"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and pole game as played by the Apaches. With them the pole is marked with divisions throughout its whole length and these divisions are stained different colors. The object of the game is to make the hoop fall upon the pole as near the butt as possible, graduated values being applied to the different divisions of the pole. The women are not permitted to approach within a hundred yards while the game is going on. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.] Those who have described this game ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... "Faithful Friend" steered a course that was taking her rapidly away from me upon the freshening wind. Perceiving which bitter truth, beholding myself thus befooled, bubbled and tricked (and my head throbbing from the blow of Penfeather's pistol-butt) a mighty anger against him surged within me, and shaking my fists I fell to fierce curses and revilings, like any madman, until what with my aching head and lack of breath, I cast myself face down and lay there spent with my futile ravings. Yet even so, bethinking me of all my fine ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... adapted to his preconceived comedy with Tira. Martin, hearing the step behind her, started, unprepared. He had passed Tenney, slowly making his way homeward, and counted on a few minutes' speech with her and a quick exit, for his butt, the fool of a husband, to see. But as Raven appeared, the fellow's face broke up in a flouting amusement. Here was another, the satiric lips were ready to swear. Deepest distrust of Tira shone forth in the half smile; a low community of mean understanding ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... butt and ben the change-house fills Wi' yill-caup commentators, Here's crying out for bakes and gills, And there the pint-stoup clatters. Wi' thick and thrang, and loud and lang,— Wi' logic and wi' scripture, They raise a din that ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... John Dangerous can boast of. Which makes me so mad against your fine Scholars and Scribblers, who, because they can turn verse and make Te-to-tum into Greek, must needs sneer at me at the Coffee House, and make a butt of an honest man who has been from one end of the world to the other, and has fought his way through it to Fortune ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... through the mob. But the dalal stiffened with increasing dignity. Some of that laughter seemed to touch himself, and he was not a person to be made the butt of mirth. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... cottage where he and Jenny had spent the summer; the bleary-eyed old peacock was the chicken he had dosed with cayenne pepper, hoping to cure its rheumatism; the pool with the white threads for sunlight was the water-butt into which Tom had fallen from the tiles—"those are the hairs out of his own old tail." The nymphs were Laura, Maggie, Emily, &c. Mike asked Lady Helen to come into the dancing-room, but she did not appear to hear, and her laughter encouraged Muchross to further excesses. ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... at the sides and top of the door. That at the hinged side can be as shown at A, Fig. 5, the closing side as at B, and the top as at C in the same drawing. These are all in section and are self-explanatory. In hinging the door, three butt hinges should be used so as ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... entertain him. That young gentleman quite distinguished himself by the variety and extent of his resources. He devised butting matches between himself and a large gourd, which he suspended from the ceiling, and almost blinded himself by his attempts to butt it sufficiently hard to cause it to rebound to the utmost length of the string, and might have made an idiot of himself for ever by his exertions, but for the timely interference of Mr. Ellis, who put a final stop to this diversion. Then he dressed himself in a short gown and nightcap, and ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... superficial aspects of recent English history. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt, and the whole line of witnesses before the Special Commission, tell a different tale. The very name of the Land League is significant. Home Rule was a mere theme for academic discussion in the mouth of Mr. Butt. Repeal itself never touched the strongest passions of Irish nature, though advocated by the most eloquent and popular of Irish orators. Not an independent Parliament, but independent ownership of land, has always been ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... course was to place Saxe's ice-axe across, with head and butt resting in the two holes, and he had judged so accurately that the head went in with not half an inch to spare after he had thrust in the butt spike ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... maneuvering with interest, and no sooner did the gun begin to shift than three leaped forward, snarling angrily. One snapped at the barrel of the piece, one at the butt, and a third at the trigger. An instant later came the report heard by the ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... club had outlined a careful itinerary in that borough for proximate pursuit. Lawton told that he had at one time written an essay on the effect of Brooklyn on the dialogue of the American drama. "It is the butt end of Long Island," he cried, with cruel mirth. Lovers of Brooklyn in the club ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... speaking to YOU," he said, with his eyes on Mosby, and slightly accenting the pronoun with a tap of his revolver butt on the bar. "Ye don't seem to ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... post of Poet-Laureate became vacant, and Dryden was appointed to it. He was also appointed historiographer-royal. The salary of these two offices amounted to L200 a year, besides the famous annual butt of canary, while his profits from the theatre were equivalent to L300. His whole income was thus, at the very least, equal to a thousand pounds of our money—a great sum for a poet in that or in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... happened to be Eleazer Butt that was left. 