Racketeering

“ So he rocked and swayed to and fro, straining at his legs and reaching out with his arms—oh, yes! the rocking chair had arms, of course—and at last he was through the hole in the fence.
"I am free at last! Free!" exclaimed Racky in his own kind of a voice—a sort of squeak, peculiar to some rocking chairs. "I am free! No more shall I be sat on by fat, old ladies, though I really love Grandma Marden. ”

“ We spared her, Rakaya and I; we bribed Runjit, who is now dead, and to whom you gave the terrible orders, and Rakaya smuggled the babe safe away to the cottage of the woodcutters. Since then I have managed to see her sometimes by stealth, and have loved her; but I have never dared to clothe her in any but humble garments—no silks, no bangles, no jewels of any kind—lest suspicion should be aroused.'
"'Oh, great master, forgive your humble slave,' moaned the old crone, Rakaya, grovelling in a corner of the room. ”

“ Fascinated, the field watched the grim race—helpless, unable to do anything but sit and look on. The man in ratcatcher had been right, and they knew it, when he had called it a one-man job. A crowd of galloping horses would have maddened the black to frenzy.
And as for the two principal performers, they were perhaps the coolest of all. For a few agonizing seconds, when the girl first realized that Nigger was bolting, she panicked; then, being a thoroughbred herself, she pulled herself together and tried to stop him. ”

“ Rack is a further corruption; and rack-punch is perhaps not quite obsolete.
1603.—"We taking the But-ends of Pikes and Halberts and Faggot-sticks, drave them into a Racke-house."—E. Scot, in Purchas, i. 184. Purchas also has Vraca and other forms; and at i. 648 there is mention of a strong kind of spirit called Rack-apee (Malay āpī = 'fire') . See FOOL'S RACK.
1616.—"Some small quantitie of Wine, but not common, is made among them; they call it Raack, distilled from Sugar and a spicie Rinde of a Tree called Iagra [Jaggery] ."—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1470. ”

“ Ned Rackham was still alive, conscious and defiant, surviving a wound which would have been mortal in most cases. Whether he lived or died was a matter of small concern to Captain Wellsby but he ordered the surgeon to nurse him with special care.
The dead pirates were flung overboard but the bodies of seven brave British seamen were wrapped in sailcloth to be committed to the deep on the morrow, with a round shot at their feet and a prayer to speed their souls. There were men enough to work the ship but she [91] was in a situation indescribably forlorn. ”

“ Unless the basic attitude changes here in this country, the rackets will prosper and grow. Of this I am convinced. The racketeers after all are professional criminals. [They] are also the amateurs, men who have law abiding backgrounds and respectable positions, who nevertheless break the law of the land. ”

“ Alyn Williams, President of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, and his American wife were Rackham’s companions on the voyage in the liner Republic in early November. ‘Mrs Williams, thank heaven, had never heard of me before,’ Rackham told his wife. In the ship’s gymnasium Rackham and Williams went through a series of exercises designed to make Rackham fatter and Williams thinner. ”

“ The cold, white flakes swirled around his legs, and fell on his stiff, wooden arms, chilling him all the way into his glue, by which he was held together.
"If the snow gets into my cracks, it will melt, and be just like rain," thought Racky as he swayed along. "Then I shall fall apart! Or I shall get the rheumatism, and creak worse, than when fat Grandma sits on me! ”

“ As for the shadows you have seen, they are those of the rivals and enemies of Ragotte whom she has deprived of life for a century or so, and who will afterwards return to the world. The young slave I spoke of is amongst them. I have seen her several times with great pleasure, although she did not speak to me, and on approaching her I had the vexation to find it was but her shade; finding however that one of my sheep was very attentive to this little phantom, I discovered that he was her lover, and that Ragotte, out of jealousy, had taken him from her. ”

“ I had always had the impression, from the intimate inside knowledge of Fairy-land which his work betrayed, that Arthur Rackham was a kind of wizard: that he only pretended to call himself Arthur Rackham, and hobgoblins really hailed him by some more mystic name on stormy nights on Hanmpstead Heath, which is an easy broomstick ride from a certain little house in Chalcot Gardens. Acquaintance has not entirely allayed the suspicion. Arthur Rackham looks rather like a wizard—a wizard of the unmalicious order, who dabbles in sly, freakish, and delightful arts. ”

