not sink into the snow as ordinary wheels would have done. The motor was a forty-horse power automobile machine with a crank-case enclosed in an outer case in which a vacuum had been created—on the principle of the bottles which keep liquids cold or warm. In this instance the vacuum served to keep the oil in the crank-case, which was poured in warm, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... coming on—to the usual well-ventilated disgust of the local religious crank, who was on the jury; but the case differed in no essential point from other cases which were always coming on and going off in my time. It was not at all romantic. The local youth was ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... a barrow-load of the smoulder," said Uncle Ben to Carfax, "and let them work the crank, for John to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... glad to do it, just for the sake of having such a good home. Ginger said if we could do all that, and keep Jonesy and his brother from growing up to be tramps like the man we bought the bear from, it would be serving our country just as much as if we went to war and fought for it. Ginger is a crank about being a patriot. You ought to hear her talk about it. And Aunt Allison said that 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,' and that to build such a place as our 'Fairchance' would be a deed worthy ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... startling thing one can do to attract attention. It was the fact that I do NOT advertise that drew you here. And everyone who comes here thinks he has discovered the place himself. He goes and tells his friends about the book asylum run by a crank and a lunatic, and they come here in turn to see what it ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... are ready for a nice long talk, that is, if you feel equal to the task of talking. What I have to say will not take long. It is about a little interview between Mr. Allison and—Judge Thorn's daughter, and if I had been less of a 'crank,' I suppose you would have ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... you'll laugh—but you wasn't laughing then. I'll say you wasn't. I thought you was croaked. Cost something to repair the plane, too. I'm saying it did. Had to have a new propeller, and a new crank-case for the motor—cost the old man at the ranch close to three hundred dollars before I turned her over to him, ready to take the air again. That's including what he paid me, of course. But I guess you know what it cost, when he handed ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... get a word out of him. He's a Socialist and a crank, you know, and you'd be surprised how ugly some of them fellows can be. As soon as I get the story complete I'll report to you, but meantime there's no ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... With cries of alarm, the Russians turned and fled toward their trucks. McCready ran along the ravine until he was within fifty yards of the standing machines. As the Russians approached, one of them stepped to the truck crank. McCready's pistol spoke and he dropped. A second shared his fate. With cries of despair, the Russians climbed into the remaining truck whose motor was running. Rapidly it drove away across the plain. McCready rose from the ravine and ran toward ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... that," she agreed listlessly. "Mine isn't. It works like a cinema camera; I've only to turn the crank the other way to be looking ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... opening a trap door. The newly formed aluminum oxide (alumina) floats as slag on top. The applications of the thermit process are innumerable. If, for instance, it is desired to mend a broken rail or crank shaft without moving it from its place, the two ends are brought together or fixed at the proper distance apart. A crucible filled with the thermit mixture is set up above the joint and the thermit ignited with a priming of aluminum and barium peroxide to start it off. The barium ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... eastern slope of Quereau is a very rocky piece of ground full of "trees" (corals) in 250 fathoms. This is a good halibut ground although it is almost impossible to haul the gear by hand and the use of the "gurdy" (a roller turned by a crank and fastened to the dory's bow for winding up the trawl) becomes necessary. Occasional fares of halibut are taken on and about the Rocky Bottom in 20 to 25 fathoms from ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... a connoisseur. Occasionally, when a sparrow hopped in his direction, he would make a sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the lawn. I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow. I believe they looked on him as a bit of a crank, and humoured him by coming within springing distance, just to keep him amused. Dashing young cock-sparrows would show off before their particular hen-sparrows, and earn a cheap reputation for dare-devilry by going within so many years of Edwin's lair, and then darting away. Bob was ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... sailor-boy, and to make them comfortable with the cash. Unfortunately, as I passed through Philadelphia, I went with some wild fellows to the theatre—to so many the gateway to hell—and having grog enough aboard to make me pretty crank and foolish, I soon found myself in the third tier among the painted fire-ships; and as the proverb says, "When the wine is in, the wit is out," so I was led as the simple one of Scripture, "like an ox to the slaughter." Truly, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... auditorium has brought me to the conclusion that the public there may be loosely divided into three classes—leaving out reporters of fashionable intelligence, dressmakers in search of ideas, and the lady inhabitants of “Crank Alley” (as a certain corner of the orchestra is called), who sit in perpetual ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... many cities, the intimate knowledge of streets and of public places burst upon my comprehension. I could see our host looking upward, his strong white teeth flashing