'Twas Eleazer's ill-luck. And Eleazer was up in years, and had fell behind coming over ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... circling round on the wing in their wonted manner, and poising themselves anon in mid-air above the ship, looking down to see whether it was dinner-time yet aboard, and there was a chance of any stray scraps being chucked over the side from the 'gashing-tub,' or waste butt in which the refuse of our meals was thrown on the ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the squires fastened a live bird by the string to a stake in the distant sward; and "Pardex," said Duke William, "Conan of Bretagne, and Philip of France, leave us now so unkindly in peace, that I trow we shall never again have larger butt for our arrows than the breast of yon poor ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... something, and again I was afraid that I should be discovered after all, but by and by he went out and came back with a small suit-case. It was after he had gone that I saw poking out of the pocket of the overcoat which had been hung on the hook, the butt of a pistol. I didn't quite know what to make of it, but thinking that it was better in my pocket than in his if I were discovered, I lifted it out of the pocket and slipped it ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... I wondered that he could have heart to put on even the semblance of mirth. At last I ventured a home thrust. I determined to commence a series of covert insinuations, or innuendos, about the oblong box, just to let him perceive, gradually, that I was not altogether the butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasant mystification. My first observation was by way of opening a masked battery. I said something about the "peculiar shape of that box"; and, as I spoke the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... 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, where a tap on the head ends ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... exclaimed Zaidie, taking a couple of steps towards him, with her right hand on the butt of one of her revolvers. The movement brought her close to the open door, and in full view of ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... round shots struck the ground as I landed passing close over our heads. Desiring my coxswain to pull the boat back among the shipping and out of the line of fire, I walked to the gate and beat against it with the butt end of my sword; it was opened by one of the few officers of the Civic Guard who now wore his uniform. Saying a few civil words to him I passed on up the street to the ducal palace. This city was at this ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... men's blood while recording the deeds of the heroes who founded the English system of government in Ireland, and secured to themselves immense tracts of its most fertile soil. What then must be the effect of the eloquent and impassioned denunciations of such writers as Mr. Butt, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and Mr. John Mitchell, not to speak of the 'national press'? Yet the most fiery patriot utters nothing stronger on the English rule in Ireland than what the Irish may read in the works of the greatest statesmen and most profound thinkers in England. The evil ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... angrily driving 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
... in the castle the thundering blows which the Tyrolese struck with the butt-ends of their rides against the door of the room where Ulrich ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... or at night, and secure their approaching prey by an easy shot. Skill with the rifle and success in the chase were points of friendly emulation. In many localities the boy or youth who shot a squirrel in any part of the animal except its head became the butt of the jests of his companions and elders. Yet, under such conditions and opportunities Abraham was neither a hunter nor a marksman. He ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Duchess's, she desired her 'valet de chambre' to bring her billiard cue into her closet, and ordered me to open the box that contained it. I took out the cue, broken in two. It was of ivory, and formed of one single elephant's tooth; the butt was of gold and very tastefully wrought. "There," said she, "that is the way M. de Vaudreuil has treated a thing I valued highly. I had laid it upon the couch while I was talking to the Duchess in ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... 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 ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 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 thereon. To be sure, I said, these ruins wouldn't ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... prances to the one end of making the most of the misery. She gets up early and sits up late, and is loud, and restless, and noisy, and unpitying. She drags her husband on to the woolsack, or pushes him into Parliament. She drives him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of government, and knocks and buffets him about the wheels, and cranks, and screws, and pulleys; until somebody, for quiet's sake, makes him something that she wanted him to be made. That's why incompetent men sometimes sit in high places, and interpose ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... with drawers and shelves on one 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 ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... 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
... of their hands froze to the butt ends of their muskets, for it was freezing hard that night. I frequently saw a little soldier take off his shoes in order to walk barefoot, as his shoes hurt his weary feet; and at every step he left a track of blood. Then, after some time, he would sit down in a field for a few minutes' rest, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... any God for us! God's Laws are become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency: the Heavens overarch us only as an Astronomical Time-keeper; a butt for Herschel-telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot sentimentalities at:—in our and old Jonson's dialect, man has lost the soul out of him; and now, after the due period,—begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot; ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... time they could find to a lively game of poker down at "the store," and their petition for "more time to themselves" brought down a reply from the oracular lips of the commander that became immortal on the frontier and made the petitioners nearly frantic. For a week the trio was the butt of all the wits at Fort Warrener. And yet the entire commissioned force felt that they were being kept at the grindstone because of the frivolity of these few youngsters, and they did not like it. All the same the cavalrymen stuck up ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... offer, and did present in miniature, the elements of a complete society. Among the inmates there was, as in the world at large, one poor discouraged creature—a butt on whom mocking pleasantries were rained. This patient sufferer was the old vermicelli maker, Goriot. Six years before, he had come to live at the Maison Vauquer, having, so he said, retired from business. He dressed handsomely, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... many temptations. At first the "bunch" laughed and made him the butt of many rude jests, then they laid plans to trap him. One day one of them stuck an open whisky-bottle under his nose, saying, "Smell it, Bill; ain't it a fine odor?" Bill stepped back, all smiles, and said quietly, "Well, ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... give Uncle Sam de name of Shadrock. When he reach Uncle Aleck, he 'low: 'I adds to your name Aleck, two fine names, a preacher's and a scholar's, Porter Ramsey.' 