“ Some paid visits to the principal shops, especially to those containing food or weapons, which they promptly seized. Others, with an eye to the future, were erecting barricades or strengthening old ones, and trying to put the city in a state of defence.
"Imbeciles!" exclaimed Stephen angrily. "When Windischgratz arrives he will knock the place about their ears. I wonder what has become of Rakoczy."
"She has the most beautiful eyes," I murmured, pursuing my own train of thought, "and of the loveliest blue. And what remarkable bravery to be shown by a girl so young!" ”

“ Who goes there without?"
"'Tis I, sire," replied Sir Richard Ratcliffe; appearing at the door.
"Ah, Ratcliffe, come hither," said the king. "The queen is very ill, Ratcliffe--dying, her physicians tell me."
"Your Grace must bear Heaven's will patiently," replied the courtier.
"I will so," answered Richard; "but we must foresee events, Ratcliffe. The queen is dying. Men will say that I poisoned her; think you not so, Ratcliffe?"
"It matters little what men say, sire," answered the other, "since we well know that half they say is false." ”

“ That he has suffered from the diminishing acceptance of fairies in a disillusioned world is obvious. To those who consider them to be as imperishable and as necessary as folk-lore itself, Rackham is a valiant figure, for he, more than anyone, has kept the fairy world alive for children in the twentieth century. ”

“ Diving into a pile of surviving ‘fan’ letters we find one from Rochester, New York, written in the late nineteen-twenties, which commences ‘My dear Sir Arthur’, and another containing the apology: ‘Everybody here in New York calls you “Sir Arthur”, and that explains why I began my letter that way.’ (A Melbourne correspondent had already asked: “How shall I begin? Not Mr Rackham surely! It doesn’t sound a bit like the artist spirit who creates those wonderful fairy people. ...’) A letter from Texas came from ‘a co-ed with red hair and artistic appreciations’. ”

“ Rachael confessed. "We all seem like a lot of puppets, to me--like Bander-log! What are we all going round and round in circles for, and who gets any fun out of it? What's YOUR answer, Greg--what makes the wheels go round?" ”

“ Rackett, although he devoted himself to his parish, was interested in every branch of science, and was a good musician. But his leisure was mainly occupied in antiquarian researches, and he spent much time in scientific study in London. ”

“ Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House,” said Ridiklis. “I do so love it. The kitchen is so convenient—even though the oven won’t bake any more.”
And things looked most serious because the nurse really was beginning to push the arm-chair away. But it would not move and I will tell you why. One of my Fairies, who had come down the chimney when they were talking, had called me and I had come in a second with a whole army of my Workers, and though the nurse couldn’t see them, they were all holding the chair tight down on the carpet so that it would not stir. ”

“ Left! Keep your heads up there! Close up on the right!' That will be your work for the next week or two, while I dodge about here, and make Windischgratz believe we're burning to fight."
"Where am I to go?"
"Pesth, with the rank of major. Tedious work you'll find it, and no glory either; but you'll do more good there than marching and counter-marching with me. Now, as to these lads. Which is it to be--a showy uniform or downright hard grinding?"
"Take them on your staff," suggested Rakoczy. "They'll get both then."
"Haven't room for more than one."
"Let that be Stephen," I exclaimed promptly. ”

“ While the two lads pored entranced over the map of the branching creek and the pine-covered knoll, the crew of the Royal James were overhauling weapons and clearing the ship for action. It disappointed them to [200] lack the twenty men whom they had expected to find marooned but this made them no less eager for battle. Concerning Ned Rackham, there was no feud with him or grudge to square and he could go his way in the little trading snow without fear of molestation from Stede Bonnet. ”

“ Of his intense Toryism, his vivacity, his love of arms, his tenacity of perception, Racan gives us in his biography an admirable picture. Just before he died his son was killed in a duel--he, at seventy-two, desired passionately to kill the adversary. "Gambling," he said, "my pence of life against the gold of his twenty-five years." ”