in an ingratiating fascinating smile, his right arm revolving with the crank of his organ, his little brown monkey with the red coat ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... result. He tried it again with equal futility—then, going to the tool-box, he took out his electric flashlight, and, lifting the engine hood, began to peer into the machinery. Everything seemed all right. He tried the crank again—the engine, like some cold, dead thing, refused ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... wagon-wheel had once gone over his tail (when nine dogs out of ten would have lost their lives by receiving the wheel on their hind quarters), and this appendage now had a curious bend in the middle of it, making it rather like a bulldog's "crank" tail, but long and bushy. He was far from being a handsome dog; but he looked every inch a fighter, and there was a certain invincibility about his appearance which, combined with his swiftness in action and the devastating severity of all his attacks, served to win for him the submissive ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... gauntlet of pseudo-designers, crank inventors, press "experts," and politicians; of manufacturers keen on cheap work and large profits; of poor pilots who had funked it, and good pilots who had expected too much of it. Thousands of pounds had been wasted on it, many had gone bankrupt over it, and others ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... stood well in their classes; and they were liked by all the instructors—even by Professor Krenner, who some of the girls declared wickedly was the school's "self-starter, Lakeview Hall being altogether too modern to have a crank." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... discovered that we were intended to be a sort of wild beast. The wonder to me is that 'e didn't go out 'unting chickens with a club, and bring 'em 'ome and eat 'em on the mat without any further fuss. For drink it would be boiling water that burnt my fingers merely 'andling the glass. Then some other crank came out with the information that every other crank was wrong—which, taken by itself, sounds natural enough—that meat was fatal to the 'uman system. Upon that 'e becomes all at once a raging, tearing vegetarian, and trouble enough I 'ad learning twenty different ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... discussed the letters which poured in upon them from theatrical managers, Wild West shows, music halls, and other similar enterprises, and from romantic girls and shrewd photographers, and every other conceivable kind of crank. The offers of the music halls Jack was inclined to consider worth while. "He'd be a great success there, or as a dead-shot in a Wild West show. They ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... short rope spliced round a thimble in the eye of the bell-crank, with a double wall-knot ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the hissing steam as it rushed through the cylinders, and without knowing what was going to happen next,—whether or not the boiler would explode, and the deck be torn up beneath me,—I waited in feverish anxiety for the result. Then I heard the splash of the wheels; the crank turned, rumbled, and jarred on its centre, but went over, and continued to turn. The Adieno moved, and the motion sent a thrill through my whole being. It was fortunate for us that she lay at the pier ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... use asking me hypocritical questions, Rashkin?" Abe replied. "Mawruss would no more touch it as I would. You don't know what a crank I got it for a partner, Rashkin. If I would just hint that I wanted to buy real estate, y'understand, that feller would go all up in the air. And even if he would buy it with me yet, and we should lose maybe a little money, I would never ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... 1842, the inventor made another effort to obtain the help of Congress, and the Committee on Commerce again recommended an appropriation of 30,000 dollars in aid of the telegraph. Morse had come to be regarded as a tiresome 'crank' by some of the Congressmen, and they objected that if the magnetic telegraph were endowed, mesmerism or any other 'ism' might have a claim on the Treasury. The Bill passed the House by a slender majority of six votes, given orally, some of the representatives ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... plan to move the boat in an easier way than by poles. He whittled out the model of a tiny paddle wheel. Then he went to work with Chris Gumpf, and they made a larger paddle wheel. This they set up in the fishing boat. The wheel was turned by the boys with a crank. They did not use ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... broad, made of heavy black velvet. This velvet belt moves over two cylinders at the front and the rear ends of the apparatus. In the centre of the belt is a window 4-1/2 inches wide and 2-1/2 inches high. If the front cylinder is turned by a metal crank, the velvet belt passes over the glass plate and the little window opening moves over the card with its track and figures. The whole breadth of the card, with its central track and its 4 units on either side, is visible through it over an area ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... the warning cry of "ishra ankra" for a "crank," and could give the pencil taps telegraphing from counter to counter that a notorious "pill" or an "I'll-come-back-again" was bearing down on the department. She seemed to know by instinct when she could offer to send a toy C.O.D. for a stranger without fear ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the lake, but they never seemed to catch anything beyond eels, turtles, sun-fish, and a few two inch bass, the name of which they did not even know, and I got into their bad graces by telling them they ought to return the bass into the lake. They thought I was a crank, in fact one of them told me so. These men were salt-water sports, and one man who came there from Newark, N. J., was actually baiting with shrimps for fresh-water bass and had no less than eight hooks upon his line, all baited with shrimps. This