'Bout dat time a little runt elbow and butt his way right up to de front and say: 'Marse Henry, Marse Henry! I wants a big bulldozin' name.' Marse Henry look at him and say: 'You little shrimp, take dis then.' And Marse Henry write on de slip of paper: ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... their green. So bright and sunny was the morning that the late summer wore the air of spring. Cary stood still beside a log, huge and mossy, that lay beside the road. "Let us rest here a moment," he said, and, taking his seat, began to draw in the dust before him with the butt of his whip. "I do not remember seeing you that day. I did not know that you were ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... naturally suggest themselves again concern animals. Experience as interpreted by the English law has shown that dogs, rams, and bulls are in general of a tame and mild nature, and that, if any one of them does by chance exhibit a tendency to bite, butt, or gore, it is an exceptional phenomenon. Hence it is not the law that a man keeps dogs, rams, bulls, and other like tame animals at his peril as to the personal damages which they may inflict, unless he knows or has notice that the particular animal kept by him has the abnormal ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... milk the whayish part, in eggs wee observe the white, will totally freez, the yelk with the same degree of cold growe thick & clammy like gumme of trees; butt the sperme or tredde hold its former body, the white growing stiff that is nearest it.... Egges seem to have their owne coagulum within themselves manifested in the incrassations upon incubation.... Rotten egges will not bee made hard by incubation or decoction, as being ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... 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 ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... between him and home with unexpected vivacity. We swung in the ruts, we shook like jellies on the merciless patches of broken stones, and Croppy stimulated the pace with weird whistlings through his teeth, and heavy prods with the butt of his whip in the region of ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... But at last I found that he wanted me to give him a white shirt, which I accordingly did. The boy was so fond of his new dress, that he went all over the ship, presenting himself before every one that came in his way. This freedom used by him offended Old Will, the ram goat, who gave him a butt with his horns, and knocked him backward on the deck. Will would have repeated his blow, had not some of the people come to the boy's assistance. The misfortune, however, seemed to him irreparable. The shirt was dirtied, and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... 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 beside ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... way it was burning," he said. "Though I can't see what object anyone could have, and I'm inclined to think a passing cow puncher—not one of your crowd but some one else—may have flipped a cigarette butt into the grass where it ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... black man clothed in white raiment? Our footman is warned—Beware then of bye and crooked paths that lead to death and damnation; the way to heaven is one, still there are many well-beaten bye paths that butt or shoot down upon it, and which lead to destruction. To prevent vain and foolish company from calling you out of the path, or from loitering in it, say, I am in haste, I am running for a prize; if I win I am made, I win ALL; if I lose ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... also came off with very doubtful honours from a wrestle with the uncombative Martyr; who is perfectly clear (and so are we, let us add) that scientific men are not the men for his purpose. Of course, he is the butt of "utter and acknowledged ignorance", and of "the most gross and foolish statements", and of "the unjust and dishonest", and of "the press-gang", and of crowds of other alien and ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... back an' sit down," was the Secretary's advice, "Rosie meant you're out of parliamentry order. We got a motion on the table an' it's too late for you to butt in on it. This ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... to speak. "Of course you won't think I'm trying to butt in, Mr. Denny, but there's a rule that the camp can call on all its people in an emergency. The first year the camp opened we had a bad fire here and every kid in the place was set to work. After that they made a rule. Sometimes things have to be done in a hurry. ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... with his fore-finger, himself looking the very picture of well-satisfied sagacity. We said nothing, but leaving the eloquence to him, followed him up to Edgerton's chamber. I struck the door thrice with the butt end of my whip, then called his name, but without receiving any answer. Endeavoring to look through the key-hole, I discovered the key on the inside, and within the lock. I then immediately conjectured the truth. William ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... anything!" Lance stood leaning against the wall by the stove, his arms folded, the fingers of his left hand tapping his right forearm. He did not know that this was a Lorrigan habit, born of an old necessity of having the right hand convenient to a revolver butt, and matched by the habit of carrying a six-shooter hooked inside the trousers band on ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... not left in this honourable but comparatively safe