Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Penknife   Listen
noun
Penknife  n.  (pl. penknives)  A small pocketknife; formerly, a knife used for making and mending quill pens.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Penknife" Quotes from Famous Books



... who had a fifth of the cargo, and was half owner of the brig, took things very philosophically, and passed his days with a penknife and stick in his hand, whittling away, Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped up his stick, he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair, bench, or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the brig, he would grind his teeth a little, but said ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... mast almost broke the thigh of a captain of infantry, who fell insensible. He was seized by the soldiers, who threw him into the sea. We saved him, and placed him on a barrel, whence he was taken by the rebels, who wished to put out his eyes with a penknife. Exasperated by so much brutality, we no longer restrained ourselves, but pushed in upon them, and charged them with fury. Sword in hand we traversed the line which the soldiers had formed, and many paid with their lives the errors of their revolt. Various passengers, during these cruel moments, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... coffee was smoking on a small inlaid table, which was stained with liquors burnt by cigars, notched by the penknife of the victorious officer, who occasionally would stop while sharpening a pencil, to jot down figures, or to make a drawing on it, just as ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... his eye glinted for he perceived that it was addressed to a very well-known member of society whose escapades were notorious. Quickly he ran his penknife through the ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... deliberately opened his penknife and slit the canvas across, through the middle of the picture each way. Clara, as she saw him do it, felt that in truth that she loved him. "There, Mrs Van Siever," he said; "now you can take the bits home with you in your basket if you wish it." At this moment, as the rent canvas fell and fluttered ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... burr, rather than a languishing look at him or at nothing, were more assuring. She perplexed him still more when, as her only response to all this sentiment, she asked, "Mr. Gregory, will you lend me your penknife?" ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... the ethereal solution of gold into a wine-glass, and dip into it the blade of a new penknife, lancet, razor, &c., withdraw the instrument and allow the ether to evaporate, the blade will then be found to be covered with a beautiful coat of gold; the blade may be moistened with a clean rag or a small piece of very dry sponge dipped into the ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... the shelter-house with the supper basket I found both the honeymooners in a wild state of excitement. They said that about five o'clock Thoburn had gone out to the shelter-house and walked all around it. Finally he had stopped at one of the windows of the other room, had worked at it with his penknife and got it open, and crawled through. They sat paralyzed with fright, and heard him moving around the other room, and he even tried their door. But it had been locked. They hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing, but after perhaps ten minutes he ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Mrs Sparkler, 'open (now, very carefully, I beg and beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on my little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl penknife.' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... exception, were the last to arrive, and for a while we stood looking out of the windows awaiting their coming. The first mate pulled out a penknife and arranged his nails. The doctor and Mr. Binnie talked of the progress of medicine. Binnie had walked the hospitals of Edinburgh before getting his civil appointment to India. The three gentlemen from Hanover Square and the Colonel had plenty to say about Tom Smith of the Cavalry, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... canal-boat received a tract, but to show his contempt for the tract and its giver, took out his penknife and cut it up into fantastic shapes. Then he held it up to ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood

... dated from Tunbridge Wells, one or two insadence have occurred of which it is nessasery [This word has been much operated upon with the penknife, but is left sic, no doubt to the writer's satisfaction.] I should advise my honored Mother. Our party there broke up end of August: the partridge-shooting commencing. Baroness Bernstein, whose kindness to me has been most invariable, has been to Bath, her usual winter resort, and has made me a welcome ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a little penknife from his pocket, opened the smaller blade, and moved his chair so that I could see his thigh. Then, choosing the place deliberately, he drove the blade into his leg ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... ice unarmed. Our bayonet-knives have been brought out, and I am providing myself with one. I must say that I felt quite certain that we should find no bears as far north as this in the middle of winter; and it never occurred to me, in making long excursions on the ice without so much as a penknife in my pocket, that I was liable to encounters with them. But, after Peter's experience, it seems as if it might be as well to have, at any rate, a lantern to hit them with. The long ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... adverted to the hole bored with a gimlet in the entry door of Mr. Lincoln's box, and cut out with a penknife. The theory that the pistol-ball of Booth passed through this hole is exploded. And the stage carpenter may have to answer for this little orifice with all his neck. For when Booth leaped from the box he strode straight across ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... I grant you—long and short—but show me the afflatus! They make verse with a penknife, like their wooden nutmegs. They are perfect Chinese for ingenuity and imitation, and the resemblance to the real Simon-pure is very perfect—externally. But when it comes to grating the nut for negus, we ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... quarters. Coat quite burned. Decimal three-fifty or thereabouts I fancy from the look of it. Ah, here it is! Have you a penknife or a pair of scissors, madam? That small knife ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... steal them; but this was after I had pleaded my innocent trade of novelist, and assured him of my congenital incapability of understanding, much less conveying from the premises, the image of the simplest and oldest process. Then he gave me for guide an intelligent man who was a penknife-maker by trade, but was presently out of work, and ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... my cigar-case. He selected a weed with a discriminating care that I felt cast an unwarranted reflection on the quality of the cigars I smoked. I watched him in silence while he cut off the end with a neat, precise stroke of his penknife, lit the cigar and blew a cloud of blue smoke out of his mouth. All the time I was staring at him I could feel Moira's eyes on me, and I knew that she was wondering what made me so boorish and morose. Or, perhaps, with a woman's keen instinct for ferreting out the things she shouldn't know anything ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... the theatres, which gave the King offence. The King agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had made DUKE OF MONMOUTH, to take the following merry vengeance. To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit his nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The King's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting on an assassin to murder the DUKE OF ORMOND as he was returning home from a dinner; and that Duke's spirited ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... bloom if pollen is abundant, but in some of the lighter-colored varieties it is scantily produced and several may be needed. Occasionally the anther valves do not open freely enough to permit the escape of pollen, which may then be taken out with a narrow-bladed penknife, or better with a little instrument made of a flattened pin fixed in a ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford

... the gun, both barrels of which he had loaded before going to sleep. Tom wished that he had the hatchet, but as it had been left in the boat, he had no weapon but his penknife. Thus armed, the two crept stealthily out of the tent to fight the bear, leaving Joe and Jim in a very unhappy state of mind, with nothing to defend themselves against the bear, in case he should attack the tent, except ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Lapham, jabbing the point of his penknife into the writing-pad on the desk before him, "when I hear women complaining nowadays that their lives are stunted and empty, I want to tell 'em about my MOTHER'S life. I could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... wasted in waiting for boats to cross the floods, you can judge of the rate at which I have driven. My journey has been most successful, I wish nothing better for anyone. I have not once been ill, and of the mass of things I had with me I have lost nothing but a penknife, the strap off my trunk, and a little jar of carbolic ointment. My money is safe. It is not often that anyone succeeds in travelling a thousand versts ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... of which all the botanists in the world of all nations are able to converse together about plants. From this somewhat dry subject I launched into the more fascinating one of the physiology of plants. "Now, look at this," I continued, and with my penknife I carefully dissected the flower in my hand, for it was evident that I could not now give it to Margarita without exposing myself to remarks. I then proceeded to explain to him the beautiful complex structure by means of which this ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... Mr. Bell returned. "We must get that packing-case opened after dinner. I'm anxious to see the pictures." Mr. Bell put the finishing touches to his little finger-nail and briskly pocketed his penknife. "Shall we go downstairs now?" he suggested. "Fix your brooch, mother; ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... darkness towards his bed and felt his arm, which was stone cold. He spoke to him and received no answer. He gave the alarm, the watch came in with lights, and it was found that Ledenberg had given himself two mortal wounds in the abdomen with a penknife and then cut his throat with a table-knife which he had secreted, some days before, among ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... some dozen or fifteen men, armed to the teeth; as we, lying flat to escape being seen, could see from our windows: "Up stairs!" said they: "Let not one remain." I took out my penknife; I considered where I should strike myself,'—but reflected 'that the blade was too short,' and also ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... some grisly work with a penknife; between them (ask not who buttoned her to his bosom) they took up the corpse and hastened back, Stalky arranging their plan of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... my heart," said the doctor, "go ahead;" and he shoved over to him a little penknife that was ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr

... pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife. ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... stood up. "I had a picnic last Monday," he said; "father let me cut all the blinders off our head-stalls with my penknife." ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... right-hand pocket coat, pair of gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; left-hand pocket, gun-metal cigarette case studded with pearls, half-full of Egyptian cigarettes. The trousers pockets contained a gold penknife, a small amount of money in bills and change, and a handkerchief with the initial ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... bring it. His wife cannot leave him." So Bridget ran, and the first I heard was the rattle as she pitched down the last six stairs of the first flight headlong. Let us hope she has not broken her leg. I meanwhile am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon corks, and the blade of my own penknife ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... visit the very cork factory which had tempted him to leave England. Strolling through the workroom with the foreman, John automatically, and without knowing what he was doing, picked up a square piece of the bark, and fashioned it with two or three deft cuts of his penknife into a smooth tapering cork. His companion picked it out of his hand and examined it with the eye of an expert. "This is not the first cork which you have cut by many a hundred, Mr. Hardy," he remarked. "Indeed you are wrong," ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat; how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]