man also told me that there ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... says she won't marry me if she has to live with you. She's afraid of you. I told her you wouldn't interfere with her, but she wasn't satisfied. It's your own fault, Eunice. You've always been so queer and close that people think you're an awful crank. Victoria's young and lively, and you and she wouldn't get on at all. There isn't any question of turning you out. I'll build a little house for you somewhere, and you'll be a great deal better off there than you would be here. So ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a voice of distress, and though I am no dreamer and I think no crank, I could not get away from the idea that she was crying to me to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the news of every-day life—the murders and accidents and political convulsions—but he was interested in strong types of human character. We young men had not had experience enough to understand this kind of a man. It seems to me now that we looked at Whitman simply as a kind of crank, if the word had then been invented. His talk to us was chiefly of books, and the men who wrote them: especially of poetry, and what he considered poetry. He never said much of the class whom he visited in our wards, after he had ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... Pertell, and Ruth and Alice started the "business," or acting, called for. Russ was grinding away at the crank of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... over his victuals and eat them alone when he knows there's someone next door hungry. Did you ever notice when a man thinks he's a genius he lets his hair grow long and when a woman gets out of her place, to be something she oughtn't to be, she cuts her hair short. Every crank puts some kind of a brand on themselves. You don't have to talk to them to ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... said seemingly wrong. I'm for A. S. just one hundred per cent and would prefer to have it as right as possible. I don't like crank letter writing and would never have written this now if it hadn't been for several of the letters in the March issue that gave me a touch of hades under the collar. S'long. Maybe I'll write again sometime when I get some more "ham science" ideas.—William ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... to decide," says J. Bayard, "whether he was mentally unbalanced, or just plain crank. Comes from some absurd little hole out West, and has but one idea in his head,—to boom that place. Tried to pin a beastly button on me. Ah! I ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... We'd all forgive thy grin, guffaw, and rancid-smelling tresses, If we could trace thy fraud, O SAN, in half-a-dozen guesses. It's lasted long, it's lasted strong, it cannot last much longer, For if the crank be competent, my common sense ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... abstinence. Won't allow any literature with the least smell of a drink in it, not even in the singing-class. Would not have 'Here's a health to King Charles' inside the door. Narrowing, that; as many of the finest classics speak of wine freely. Eastman is useful, but a crank. Now take 'Lochinvar.' We are to have it on strawberry night; but say! Eastman kicked about it. Told the kid to speak something else. Kid ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... also call attention to the improvements that we have just made in our mill. Last week we put a handle in the upper burr, and we have also engaged one of the best head millers in Pompeii to turn the crank day-times. Our old head miller will oversee the business at night, so that the mill will be in full blast night and day, except when the head miller has gone to his meals or stopped to spit ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... perfect, and, with its suspensions, its elaborations, its gradual crescendos, its unerring conclusions, seems to carry the sheer beauty of expressiveness to the farthest conceivable point. Take, as one instance out of a multitude, this description of the crank who devotes his existence ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... the spell of their singing raised the fragrant freight, and not the crank. Madagascar and Ceylon appeared at the mystic bidding of the song. The placid sunshine of the docks was perfumed with India. The universal calm of southern seas poured from the bosom of the ship over the quiet, decaying ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... lanterns. "I wish the cows would stop a minute," said Nancy. "I can't seem to think with such a racket going on." Eben turned on the spark of the engine. He had done it before, but it seemed different to do it when his father wasn't standing near. Then he took the crank. "I hope she doesn't kick tonight," he wished fervently. He planted his feet firmly and grasped the handle! Round he swung it, around and around. Only the bellowing of the cows answered. He began again. Round he swung the handle; around and around. "Chug, chug-a-chug, chug, ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... when he told me that, for I had been imagining that he was the kind of man who is known as a freak, and had come to win me over to some stupid crank which he would call ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... the Oxford don's opinions would lead him to blow up the house; because the Oxford don is an English type. Suppose somebody said, 'Do let me bring old Colonel Robinson down for the week-end; he's a bit of a crank but quite interesting.' We should not anticipate the colonel running amuck with a carving-knife and offering up human sacrifice in the garden; for these are not among the daily habits of an old English colonel; and because ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... was dark and cold; but the poor man bade his wife wait and see what would happen. He placed the little hand-mill on the table, and began to turn the crank. First, out there came some grand, lighted wax candles, and a fire on the hearth, and a porridge-pot boiling over it, because in his mind he said they should come first. Then he ground