seclusion, and many years later, in 1874, all his plays and poems as known were issued by themselves in Mr. Pearson's valuable series of reprints. Since then Glapthorne has become something of a butt; and Mr. Bullen, in conjecturally attributing to him a new play, The Lady Mother, takes occasion to speak rather unkindly of him. As usual it is a case of ni cet exces d'honneur ni cette indignite. Personally, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... man jabbed the spike of his pole in, and they all lifted together, and the butt end of the log slipped a little ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... Means 'lowed 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 Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... come cantering hastily up, reckless of 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 arms and dextrous well-accustomed hands always ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ink, also ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... outpost, 'Bauchop's Hill,' and other Turkish positions. The native Maoris entered into the charge with great dash, making the darkness of the night hideous with their wild war cries, and striking terror into the hearts of the Turks with the awful vigor with which they used their bayonets and the butt end of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... word," Mr. Penzance commented, and his amiable fervour quite glowed, "I like that queer young fellow—I like him. He does not wish to 'butt in too much.' Now, there is rudimentary delicacy in that. And what a humorous, forceful figure of speech! Some butting animal—a goat, I seem to see, preferably—forcing its way into a group or closed ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... capsized over it—everything, in short, tending to confirm my original impression that the brig had been on her beam-ends. I looked into the coppers, and found them empty. Then I went to the scuttle-butt, but it also was so nearly empty that I did not care to use the small remainder of water in it. There were no more casks on deck, so I concluded that the ship's stock of water was kept below, most probably in tanks. And the thought ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... man brought the butt of the gun down with full force on Elaine's head. Only her hat and hair saved her, but ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... muscles seemed benumbed, as 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 shoulder, and ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... frequently retired to weep over deficiencies which it was too late to repair. The wits of Paris seized upon these occasional developments of the want of mental culture as the indication of a weak mind, and the daughter of Maria Theresa, the descendant of the Caesars, was the butt, in saloon and cafe, of merriment and song. Maria was beautiful and graceful, and winning in all her ways. But this imperfect education, exposing her to contempt and ridicule in the society of intellectual men and women, was not among the unimportant elements which conducted to her ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... close 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... than his huge wolf-dog, which never left his side. It was only on the morning of the third day, that we discovered something calculated to diminish our confidence in our new comrade. This was a number of lines and crosses upon the butt of his rifle, which gave us a new and not very favourable insight into the man's character. These lines and crosses came after certain words rudely scratched with a knife-point, and formed a sort of list, of which the following ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... not half done!" cried Serge, poking him in the ribs with the butt end of his crook. "Get up, will you, or I'll make the other fellows stand you in a corner ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... one time she had had one eye tied up for a week. A Mr. Winters was once passing along the street and saw one of the boys whipping the slave girl with a cowhide. Whenever she turned her face to him he would hit her across the face either with the butt end or small end of the whip to make her turn around square to the lash, in order that he might get a fair blow at her. A Mr. Say had noticed several wounds on her person, chiefly bruises. Capt. Porter, the keeper of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... 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 made particularly plain. It was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... the coming harvest. But above all, it doubles its guard and shows its bayonets. At Nancy, a traveler sees[42131] "more than three thousand persons soliciting in vain for a few pounds of flour." They are dispersed with the butt-ends of muskets.—Thus are the peasantry taught patriotism and the townspeople patience. Physical constraint exercised on all in the name of all; this is the only procedure which an arbitrary socialism can resort to for the distribution of food and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in danger of losing the healing influence of a kindly touch—has become an uncourteous monster of 35 heads and 3 appendices—I see no early end of it. The British Foreign Office has a lot of lawyers in its great back offices. They and our lawyers will now butt and rebut as long as a goat of them is left alive on either side. The two governments—the two human, kindly groups—have retired: they don't touch, on this matter, now. The lawyers will have the time of their lives, each smelling the blood ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... 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 ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... it," said Dan, sticking the butt of his cane-pole in the mud. The fish slipped through his wet fingers, when Chad passed it to him, dropped on the bank, flopped to the edge of the creek, and the three boys, with the same cry, scrambled for it—Snowball falling down on it and clutching ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... 