“ To live here must vulgarise an artist ... I could easily run off & dump my bags & self on the first ship to Europe. ... Bang bang bang bash. That man will bust that drum if no one stops him.’
Later letters were more cheerful. Rackham at sixty was obviously unable to come to terms with New York, but he found much to enjoy there. ‘Everyone is excessively kind,’ he wrote; ‘Everyone was brought up on my work – if young enough – or brought up their families on it if old enough.’ He soon had the run of six New York clubs, and was inundated with invitations. ”

“ Men do indeed call me the Hermit of Rakata, because I dwell alone here under the shadow of this particular cone of Krakatoa, but I do not ape the austere life of the conventional hermit, as you see, either in my domestic arrangements or food. ”

“ Racksole tapped him on the knee twice.
‘So you’re another Englishman masquerading as a foreigner in my hotel,’
Racksole remarked, by way of commencing the interrogation.
‘I’m not,’ answered Rocco quietly. ‘I’m a citizen of the United States.’
‘The deuce you are!’ Racksole exclaimed.
‘Yes, I was born at West Orange, New Jersey, New York State. I call myself an Italian because it was in Italy that I first made a name as a chef—at Rome. It is better for a great chef like me to be a foreigner. Imagine a great chef named Elihu P. Rucker. You can’t imagine it. ”

“ Every now and again a group of lackeys, with drawn swords and lighted torches, would pass us, escorting the litter of some court lady or priest of rank, and almost at every hundred paces we met a party of mounted men, who went by us with a clattering of arms, and a flashing of steel, while above the insistent hum of voices we often caught a word or phrase, that told us what was the one subject of conversation. ”

“ With a yell the enemy gave way before us; a score of Englishmen had followed Drake, and were now hacking at them. To add to their confusion our men had driven off the boarders on the other side, and now streamed down to the rescue with loud cries of "Drake!"
A moment of fierce hand-to-hand struggle, as we fought to and fro upon the bloody deck; many slipped and fell in the pools of blood, and they fought among themselves and hacked at the legs of the men as they trampled over them. Some who went down were trodden to death; others struggled to their feet and fought on. ”

“ To-day, I’ve twenty thousand francs in my pocket, and yet I’m treated as if I were a venomous beast. If I approach any one he draws back, and if I enter a room, those who are there hasten out of it.” At the recollection of the insults heaped upon him since Lacheneur’s capture, the old rascal’s rage reached a climax. ”

“ The harbor master answered with the motion of his oars.
She glanced at him shrewdly, then struck her hands together at her breast, which she caused to rise and fall stormily. She was, in fact, a storm petrel in the guise of woman.
"You have saved my life," she cried out, "when not another man in all this world would have lifted so much as his little finger. Do what you will with me after this. Let me be your slave, your dog—. I am a lost woman if you will not take pity on me."
Rackby's heart came into his throat with the slow surge of a sculpin on a hook. ”

“ His first crude published drawings had appeared in Scraps of 4th October 1884, illustrating the thesis: ‘Mothers in Ceylon have a curious way of preventing their children from eating too much. A fine thread is tied round the child before it commences its meal, and when the thread breaks, the child is considered to have had enough.’ Rackham demonstrated this with the minimum of subtlety. ”

“ If Rackham’s fairies dance lightly out of the range of criticism, this does not mean that all his work is beyond criticism; we find heroic mythological figures who would obviously have been at home in the Edwardian Academy, and we find a degree of archness here and there among the Arcadian idylls; the humour of long noses can be exaggerated. ”

“ The French skipper was holding to the rail, shouting orders, while a madman, without hat or coat, and with a set white face, was pointing a pistol at his head.
“I tell you, sir,” said the shaking seaman, “we dare not run in close to the shore, we shall be driven in onto the rocks. It is sheer madness.”
“Very well,” said Reckavile calmly “lower a boat and I will go ashore.”
The other made a gesture of despair. “It is impossible, no boat would live for five minutes. Why not let me run to shelter, or ride out the storm?” ”