... books that at a certain stage of development the nut contains a delicious beverage like lemonade, I sent one of my heroes up a tree for a nut, through the shell of which he bored a hole with a penknife. It was not till long after the story was published that my own brother—who had voyaged in Southern seas—wrote to draw my attention to the fact that the cocoanut is nearly as large as a man's ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... before nor since have I felt so thoroughly frightened. I can see him still, swaying as he stood, with eyes bleared and pendulous lips—but I sat there quiet and outwardly unmoved, as is always my impulse in danger till I see some way of escape, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a desperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose. The man came towards me with a fatuous leer, when a jarring noise was heard and ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... first prize she drew out was a very beautiful French fan; but upon opening it, it stretched out in an oblong shape, for want of the pin to confine the sticks at bottom. Then followed a new parasol; but when unfurled there was no catch to confine it, so that it would not remain spread. A penknife handle without a blade, and the blade without the handle, next presented themselves to her astonished gaze. In great confusion she then unrolled a paper which discovered a telescope apparently like her sister's; but on ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... hold of the umbrella handle; the wind shook it and nearly tugged it out of his grasp. "Put it down, if you please," he murmured resignedly. But by this time Thane was half across the road to where Daphne, with penknife and finger-tips, was trying to strip the top layer of blackened sandpaper from her pencil-scrubber; turning her face aside, because, woman-like, she would insist on ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... severing the button with his penknife, Missy, chancing to glance upward, noted that the curtain of an upstairs window was being held back by an invisible hand. That ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... effusion. If he pricked his finger in mending a pen, he called from on high the god of Lemnos and all the ironworkers of Olympus, not excepting Mars, whom it was not reasonable to disturb for so little, and launched innumerable reproaches at them, since without their invention of arms a penknife would never have been made. If the heavens cleared up after a long rain, all the signs of the zodiac were laid under contribution and charged to give an account of their performance. If somebody died, he instantly poured forth rivers of tears in company with the nymphs of Eridanus ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... staff-officers, succeeded in catching the reins; and, as the horse stopped, Jackson leaned forward and fell into his arms. Captain Hotchkiss, who had just returned from a reconnaissance, rode off to find Dr. McGuire, while Captain Wilbourn, with a small penknife, ripped up the sleeve of the wounded arm. As he was doing so, General Hill, who had himself been exposed to the fire of the North Carolinians, reached the scene, and, throwing himself from his horse, pulled off Jackson's gauntlets, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... the Sahib's knife?" asked Moussa Isa, "I have broken my pencil and cannot draw." Mr. Edward Jones picked up the penknife that lay on his desk, the cheap article of restricted utility supplied to Government Offices by the Stationery Department, and handed it to Moussa Isa. Even as he took it with respectful salaam, Moussa Isa summed up its possibilities. Blade two inches long, sharp-pointed, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... the largest of the fruit and put it into his mouth. It was as hard as ivory. He pulled out his penknife, with which he used to sharpen his pencil at school. With great difficulty he cut the fruit in two, to find within only a soft, bitter pulp. Then he tried another and another. All were like the first one, and he gave up trying because he was at length convinced that none ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini

... read by him, and he fancied that he was Lord Castlereagh. Acting precisely by the accounts recorded in the newspapers, he went through the same forms, and actually divided his carotid artery, using his penknife, as had done the unfortunate peer. Peace be with him! To proceed. I was driving in a gig, a distance of about forty miles from town, on the Northern Road, when, at the bottom of a steep hill, we fell in with a group who were walking up it. It consisted of a venerable old ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... leaving them off was aping youthfulness. He put on his black velvet smallclothes, his silk stockings and low shoes with silver buckles, his flowered waistcoat, his high stock and fine French broadcloth coat. His shirt front had two full ruffles beautifully crimped. Miss Recompense did it with a penknife. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... on the cage and says, "Huh, cheap!" He takes a paper clip out of his pocket and opens it out, and I think maybe he has a penknife, too, and next thing I know ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville

... letter at odd minutes while the horses are changing, or after breakfast or dinner for a quarter of an hour at a time, so that it is impossible that it should tire me. I owe all my present conveniencies for writing to various Sneyds: I use Emma Sneyd's pocket-inkstand; my ivory-cutter penknife was the gift of my Aunt Charlotte, and my little Sappho seal a ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... of a hardy kind. Again and yet again did he return to the charge, pleading, remonstrating, even threatening; holding out every inducement he could think of; even offering the fine penknife with three blades and an ivory handle, which had been given to him only yesterday by the Sitt Jane. He held this treasure up before his patient's eyes, opening the blades one by one to display the glory of it. But Iskender still sat on composedly, smiling ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... mistaken for an officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged in a tree, close by her side, from which she deliberately dug it out with her penknife, retaining it as a memento ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the room, "to begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but recollect them all;—if I could but ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... as well as censure imprudently."—Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 214. "It is as truly a violation of the right of property, to take little as to take much; to purloin a book, or a penknife, as to steal money; to steal fruit as to steal a horse; to defraud the revenue as to rob my neighbour; to overcharge the public as to overcharge my brother; to cheat the postoffice as to cheat my friend."—Wayland's Moral Science, 1st Edition, p. 254. "The classification of verbs has been ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... a penknife out of her pocket And cut off his little head. And now he'll play his ball no more For ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... blankets. This was the direct result of his previous inaction. He moved only with pain; and yet, by the stern north-country code, he made no complaint and moved as rapidly as possible. Each time he raised his knee a sharp pain stabbed his groin, as though he had been stuck by a penknife; each time he bent his ankle in the recover the mal de raquette twisted his calves, and stretched his ankle tendons until he felt that his very feet were insecurely attached and would drop off. During the evening ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... 8, about the eighth of an inch thick; rub over a plain mould with a little fresh butter; lay on the paste very even, and equally thin on both sides; pare it round the rim; then with a small penknife cut out small pieces, as fancy may direct, such as diamonds, stars, circles, sprigs, &c.; or use a small tin cutter of any shape: let it lie to dry some time, and bake it a few minutes in a slack oven, of a light colour: remove it from the ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... of his face, nor abate by a jot the urbanity of his demeanour, as he murmured, "Do you mind so far incommoding yourself as to stand up?" or "Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife of one of our staff will attend you," or "Pray allow me to slip this penknife of mine into the lining of your coat" (after which he would extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors acknowledged ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... rooms were far too crowded for the hall-porter to keep the balance even between goers and comers; I could remain in the house, I felt sure, without causing a scandal in it, and I waited the countess' coming soiree with impatience. As I dressed I put a little English penknife into my waistcoat pocket, instead of a poniard. That literary implement, if found upon me, could awaken no suspicion, but I knew not whither my romantic resolution might lead, and I wished ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... into my reach. I took them all in my right hand, put five of them into my coat pocket, and as to the sixth, I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put them out of fear, for looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my pocket, and I observed both the soldiers and people ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... terrible blow to him, for it means that his presence in the room cannot be concealed as he had hoped. But he sees clearly that everything must be risked for the sake of that damning piece of evidence. Quickly, he forces the lock with a penknife, and turns over the papers until he finds what ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie

... Mr. BUMSTEAD, opening the umbrella between them so suddenly that each is grazed on the nose by a whalebone rib, "I command you to end this Congressional debate at once. I never saw four such young men before! MONTGOMERIES, put up your penknife thizinstant!" ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... reach his foot, and he heeded not at all my touch. Slowly Idaho was dragging his almost unconscious victim toward the knife. His fingers were touching the blade point, when, under a sudden inspiration, I pulled out my penknife, opened it with my teeth, and drove the blade into Baptiste's foot. With a blood-curdling yell he sprang down and began dancing round in his ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor

... motionless, gazing before him as though unaware of his surroundings. Then very suddenly but very quietly he reached out and caught the swaying thing. A moment he held it, then pulled it to him and, taking a penknife from the table, grimly, deliberately, he ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... faces turned opposite ways—that is, one had his legs on one side of the log with his face to the East, and the other his legs on the other side with his face to the West. One had a piece of soft wood, and was sawing it with his penknife; the other had an unbarked hiccory stick which he was peeling for a walking-stick. The reader will perceive a strong analogy between this bargain and that in the stage between ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... try." Rupert took it from Val's hands and put it down on one of the chests, squatting on the floor before it. With the smallest blade of his penknife he delicately probed the fastening sunken ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... grain. It is well illustrated in cutting soft materials, such as bread, meat, rubber, cork, etc. It is an advantage in delicate chiseling and gouging. That this sliding action is easier than the straight pressure can easily be proved with a penknife on thin wood, or by planing with the plane held at an angle to, rather than in line with, the direction of the planing motion. The edge of the cutter then slides into the material. The reason why the sliding cut is easier, ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... precious metal. The audacity of his occasional coarseness and personality is unparalleled in contemporary literature, and has hardly been exceeded by the license of former days. Hence, before his volumes are put within the reach of immature minds, there is need of a friendly penknife to exercise a strict censorship. Yet, when all coarseness, all scurrility, all Mephistophelean contempt for the reverent feelings of other men, is removed, there will be a plenteous remainder of exquisite poetry, of wit, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... with a bramble bush, Sing ivy, sing ivy; And reaped it with my little penknife, Sing holly, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... down the book, close to the binding. A page had been cut out with a sharp penknife, so deftly that they had passed it twice ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... "Bless my penknife! I never thought of such a thing. I—I—guess—no, I don't know about it—yes, I'll go!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I'll, go! Hurrah for the elephants!" and he jumped up and shook hands in turn with Mr. Durban, to whom he had been formally introduced, and with Tom ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... major—do, please," whispered the lieutenant. But the veteran seemed an interminably long time in opening the dainty envelope in his hand. Official communications he opened with a dexterity suggesting sleight-of-hand, but now he took a penknife from his pocket, opened its smallest, brightest blade, and carefully cut Mrs. Wittleday's envelope. As he opened the letter his lower jaw fell, and his eyes opened wide. He read the letter through, and re-read it, his countenance indicating ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... quality of the Cork, that certainly the texture could not be so curious, but that possibly, if I could use some further diligence, I might find it to be discernable with a Microscope, I with the same sharp Penknife, cut off from the former smooth surface an exceeding thin piece of it, and placing it on a black object Plate, because it was it self a white body, and casting the light on it with a deep plano-convex Glass, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... You have heard of him, no doubt. He was remarkable for always wearing goloshes and a warm wadded coat, and carrying an umbrella even in the very finest weather. And his umbrella was in a case, and his watch was in a case made of grey chamois leather, and when he took out his penknife to sharpen his pencil, his penknife, too, was in a little case; and his face seemed to be in a case too, because he always hid it in his turned-up collar. He wore dark spectacles and flannel vests, stuffed up his ears ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Marshal!" He was shocked. The way he'd heard it, Kellogg had hidden a penknife, and he was prepared to be severe with Fane about it. But a thing like this! He found himself fingering the toothed track of his own jacket zipper. "I don't believe you can be at all censured for not anticipating a thing like that. It isn't a ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... the bed of the river, and in the neighbouring hills. Several hills at the right bank were formed by a kind of thermantide of a whitish grey, or red colour, and which might be scratched easily with a penknife. Other conical hills or short ranges, with irregular rugged crests, were composed of granite of many varieties, red and white, fine grained without hornblende, or containing the latter substance, and changing into sienite; and, at one place, it seemed as if it ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... with truthful simplicity; while he carefully placed his paper, pens, lines, and penknife in ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... north of Riverton Park was the estate of Lady Willerly. Her ladyship was one of those impetuous characters who are never content unless they are taking castles by storm; she must use a hatchet where a penknife would answer equally well or better. She was a widow, and dwelt with her only child Grace, a grown-up daughter, in her fine old family mansion, in the midst of her tenants and the poor, who lived in a state of chronic alarm lest she should be coming down upon ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson

... he took a can of tobacco, a pipe, a pair of scissors, a paste-pot and brush, a pile of copy paper, a penknife and three half-lengths ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... very probable. He came expecting to find the door open. He tried to get in with the blade of a very small penknife. He could not manage ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and by dint of probing and scraping brought the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... at the threshold of the captain's room while he and two or three officers disposed of a respectably dressed man, whom a policeman was holding up by the collar of his coat. They were searching his pockets and taking away his money, his keys, and his pencil and penknife, which the captain sealed up in a large envelope, and put into ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... extremely miserable little boy began to search for an amethyst ring in all sorts of impossible places, indoors and out. You know the hopeless way in which you look for things that you know perfectly well you will never find, the borrowed penknife that you dropped in the woods, for instance, or the week's pocket-money which slipped through that hole in your pocket as you went to ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... quickly fell to pieces under Mark's vigorous blows, and then his penknife assisted Ruth's shears. Beneath the burlaps was a thick layer of straw; then came heavy wrapping-paper, and, under this, layers and wads of news-paper, until the children began to think the whole ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... with them, followed their leader on a tramp through the house, with much noise and deep growling. On the return of the latter, the pocket-searchers presented the captain with half a stick of peppermint candy, a penknife, a dime, a small book (The Language of Flowers), and some ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... clean your nails with this pin, an' tie that apern back—loose if you want—but wear it you must, or I won't be responsible for no smutch you get on you. Here's your basin for the hull ones; an' here's an earthen bowl for them 'at's done, an' a penknife to do 'em with. I declare! It's more work to get you ready to 'help' than 'twould be to do it ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... at the college of Plassans. He was in love with Sister Angele, and once went the length of cutting his hands with his penknife to get an opportunity of seeing and speaking to her while she dressed his self-inflicted hurts. In the end the student and the ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... drew out the flask, and touched the spring. It opens by pressing a penknife into one of a number of rivets; ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... surrounds the lake, stands the famous Grotto del Cane, closed with a door to enable the keeper to get a little money from the foreigners who come to visit it. You may be sure I was careful not to trim any of the myrtles with my penknife. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... last of the pens, brushing away with it the quill-chips from her desk first, and she looked at me with a kind, wondering face. I brushed them away, clicked the penknife into my pocket, made her a bow, and walked off—for the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... now and then he would thrust his hands into his pockets, as if feeling for his clasp-knife, and then again, occasionally, he would give a shrug of the shoulders, as if he felt not at all satisfied. I felt in my pocket, and opened my small penknife. I thought it might do a little service in case he should "close in upon me." Just to feel his pulse, and set his heart a beating, I told him, good-humouredly, that "I was not afraid of half-a-dozen better men than he was if they would come one at ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... more before the chest, and once more pressed his finger along its interior, following regular lines. Then he shook the pillars, and inserted his penknife in each most minute interstice of the carving; he prodded the ribs of the arches, and brought his fist down violently on the separate floors of the mosque. At the end of an hour he sprang to his feet with a smothered ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... which she had pointed, Grizel tied the postman's horse to a tree, at a safe distance from the road, and set about unfastening the straps of the mail-bags. With a sharp penknife she ripped them open, and searched for the government despatches among their contents. To find these was not difficult, owing to their address to the council in Edinburgh, and of the imposing weight of their seals. Here she discovered, not only the warrant ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... his caligraphy is, it must be confessed, even worse than my own. Yes, he is a good soul. At the same time, we have never been intimate with one another. We have done no more than exchange greetings on meeting or parting, borrow one another's penknife if we needed one, and, in short, observe such bare civilities as convention demands. Well, today he said to me, "Makar Alexievitch, what makes you look so thoughtful?" and inasmuch as I could see that he wished me well, I told him all— or, rather, I did not tell him EVERYTHING, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... attracting their attention from afar as scattered blossoms would fail to do. Besides this massing, we have union more intimate still as in the dandelion, the sun-flower and the marigold. These and their fellow composites each seem an individual; a penknife discloses each of them to be an aggregate of blossoms. So gainful has this kind of co-operation proved that composites are now dominant among plants in every quarter of the globe. As to how composites grew before they learned that union is strength, a hint ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... theologian, who did not think himself a bigot, as the roll which Baruch wrote with ink from the words of Jeremiah fared at the hands of Jehoiakim, the King of Judah. He listened while Jehudi read the opening passages. But "when Jehudi had read three or four leaves he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth." Such was probably the fate of many a copy ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... not even a penknife was found when search was made. Five of the rescued ones were plain seamen, with little knowledge of submarine work. The other was the captain of the Shark. Under the direction of young Moore he had attempted ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson

... They were guilty of high treason who should presume to do so. This was a case, however, which admitted of no delay. The attendants put their own lives at hazard to serve that of the king. They bled him with a penknife, and heated the iron for the cautery. The alarm was spread throughout the palace, producing universal confusion. The queen was summoned, and came as soon as possible to the scene. She found her husband sitting senseless ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... appear to the world that, compared to him, they were but monkeys and a knot of muffled calves. Whereupon everybody began to keep a bustling noise and talk of his so marvellous knowledge, through all degrees of persons of both sexes, even to the very laundresses, brokers, roast-meat sellers, penknife makers, and others, who, when he passed along in the street, would say, This is he! in which he took delight, as Demosthenes, the prince of Greek orators, did, when an old crouching wife, pointing at him with her fingers, said, That ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... on light-coloured woods can be obtained by the following method: Cut a stencil pattern in stout cartridge paper (this is best done upon a piece of glass with the point of a sharp penknife), and place it on the centre of a panel or wherever required, and have ready some gas-black mixed with thin polish; apply this with a camel-hair pencil over the cut-out pattern, and when it is removed finish the lines and touch ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... de l'Instinct Sexuel," Annales Medico-Psychologiques, July and August, 1893. D.S. Booth (Alienist and Neurologist, Aug., 1906) describes the case of a man of neurotic heredity who slightly stabbed a woman with a penknife when on his way ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and a glass of white wine; let them stand four or five hours; take off the syrup so as not to mash the fruit, and clarify it; then put in the strawberries, and to each pound put as much fine alum as will lay on the blade of a penknife; let them boil up several times, and shake them round in the kettle, but do not stir them with a spoon, as that will mash them; a few minutes boiling is sufficient; after you take out the fruit, let the syrup boil up, and when it is nearly cold pour it over them in the jar; ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... letter, and watched her amusedly as she gazed at the first page. On receiving it back again, he took his penknife, carefully cut out the great man's signature, and offered ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... matter in seeds, and the saccharine matter in fruits, serve their embryons with nutriment, till they acquire leaves and roots. This analogy is as forceable in so obscure a subject, as it is curious, and may in large buds, as of the horse-chesnut, be almost seen by the naked eye; if with a penknife the remaining rudiment of the last year's leaf, and of the new bud in its bosom, be cut away slice by slice. The seven ribs of the last year's leaf will be seen to have arisen from the pith in seven ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... of the table, and behind it in a green morocco chair with curved arms there sat the Emperor. A number of officials were standing round the walls, but he took no notice of them. In his hand he had a small penknife, with which he whittled the wooden knob at the end of his chair. He glanced up as we entered, and shook his head coldly ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in his vacuous English voice. "Marshall wrote a 3 by inadvertence and changed it. He borrowed my penknife to erase ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... this way and that in the pan until what with their delectable sight and smell, my hunger grew to a voracious desire that amazed me by its intensity. So, placing the frying-pan on the grass between my knees, I began to eat with the aid of my penknife and a hunch of crusty bread, and never in all ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... Annabella, and other traps for aspirates! Nay, his father was going to set up an exhibition of his own, as it appeared; for after a vast amount of meditation, he begged for pen and paper, ruler and compasses, drew, wrote, and figured, and finally took to cardboard and penknife, begging the aid of Miss Charlecote, greatly to the distress of the little boy, who had thought the whole affair private and confidential, and looked forward to a secret departure early in the morning, with ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and with the palm of my hand dealt him a slap in the face that sent him staggering back into the arms of his friends. Never before or since have I felt the desire to take human life which possessed me at that instant. With no means of defense in my possession but a penknife, I backed away from him, he doing the like, and both keeping close to the bar, which was about twenty feet long. In one hand I gripped the open-bladed pocket knife, and, with the other behind my back, retreated to my end of the counter as did Oxenford ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... went to the Queen, who is out of order, and aguish: I doubt the worse for this accident to Mr. Harley. We went together to his house, and his wound looks well, and he is not feverish at all, and I think it is foolish in me to be so much in pain as I am. I had the penknife in my hand, which is broken within a quarter of an inch of the handle. I have a mind to write and publish an account of all the particularities of this fact:(1) it will be very curious, and I would do it when Mr. Harley ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... door shut, and Edmund went into his study. An hour later he also went out, and I was left alone once more. I went back into the drawing-room; the rose-leaves were fading on the floor; and on the table lay George Manners' penknife. It was a new one, that he had been showing to me, and had left behind him. I kissed it and put it in my pocket: then I knelt down by the chair, Nell, and wept till I prayed; and then prayed till I wept again; and then I got up and tidied the room, and got some sewing; and, like other ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... (Mr. J. S. Soyer).—The stem of the white, solid cauliflower heads is cut off an inch from the head, and with a penknife is cleaned of the hard outer membrane, taking care to preserve the head as whole as possible; the head is then well rinsed in cold water, to which is added some vinegar to drive out larvae and the like; it is ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier

... warming to his subject, "it's years since I've had a genuinely clean collar from my laundry. Mostly they are speckled. And the specks are usually in a conspicuous position; one on each wing is a favourite combination. I grant you these can be removed by a penknife, but imperfectly and with damage to the fabric. When what I may call the main portion of the collar is affected, the speckled area may occasionally be concealed by a careful disposition of one's tie. But not often. The laundress, with diabolical cunning, takes care to place ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... Traynor, making a blow at him, whilst Brady snatched, at a penknife, which one of the others had placed on the table, after picking the tobacco out of his pipe—intending either to stab Traynor, or to cut the knot of the cravat by which he was held. The others, however, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... pocket, I found my penknife and cut the rope that tied me. This reminded me of a shipwreck story which Joe had once told me, of a captain who had tied his son to a mast in order that he shouldn't be washed overboard by the ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... attachment, for which his master had sent him. He held it out on a couple of fingers, as one might a penknife, but Tom took both hands to set it on ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... the dead man's clothes Muller found the following articles: a handkerchief, several tramway tickets, a penknife, a tiny mirror, and comb, and a little book, a cheap novel. He wrapped them all in the handkerchief and put them in his own pocket. The dead man's coat had fallen back from his body during the examination, and as Muller turned the stiffened limbs a little he saw the opening of another ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... He brought out his penknife, and loosened part of the molding. Then drawing the wire back into place, he tacked the molding fast again; and the door was as good ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... a long time in warm water, and bent the tops round for a handle, and then ornamented them with his penknife, and made them really very pretty. Then he went to the public walk, and when he saw a young man walking alone, he went up to him, and with a sweet and pleasant voice, he would say, "Will you buy a pretty ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen

... and burst out laughing, and then seeing that Minnie looked abashed, he took out his penknife, and in a moment had snipt off one of the spread-eagle buttons, and said,—"Here, little lady-bird—here is a bright button, which you can fasten up your cloak with to-night when you go to the fairies' midsummer ball; for, I suppose, ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... was applied to it, and gave up a sound of hollowness beneath the tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty, raised the stone block from ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... in Ames Hall, lost six dollars and a small gold-handled penknife that a maiden aunt had given him; Fred Harper reported the disappearance of a silver trophy of which he was inordinately proud,—a graceful little model of a sailing boat which he and his brother had won during a season of boat racing with their twenty-footer. The actual value of the trophy, aside ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... walk. Be still," answered the boy. "They'll be here soon." Slowly and carefully he took off the boot and sock from the broken leg, and, with his penknife, opened the seam of the corduroy trouser. "I believe I could set that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... debauch on the soil. The tick produces great irritation by boring into the skin with its armed proboscis. If pulled out, the head and thorax are often left in the skin. They may be covered with oil to shut out the air from their breathing pores, or by touching them with a hot penknife they will be impelled to let go ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... be sleeping like a dead man, if I know anything of sleeping draughts," said the doctor, shaking his head. "Got a penknife, West?" ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... Then why didn't you mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages—if you don't believe me, count 'em—ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens

... my sister cut it, but it's frightful. It looks as if one had tried to mow a lawn with a pair of scissors, or shear a sheep with a penknife.' ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... arrival (it was an intrusion); and more surprised still when, on hearing that the barman was merely having a chat the other side, I rattled the jug on the shelf and bumped the little door. They gasped when I slipped the bolt of the little door with a penknife. What chake to be sure! The hotel shows respect to its light-o'-day customers, but the dim jug and bottle box is supposed to show respect to the hotel. It calls the barman Sir. It said, "Good-night, sir!" in astonished chorus ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... from digging into the bowl of his pipe with a dilapidated penknife. He is now head-master of Tarbonny Public School, a school I know well, for I taught in it for two ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... to do so. But, at a sign given by the magistrate, one of the gendarmes approached, and, drawing a penknife from his pocket, ripped the seam at the place which the prisoner pointed out. A genuine convulsion of rage seized the assassin, when a little paper parcel appeared, folded up, and compressed to the smallest ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... turn away—for a time at any rate—from whittling of wood, and to speak of cutting of cork—that is ordinary corks. So many things can be constructed with them by the help of a penknife and liquid glue. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... Napoleon's own behaviour as his end drew nigh. For some time past a sharp internal pain—the stab of a penknife, he called it—had warned him of his doom; in April, 1821, when vomiting and prostration showed that the dread ancestral malady was drawing on apace, he bade the Abbe Vignali prepare the large dining-room of Longwood as a chapelle ardente; ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet: it was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of their youth; such as watching the pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner: Some fellows, suspecting that a calf ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... at the bellows. On the tool chest sat Gubblum Oglethorpe, leisurely smoking. His pony was tied to the hasp of the gate. The miller, Dick of the Syke, sat on a pile of iron rods. Tom o' Dint, the little bow-legged fiddler and postman, was sharpening at the grindstone a penknife already worn obliquely to a point by ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... And when the bird away does fly, It's like an eagle in the sky; And when the sky begins to roar, It's like a lion at your door; And when the door begins to crack, It's like a stick across your back; And when your back begins to smart, It's like a penknife in your heart; And when your heart begins to bleed, You're dead, you're dead, ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... body. The face was wonderfully calm for a man who had been struck down in a moment. There was nothing in the breast-pocket, and only a few loose coins and a cigar-holder in the waistcoat. The trousers held a little penknife and some silver, and the side pocket of his jacket contained an old crocodile-skin cigar-case. There was no sign of the little black book in which I had seen him making notes. That had no doubt been taken by ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... had just made an excursion into the interior of his with the small blade of his penknife. "Why don't you keep smokes ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... penknife he slit the envelope open, and looked inside. It contained a slip of paper and another slip, ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... like some children. She could wait; and she waited, while Norton pulled off his boot, made examinations into the interior, and went stoutly to work with penknife and file. In the midst of it he ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... the wall, to the right, is a bed made up ready for use, and on the other side a smaller one full of straw and hay, and without bed-covers. Opposite to it stands a large deal table tattoed with marks that are the handiwork of the Melammed. With his little penknife, which was never out of his hands, he would cut them into the wood all the time he was teaching us— figures of beasts and ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... his pocket for his penknife. It was gone. The blank expression of disgust on his face made ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... ICE.—Two pounds granulated sugar, three-fourths pint water, boil to a light crack; set off, add four ounces glucose (or the amount of cream tartar you can hold on the point of a penknife); set back on the fire, just let come to a boil to dissolve the glucose; set off again, add immediately one-fourth ounce shaved paraffine, six ounces cream dough cut up fine, one grated cocoanut. Stir all until it creams, pour out into a frame on ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... liberally furnished with James's powders and febrifuges; but for broken bones, and extracting pieces of pot-metal or copper ship-bolts from shattered limbs, there had been no provision whatever. A dull penknife or razor were substituted for lancets; and for probes there was nothing to be had but pieces of priming wire; the sufferings of those compelled to carry in their cankering wounds the corroding metal, were indescribably afflicting; and served ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... in her own Bed, she made Maria go to hers, and when all was still, she softly rose, and taking a Candle with her, only in her Night-Gown and Slippers, she goes to the Bed of the Unfortunate Henault, with a Penknife in her hand; but considering, she knew not how to conceal the Blood, should she cut his Throat, she resolves to Strangle him, or Smother him with a Pillow; that last thought was no sooner borne, but put in Execution; and, as he soundly slept, she smother'd him without any ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... who sat in his presiding chair, whispered in his ear, "It is best that you should let me alone, for my brother Rory is in the churchyard with many ill men, and if you take off my orders he will take off your head, and I myself will not be your best friend." He then coolly exposed his penknife, as he called his great sword, "which sight, with Rory's proximity, and being a person whose character was well enough known by his Lordship, he was so terrified that he incontinently absolved and vindicated the ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... which indeed we happened to have more direct evidence. One of our seamen, when he was on shore, run a large splinter into his foot, and the surgeon being on board, one of his comrades endeavoured to take it out with a penknife; but after putting the poor fellow to a good deal of pain, was obliged to give it over. Our good old Indian, who happened to be present, then called over one of his countrymen that was standing on the opposite side of the river, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... them. When we had headed it a little, we all sprang from our saddles, joined the young man at the ropes, and lashed them round anything we could find, as we were being dragged along. The young man took out his penknife, and gave the balloon a gash in the side, to let out the smoke that inflated it, and it collapsed and stopped. The first thing, sir, that the young man did was to call for fire, take a cigar from his waistcoat pocket, and begin to smoke, while we went to the assistance of the panic-struck ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... a word, opened his penknife. Fergus and he turned the sofa over, and Grandfather slit the under covering where it had been sewed up after Jeremiah had been rescued. Through the hole appeared the head of a pig. Grandfather and Fergus stood back while the pig struggled to free himself. Finally ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo

... ill-paid wight of a letter-carrier; that's where the note is. I beg your pardon, Mr. Channing, but it's of no use to interrupt me with arguments about old Galloway's seal. They go in at one ear and out at the other. What more easy than to put a penknife under the ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... to 'em, and bid them get up and move on, or I'd lend them a lick of the gig-whip; for my notion was they were all fresh. 'We'd ha' done that an hour sin', but we're teed wi' a bit o' band,' says Joe. So in a while I got down and loosed 'em wi' my penknife; and Scott would ride wi' me, to tell me all how it happened; and t' others are coming on as fast as their feet will ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte



Words linked to "Penknife" :   pocketknife, pocket knife



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com