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 ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... glorious old castle dates from 1764, when it was burnt by lightning. It is built of red stone. If I live, I hope to visit this place again, and make a thorough exploration of this stupendous ruin. It is here, in a cellar, that the largest wine butt in the world is found, and it will contain eight hundred hogsheads. It has long been empty, however. I never longed to follow a river more than I do this same Neckar—it is so clear, and all my glimpses ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... place, to which he 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, that he ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... number of birds in his trap, he will let a pair of them loose so that they may go on breeding. Women are not permitted to take any part in the work of hunting, but are confined strictly to their household duties. A woman who kicks her husband's stick is fined Rs. 2-8. The butt end of the stick is employed for mixing vegetables and other purposes, but the meaning of the rule is not clear unless one of its uses is for the enforcement of conjugal discipline. A Pardhi may not swear by a dog, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... to 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 resemble—a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy body; foulness without ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... was exceedingly annoyed to find that Damie, though no one knew why, had become the general butt of all the joking and teasing in the village. She took him sharply to task for it, and told him he ought not to tolerate it; but he retorted that she ought to speak to the people about it, and not to him, for he could not stand up against it. But that was not to be done—in fact, Damie was secretly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... a butt, as a butt should be strod, I gallop the brusher along; Like a grape-blessing Bacchus, the good fellow's god, And a sentiment give, or ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... around the crown. A jacket of dark red velvet with broad brass buttons enclosed his strong shoulders and body, but his costume was finished off with trousers, leggings and moccasins of tanned deerskin. Will saw the butt of a pistol and the hilt of a knife peeping ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... in blasphemy, nor be the butt of an assembly; be not moody in an alehouse, and never forget ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... the sixth 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, laid horizontally, and their upper surface level with ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... Horace, and Goethe's 'Erl-Koenig.' After I had got through these, I allowed myself a more general range among everything that I could remember, both in prose and verse. In this way, with an occasional break by relieving the wheel, heaving the log, and going to the scuttle-butt for a drink of water, the longest watch was passed away; and I was so regular in my silent recitations that if there was no interruption by ship's duty I could tell very nearly the number of bells by ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... go from his brows while slowly the red seeped into his bronzed cheeks. For the first time in her life she saw him staggered by the shock of surprise, held hesitant and uncertain. For a little there was never a movement of his rigid muscles; one hand rested upon the butt of his revolver, the other was closed upon the stack of gold pieces. When at last he found his tongue it was ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... and in this respect the thickness of material employed is slightly in excess of standard practice. Another advance on standard practice is in the riveting of the circular seams, these being lap-jointed and double riveted. All longitudinal seams are butt-strapped, inside and outside, and secured by six rows of rivets. Manholes are only provided for the front heads, and each front head is provided with a special heavy bronze pad, for making connection to the stop and check ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... chiefly to the perception of the senses. For although the "jocular" part, originally 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 having some mental weakness ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... was stupid enough to talk and think about nothing but her husband; and when she went to Stow, and left the Don alone in one corner of the great house at Bideford, what could he do but lounge down to the butt-gardens to show off his fine black cloak and fine black feather, see the shooting, have a game or two of rackets with the youngsters, a game or two of bowls with the elders, and get himself invited home to ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... in Local Elections—Parnell succeeds Butt as President of the Irish Organisation ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... two brigades I was ordered to ride back quickly to Heth's headquarters, report the condition of affairs, and bring back his instructions. With a brusque manner, he said, "Tell General Pettigrew not to butt too hard, or he'll butt his brains out." I translated his command into politer terms, and we started again toward Gettysburg, knowing that Heth would follow with the other four brigades ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... whose only merit, if such it can be called, is the open disclaiming of any thing like honour or principle. And after having been a patron of such a set of wretches, you will end by becoming, according to circumstances, the object of their vulgar abuse, or the butt of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... snare the thoughtless rabbit; Break the next-door neighbour's pane; Cultivate the smoker's habit On the not-innocuous cane; Leave the exercise unwritten; Systematically cut Morning school, to plunge the kitten In his bath, the water-butt. ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... understand that I wished to get to where Arthur was. It was necessary to move very cautiously, for fear of slipping off into the water. We could not tell, indeed, whether the butt-end or the boughs of our tree had caught in the floating island; all we could see was a dark mass near us, and a few branches rising up towards the sky. I was afraid, however, that if we did not make haste we might be again separated from it ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 cost of this relief, like ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... 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 ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... under, to the dome of the sky over, for no vessel of earth and sky is too large for the air-colour to fill. Thirty, forty, and more miles of eye-sweep, and beyond that the limitless expanse over the sea—the thought of the eye knows no butt, shooting on with stellar penetration into the unknown. In a small space there seems a vacuum, and nothing between you and the hedge opposite, or even across the valley; in a great space the void is filled, and the wind touches the sight like a thing tangible. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... himself, that he could have ever imagined acquiring merit in such company by exploiting an experience which should have been sacred to him. How could he have been so shabby? He was justly punished in the humiliating contrast between being the butt of these poor wits, and the hero of an incident which, whatever its real quality was, had an august character of mystery. He had recognized this from the first instant; he had perceived that the occurrence was for him, and for him ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... being crammed into the barrel over a charge of a couple of ounces of powder. On our inquiring why it was so heavily charged, the man told us with much naivete, that it was to kill nine men, illustrating the method by which this wholesale destruction was to be accomplished, by planting the butt on his hip and whirling the muzzle from right to left in a horizontal direction across us all, and telling us very pleasantly that if he were to fire we should all fall from the scattering of the different ingredients contained in the blunderbuss; had we not an instant ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... both sides. Tim had to tell how he had slipped himself out through the window, narrow as it was, and how, thanks to an old water-butt and some loose bricks in the wall, he had scrambled down like a cat, and made off as fast as his legs would carry him to the place where he had ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... young Tzesarevitch into the file behind the Empress and held him there; the Grand Duchess Olga was flung bodily after him; the other children, in their hospital dresses, were shoved brutally toward their places, menaced by butt and bayonet. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the slope towards the Ashley valley. "Father always has them do that, so the seeds from the old trees will seed up the bare ground again. Gosh! You'd ought to hear him light into the choppers when they forget to leave the seed-pines or when they cut under six inches butt diameter." ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... my train; s'pose I'll have to be a-goin'; good-bye; cum down and see me some time if you kin, ev'ry one of ye; cum down about apple-butter time and jist butt in—good bye. ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... it out by butting our heads together. Very well, said the Ghoul, only wait a little until I can make me a pair of horns like you. So the goat waited, and away went the Ghoul to make her horns. She made two horns of dough and dried them in the sun until they were hard, and then came to "butt" with the goat. At the first shock, when the goat butted her with her horns, the horns of dough broke all to pieces; then the goat butted her again in her bowels and broke her in twain, and out jumped Sunaisil and Rabab, frisking and leaping and ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... 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 to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Duhobret, a disciple whom Durer had admitted into his school out of charity. He was employed in painting signs and the coarser tapestry then used in Germany. He was about forty years of age, little, ugly, and humpbacked; he was the butt of every ill joke among his fellow disciples, and was picked out as an object of especial dislike by Madame Durer. But he bore all with patience, and ate, without complaint, the scanty crusts ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... hair that I have." Words that command our thought—but yet it seems to us the speaker feels better than he knows. Why then did his heart quicken when one Friday night we passed the window of that Galician Jew, the erstwhile butt of many a jest between us, our college second-hand clothes man, and saw the flicker of his Sabbath candles? No flicker within the home of a brown-haired man would move him so. And even while he is speaking to us, though the length of our acquaintanceship is short, we detect an ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... 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
... ask for the loan of one of the donkeys, and to start back toward Jerusalem. But I had not more than thought of it when men's footsteps pattered on the yard dung, and an indubitable rifle-butt ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... that. It was sprung, and there was a goose's quill stickin' in it. Now, I leave it to you if a wild goose ain't too smart to go in a trap. And if he did, he couldn't get a feather caught by the butt end, ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... box wide open and stuffed full of coloured 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 ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... then for the first time discovered that he had brought down the daughter of the intendant of the forest. There was no time to be lost, so Edward carried her into the stable and left her there, still insensible, upon the straw, in a spare stall, while he hastened to alarm the house. The watering-butt for the horses was outside the stable; Edward caught up the pail, filled it, and hastening up the ladder, threw it into the room, and ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... wynd to the left, he led my grandfather along between two dykes, till they were come to a house that stood by itself within a fair garden. But instead of going to the door in an honest manner, he bade him stop, and going forward he whistled shrilly, and then flung three stones against a butt, that was standing at the corner of the house on a gauntrees to kep rain water from the spouting image of a stone puddock that vomited what was gathered from the roof in the rones, and soon after an upper casement was opened, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... of the new engine. There were many scenes of violence and excitement, and the new horror of all-night sittings became familiar to the House of Commons. Throughout the struggle Parnell showed equal audacity and coolness, and acquired a masterly knowledge of parliamentary forms. Mr. Butt, the Irish leader, disapproved of this development of the active or obstructive policy, but his influence quickly gave way before Parnell's, and in May, 1879, he died. The year before, Parnell had ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... my grandmother's cat, who, after living a blameless life for upwards of