out a tablecloth, and dishes, and spoons, and knives and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... called on the over-zealous adoption of automatic machines for most every line of industrial activity. You are now getting to the stage where the most simple and elementary mathematical problems are solved by merely pressing a few buttons or turning a crank, the operator understanding little or nothing of the fundamentals underlying the solution of the problems in hand. This means, in the near future, ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... their villages near the sea beaches or the rivers and lakes. In their canoes they would paddle as far as twelve miles from land. Amongst other fish they caught sharks, killing them before they hauled them into the crank canoes; or, joining forces, they would sweep some estuary with drag nets, and, with much yelling and splashing, drive the fish into a shallow corner. There with club and spear dog-fish and smooth-hound would be done to death ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... be. A mystery to Sweetwater's eyes, and like all mysteries, interesting. For what purpose had it been built and why this isolation? It was too flimsy for a reservoir and too expensive for the wild freak of a crank. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... for their alky-powered jeep and wrecked it and them, how when our haul turned out to be unexpectedly big the four of us left from the kill chummied up and padded down together and amused each other for a while and played games, you might say. Why, at one point we even had an old crank phonograph going and read some books. And, of course, how when the loot gave out and the fun wore off, we had our murder party and I survived along with, I think, a bugger named Jerry—at any rate, he was gone when the blood stopped spurting, and I'd had ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... it!" exclaimed Bess. "I am sure I want to. Let's get going again, if we are to make the Woodbine Way in time to plan the tour. I'm just crazy about the trip," and the enthusiastic girl expended some of her pent-up energies on the crank at ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... only said, dismissing the question with the national gesture. After a moment he added: "I shall tell you something that is strrange, so strrange that you shall say, like the banker say, 'Thees Enriquez, he ees off his head; he ees a crank, a lunatico;' but it ees a FACT; ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... boats, or on floating spars, but only to meet worse hardships than on sea; for the savages on the coast, aided by your gallant Englishmen, fell on us, defenceless as we were, stripped us of all we had, and drove us from the shore in an old crank of a galleon, which, if it carried us thus far, did so only by the grace of God and ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... called a crank. This contrivance does not differ in principle from the common winch, or from the key which winds a clock. The motion of the piston-rod backwards and forwards turns such a winch. At each termination of the stroke, the piston, from the peculiar position of the crank, loses all power over it. To remedy this two cylinders and pistons are generally used, which act upon two cranks placed on the axle at right angles to each other; so that at the moment when one of the pistons is at the extremity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... a day's run to Melbourne, the screw slipped off the tail-shaft, and as it went to the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the racing engine went to pieces. This might not have prevented the steamer's reaching port under sail or tow, but the forward crank-pin broke, and the piston drove up with nothing to stop it, fetched up with a mighty jolt against the cylinder head—which held—and disconnected most of the bolts which bound the cylinder to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... equipped. Eastwick and Harrison, it is true, favored an eccentric drive for feed pumps, but they mounted the eccentric on the crankpin of the rear driving wheel and thus produced in effect a half-stroke pump. This was not an unusual arrangement, though a small crank was usually employed in place of the eccentric. The full-stroke crosshead pump with which the Jenny Lind (fig. 22) is equipped, was of course the most common style of feed pump used in this country ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... promotion to the Admiralty, and to place him in charge of the prize to take home. She was the Aigle, privateer, mounting sixteen guns, evidently very fast, but very low, with taut masts, square yards, and seemingly very crank. Most of the prisoners were removed, and Mr Noakes got leave to pick a crew. He chose, among others, Reuben Cole and Paul Gerrard. The surgeon advised that Devereux and O'Grady should go home, and Alphonse ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... delight, I found that it was just buoyant enough to support my weight, and that by carefully seating myself cross-legged, tailor fashion, in the exact centre of it, I could keep it right side up. I next experimented with my makeshift paddle, and although the hatch proved so terribly crank that I was several times in imminent danger of capsizing by the mere sway of my body from side to side, I presently acquired the trick of keeping my balance, and found, to my great delight, that I could actually progress, although only slowly and at ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Jarley Bangs had but little more to say. The boys had left the touring car, and now the man jumped inside, saw to it that everything was in order, and then asked Spouter to crank up for him. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... TELEPHONES ARE RUNG. The old-fashioned telephones, still often used in the country, have little cranks that you turn to ring for central. The crank turns a coil of wire between the poles of the magnet and generates the electricity for ringing the bell. These little dynamos, like those in automobiles, ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... I sat in the lantern, the great brazen frame of polished reflectors swung around, once in each minute, within a few inches of the side. Beneath was the projecting handle of a crank, or lever, by pressing upon which the revolution could be instantly arrested. Stooping down, I could sit at ease, with my head clear from any contact with the lamps, and in that position could have the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... have observed there is a prejudice here against treadle machines;—the creole girls are persuaded they injure the health. Most of the sewing-machines I have seen among this people are operated by hand,—with a sort of little crank.... ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... is, What would the necessary alterations cost? Much, of course, would depend on what was done. A very large part of the present screw engines could be used. For example, the crank shaft, some 2 feet in diameter, is a splendid job, and no difficulty need be met with in working in nearly the whole of the present framing. If the engines were only to be compound, two of the existing cylinders might be left ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... have remonstrated against the influence of this second nature, both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who turn a crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly. Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to reform their present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to each a larger salary ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... is," said the woman. "My husband, he was a crank for buyin' fine cattle. I used to tell him he was wastin' his money, but he would do it. Same ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday and on Friday, and on Saturday. One afternoon, strolling in the adjacent country, he had seen a horse walking round and round and round in a small paddock, turning a crank which worked some machine or other in an adjoining shed: that horse had ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... rule-of-thumb mathematics. One picked up a sort of smattering of a language or two knocking about the world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft all his life. He hasn't got any regular place to stow away what he gets into his brains, and so it lies tumbling about in the hold, and he loses it, or it gets damaged and is never ready for use. You see what ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... with so many guns. No; our luck was in to-day, when they discovered us instead of Twine's squadron. We shall make something out of the 20th. They are the right stuff: that squadron went for that rise to-day in splendid style. The Boer cannot stand galloping. I may be a crank—they believe that I am one at Pretoria—but I am convinced that I have discovered the true Mounted Infantry formation for the sort of fighting that we are now experiencing out here. If you find your enemy in any position that you can gallop over, without ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... good results, and save so much time and effort that they should be found in every kitchen. Among them is the rotary egg beater shown in Fig. 1 (a). This is so made that one revolution of the wheel to which the crank is attached does about five times as much work as can be done with a fork or with an egg whip, which is shown in (b). Another inexpensive device that is a real help is the potato ricer. This device, one style of which is shown ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... had recovered himself, and now believed he had to do with a crank or some person under the influence of liquor, again barred the way. Trying to push the unwelcome visitor out, he ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... suitable vessel. The log states she was a little crank, but an admirable sea-boat. Her rate of sailing was of course, with her build, slow, but her strength and flat bottom stood her in good stead when she made acquaintance with ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... with which LOUIS NAPOLEON has already commenced to astonish the Prussians, suggests congenial work for the numerous performers on the barrel-organ with which our large cities are at all times infested. It is worked with a crank, exactly after the manner of the too-familiar street instrument; and might easily be fitted with a musical cylinder arranged for the performance of the most inspiriting and patriotic French airs. Should ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... Italians accused of crime in the city are included in their number. One of these men is to be seen on the Bowery at almost any time. He seats himself on the pavement, with his legs tucked under him, and turns the crank of an instrument which seems to be a doleful compromise between a music box and an accordion. In front of this machine is a tin box for pennies, and by the side of it is a card on which is printed an appeal to the charitable. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that you might doubt my statistics, and might consider me merely another 'crank,' so I placed my figures before Dr. Sundwall, Professor of Hygiene of the University of Michigan, and asked him to check their correctness. Dr. Sundwall and Dr. Newburgh recalculated the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... moment it was first proposed. Every dictator protested bitterly. Even politicians out of office found it a subject for rabble-rousing harangues. The nationalistic political parties, the peddlers of hate, the entrepreneurs of discord—every crank in the world had something to say against the Platform from the first. When they did not roundly denounce it as impious, they raved that it was a scheme by which the United States would put itself in position to rule all the Earth. As a matter of fact, the United States ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... as the attributes of one, for she proved a death-trap for successive crews on three trial trips. As there were no electric motors or gasoline engines in those days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. After repeated sinkings, she was raised, manned by new men, and sent forth again. Finally, in Charleston harbor she succeeded in destroying the United States man-o'-war Housatonic, but at the same time ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the crank-case arms to the crank-case, using pneumatic hammers which were supposed to be the latest development. It took six men to hold the hammers and six men to hold the casings, and the din was terrific. Now an automatic press ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... feet in the wringer and turned the crank. It was hard work getting Raggedy through the wringer, but Dinah was very strong. And of course it happened! Raggedy Ann came through ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... exactly what is the matter. Their bellwether is an old deacon named Isham Swift, and you couldn't turn him with a forty-horsepower crank." ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a true brother, and that I will in all things obey the commands of the great tawney prince, and keep his council, and not divulge the secrets of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... be over at Epinal the day after tomorrow,' he said as they left the mill, 'and I'll see if I can get the new crank there.' ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... A sand crank is a fissure in the horn of the wall of the foot. These fissures are quite narrow, and, as a general rule, they follow the direction of the horny fibers. They may occur on any part of the wall, but ordinarily are ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... construction, to drain off the water and let the clay dry out sufficiently by subsequent evaporation. A machine of this construction may be made of such a size that it may be put in motion by hand, by means of a crank, and yet be capable of mixing, if properly supplied, clay enough to mold 800 or 1000 pieces of ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... weight seemed to press on his head, and a red mist hung over everything as he walked blindly on. At a point which he had just reached, a heap of rough boxes obstructed his path, and at that moment a huge crank swung its iron arm over the edge of the dock, a heavy weight was hanging from it, and exactly as Cardo passed, it came with a horizontal movement against the back of his head with terrible force, throwing him forward insensible on the ground. The high pile of boxes had hidden the accident from the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... each revolution of the lever and the individual injuries that each inflicted. Three years after his injury he was in every respect well. Fraser mentions an instance of a boy of fifteen who was caught in the crank of a balance-wheel in a shingle-mill, and was taken up insensible. His skull was fractured at the parietal eminence and the pericranium stripped off, leaving a bloody tumor near the base of the fracture about two inches in diameter. The right humerus was fractured at the external condyle; there ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... turned by a crank, has been made to speak words, but nothing below a human being has been able to get thought from a written or printed page and convey it to others. To make the machine requires a vast amount of labor expended upon matter; to get the thought requires the awakening of a human spirit. The work ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milk-maid sitting by her cow—this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance. The Italian turned a crank; and, behold! every one of these small individuals started into the most curious vivacity. The cobbler wrought upon a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier waved his glittering blade; ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... paper was next sanded by permitting its lower surface to pass over dry sand in a box standing on the floor. A workman rolled off the paper, and with his hand he strews sand on the upper surface. The rolling taking place on the edge of a table, by means of a crank, the excess ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... of her tiny house, the late morning sun warm about her; one hand supported a book, slanted carefully to avoid the light, the other held the crank of a barrel-churn. As she read, she turned steadily, the monotonous chug! chug! of the tumbling cream drowning ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... he has a right to think only to enforce its teachings. From that moment he is a moral machine. The chief engineer resides at Rome, and he gives his orders through certain assistant engineers until the one is reached who turns the crank, and the machine has nothing to do one way or the other. This machine is paid for giving up his liberty by having machines under him who have also given up theirs. While somebody else turns his crank, he has the pleasure of turning a crank ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the satisfaction of being able to invite a gathering of gentlemen from different parts of the State to behold with their own eyes the working of the newly invented cotton-gin, with which a negro man turning a crank could clean fifty ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... driver, no plowman, nothing but the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its way," Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever spiraling toward the field's center. "Plow, harrow, roll, seed, fertilize, cultivate, harvest—all from the front porch. And where the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... a crank. He knew that so far from being a mere animal, the Indian is of a subtlety more ancient than the Sphinx. In his primal brain—nearer nature than our own—the directness of a child mingles with the profoundest cunning. He believes easily in powers of light and darkness, yet is a ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Ed turned the crank, an' there on the bank they squatted like bumps on a log. For acres around there wasn't a sound, not even the howl of a dog. When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone; ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service |