eleven years, and bringing up a family of something like sixty-six, not counting those that died in infancy and the water-butt, took to drink in her old age, and was run over while in a state of intoxication (oh, the justice of it! ) by a brewer's dray. I have read in temperance tracts that no dumb animal will touch a drop of alcoholic liquor. My advice is, if you ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... one of the guests, a seemingly unconscious, stolid Scotchman named Johnstone, with sneers and sarcasms which the Scotchman seemed to disregard or take in good part. On the next morning, however, Townshend's victim, enlightened by some friend as to the way in which he had been made a butt of, became belligerent and sent Townshend a challenge. Various opinions have been expressed of Townshend's action in the matter. He has been applauded for good sense. He has been reproached for cowardice. Certainly Townshend did not, would not fight his challenger. It required a great deal of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... only now and then surrounds us in the 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 a man's spirit ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now on the ground and rested his head on his long arms to think. It was so hard for him to think, and dry sobs kept choking him; but the wonderful fact slowly possessed him that he had served her. Pete, the stupid dwarf, butt of rough jokes and ridicule, had saved the bright being he adored. He understood now her fervent efforts to convey thanks to him. He felt dimly that the angel whose kindness had brightened his life for those few days had gone back to the ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... of heavy footfalls, and a thud as a rifle-butt descended to the earth again. Brown moved the lamp, and its beams fell on a rifleman who stood close beside him at attention—like a jinnee ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... by the great gates. The Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. He shouted to Jim to open the doors. "Better not, maister!" pleaded Jim. The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end of his whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half stunned, staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow, which felled him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister's kennel; the doors of all opened outwards, and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... confess that there was a good deal of her to be vain of!) gave Vance a shove into a corner to get him out of her husband's sight; and in the corner Vance was glad enough to stay hid while the giant ate an enormous supper, and drank a whole cask of ale which his wife drew for him from a huge butt in ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... rapped the bar with the butt of his gun: "Silence in the court!" he roared. "An' what's more, you're fined one round of drinks for contempt of court." Taking a match from his pocket he laid it carefully upon the bar, and continued: "The plaintiff will take the stand in his own behalf. Gentlemen of ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... 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
... sh'u'd I put th' late laminted out on th' back porrch till th' veterinary comes t' take its pulse? I wonder what th' ixpriss company wants a veterinary t' butt into th' thing fer annyhow? Is it th' custom nowadays t' require a certificate av health fer every cat that 's as dead as that wan is before th' funeral comes off? Sure, I do believe th' ixpriss company has doubts av Mike Flannery's ability t' tell ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... had been set 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 mine ears ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from a tall clump of mesquite, and the traveler saw the faint light reflected from a gun barrel pointed straight at his breast. He stopped his horse, but did not respond to the other summons; instead, his fingers closed quickly over the butt of his revolver. ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... wounds, but the years seemed to bring to James Buchanan no surcease of sorrow. He was always under the cloud of that misunderstanding, and during his long political career, the incident frequently served as a butt for the calumnies of his enemies. It was freely used in "campaign documents," perverted, misrepresented, and twisted into every conceivable shape, though it is difficult to conceive how any form of humanity ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... 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
... 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 dog ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... in the midst of all his deficiencies, it appeared, was liked by the men, although he was the butt of the whole company; being esteemed by them as next of kin to a natural, though of a peculiar kind—a talking natural. This fancy of theirs was stoutly resisted by the love-sick swain, but the regimental logic prevailed; for, whatever they could do, with masterly dexterity, he could ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... 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 ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... of Captain Lorrimer sagged, and his whisper came out in jerking syllables: "God Almighty!" Then Blondy went for his gun, and Vic waited with his hand on the butt of his own, waited with a perfect, cold foreknowledge, heard Blondy moan as his Colt hung in the holster, saw the flash of the barrel as it whipped out, and then jerked his own weapon and fired from the hip. Blondy staggered but kept himself from falling by gripping the edge of the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... the 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
... when the latter's work calls for the process, despite the pretensions of modern criticism that it must not be criticised. Although to buffet an anonym is to beat the air, still the very effort does good. A well-known and popular novelist of the present day was a favourite butt for certain journalists who, with the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... 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
... But in a week he was back once more, as he had realised immediately what a distorted account he had received as to the state of things in Prague, where all he found ready for him was a mere handful of childish students. These admissions made him the butt of Rockel's good-humoured chaff, and after this he won the reputation among us of being a mere revolutionary, who was content with theoretical conspiracy. Very similar to his expectations from the Prague students were his presumptions with regard to the Russian ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... He fell dead, without a groan. The other Creek attempted to escape, while the other Choctaw snapped his gun at him repeatedly, but it missed fire. They then pursued him, overtook him, knocked him down with the butt of their guns, and battered his head until he also was motionless in death. One of the Choctaws, in his frenzied blows, broke the stock of his rifle. They then fired off the gun of the Creek who was killed, and one of them ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... and death, whether real or assumed, was the thing wanted. Here, at least, were two superiors who did not seem to consider the situation very serious. The young soldier shifted his rifle to the other shoulder, and grasped the butt with ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... 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 the right hand grasping ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... with his legs apart, bent a little at the knees, as if he intended to make a jump. His right hand was near the butt of his gun, his fingers were clasping and unclasping, as if he limbered them for action. Taterleg slipped up behind him on his toes, and jerked the gun from Jim's scabbard with quick and sure hand. He backed away with it, presenting it with determined mien as Jim turned on him and ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... pretty cheeky, sir, for me to butt in here," replied Amy, with a smile, "but it's rather important, sir, and—and if anything's to be done about it it'll have to be ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... big as the place my old mis' hit me. She took a bull whip once—the bull whip had a piece of iron in the handle of it—and she got mad. She was so mad she took the whip and hit me over the head with the butt end of it, and the blood flew. It ran all down my back and dripped off my heels. But I wasn't dassent to stop to do nothin' about it. Old ugly thing! The devil's got her right now!! They never rubbed no salt nor nothin' in your ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the minute he sees you," cautioned Carson, his own revolver loose in the belt under his coat, his hard fingers like talons gripped about the butt. "Keep your eye peeled, Bud. Better cool off a speck before you tie into him. You're too mad, I tell you, for straight, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... his meaning, snatched a rifle from beside one of the bodies, and with the butt of it began pounding frantically upon the side of the cave ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... about 1594, was educated at Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford; was a master at Magdalen School, the Free School at St. Albans, and at Westminster, and Professor of Greek at Oxford under the Commonwealth. He died 1670. Wood characterises him as a butt for the wits and a flatterer of great men, and notes that he was always called by the name of Doctor Harmar, though he took no higher degree than M.A. But in 1632 he supplicated for the degree of M.B., and Dr. Grosart's note—"Herrick, no doubt, playfully transmuted 'Doctor' into ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... said Francis, laughing, as he thought of those used by the paviors; and holding the mallet perpendicularly, he struck with the butt-end, first one stone, and then another, until at length the pavement was completed! It was solid, even and clean, and Francis, repeating in truth, "Where there's a will, with God's help, there's a way," gave thanks in his heart to that good heavenly Father, who gave ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... to die sword in hand, making a tomb for his body of his enemies on the field of battle, than to be hated of his own and poniarded by the hands of his nearest and dearest, or to die of poison or of drowning in a wine-butt." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the inmate of the chamber was heard drawing back a table, then the butt of a gun sounded upon the floor, and the ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... Blake?" I 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 ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... I } humble, poor, and lowly born, He The meanest in the port division— The butt of epauletted scorn— The mark of quarter-deck derision— Have } dare to raise { my } wormy eyes Has his Above the dust to which you'd mould { me him In manhood's glorious pride to rise, I am } an Englishman—behold { me He ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... these vessels, as I afterwards learned, was that no stated allowance of anything was made. Even the water was not served out to us, but was kept in a great scuttle-butt by the cabin door, to which every one who needed a drink had to go, and from which none might be carried away. No water was allowed for washing except from the sea; and every one knows, or should know, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... him a hundred thousand francs or some such small trifle? But Pache, an insignificant little fellow with a head running up to a point, who had come to them from some hamlet in the wilds of Picardy, received the other's raillery with the uncomplaining gentleness of a martyr. He was the butt of the squad, he and Lapoulle, the colossal brute who had got his growth in the marshes of the Sologne, so utterly ignorant of everything that on the day of his joining the regiment he had asked his comrades to show him the King. And although ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... The Regent comes from Mass. Guards, butt them on the toes—way there! give room! Prick ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... 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 1877 onward (Mr. Butt ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... dining-room sat a group of anglers. They looked jovial fellows, and Dickson would fain have joined them; but, having been fishing all day in the Lock o' the Threshes, they were talking their own talk, and he feared that his admiration for Izaak Walton did not qualify him to butt into the erudite discussions of fishermen. The landlord seemed to think likewise, for he drew back a chair for him at the other end, where sat a young man absorbed in a book. Dickson gave him good evening, and got an abstracted reply. The young ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan |
