It could be some kind of trick Budd had thought up.

) hung on a hook on the wall, and underneath it I could see his tie, knotted, ready to be slipped over his head, a black badge of frayed respectability that ought never to have left his neck.

They, and the two large fans which I could dimly see as daylight filtered through their vents, down at the far end of the hall, could be turned on by a master switch situated inside the office.

Their roar, like the swelling volume of a hundred tornadoes could be heard for miles.

Atonement, if atonement were possible, could only be made at that sacred, sacrificial basin.

Bushes and vines abetted the rocks in forming thorny detours for the struggling stranger, and without the direct light of the sun to act as compass, Pamela could no longer be positive of her direction.

There was a peculiar density about it, a thick substance that could be sensed but never identified, never actually perceived.

And even with her limited knowledge of such things, she knew that the car could be repaired there ; ;

Not even an empty cartridge case could be found.

Inside the crown, stuffed behind the stained sweatband, could be seen thin, crumpled wads of currency.

How much of an accident could that be ''??

So far as he knew, only his father could be there.

A hell of an altitude for a barrel roll, but it could be done.

With the rapid rate of closure, the approach from below, the side, and ahead, there would be only a moment when damage could be done.

At once my ears were drowned by a flow of what I took to be Spanish, but -- the driver's white teeth flashing at me, the road wildly veering beyond his glistening hair, beyond his gesticulating bottle -- it could have been the purest Oxford English I was half hearing ; ;

The entire length of the street could be raked with rifle fire from this barn.

When he awoke in the mornings, she was in his mind and he could hardly wait to get to school to be near her in the flesh.

It is hard to see how the situation could be otherwise.

Each could be the real thing.

Officers who participate in the continual practice drills assured me that the President's decision could be made and announced on the gold circuit within minutes after the first flash from Aj.

Seeking an obscure, dark, relatively quiet corner in the airy room otherwise suffused with afternoon sunshine, he asked if the soft background music could be turned off.

Faulkner culminates the Southern legend perhaps more masterfully than it has ever been, or could ever be, done.

The conversation that ensued may have been engrossing but it could hardly be called world-shattering.

Sherman proved that a railway base could be movable and the most brilliant feature of the Atlanta campaign was the rapid repair of the tracks.

Here, this happy, roving son of good fortune proved that he could accept the disciplines of a new social-economic order fighting for its very existence and ideals in a truculent world.

This material proved to be unsatisfactory, since we could not obtain reproducible results on various portions of the sample.

She said that proved she wasn't to be trusted with a fire in her room, and she could be burned to a crisp without anybody knowing it.

One argument given in favor of using the axiom of choice is that it is convenient to use it because it allows one to prove some simplifying propositions that otherwise could not be proved.

On his arrival at Ephesus a three months ' truce was concluded with Tissaphernes, the satrap of Lydia and Caria, but negotiations conducted during that time proved fruitless, and on its termination Agesilaus raided Phrygia, where he easily won immense booty from the satrap Pharnabazus ; Tissaphernes could offer no assistance, as he had concentrated his troops in Caria.

However, in practice they proved to be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a ' naval ' battle could occur.

The tank proved highly successful, and as technology improved the tank became a weapon that could cross large distances at much higher speeds than supporting infantry and artillery.

Although it could be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as Loud intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter writing and was not commercially viable.

Tests for traces of explosives on the clothes of eleven of the dead proved negative, while those of the remaining man could not be tested as they had already been washed.

This report counted 2, 279 cases of " disappearances " which could be proved and registered.

For example in the Netherlands, the law assumes the stronger participant ( e. g. a car driver ) is liable in the case of an accident with a weaker participant ( e. g. a cyclist ) unless it can be proved that the cyclist's behavior could not have been expected.

Cavalry " flying columns " proved effective, or at least cost-effective, in many campaigns — although an astute native commander ( like Samori in western Africa, Shamil in the Caucasus, or any of the better Boer commanders ) could turn the tables and use the greater mobility of their cavalry to offset their relative lack of firepower compared with European forces.

Mounted knights armed with lances proved ineffective against formations of pikemen combined with crossbowmen whose weapons could penetrate most knights ' armor.

She proved that rhetoric is a powerful tool that women could employ to settle differences and to assert themselves.

This was followed in 1968 with the iconic 240Z, which proved affordable sports cars could be built and sold profitably: it was soon the world's # 1-selling sports car.

But the search proved fruitless as no manuscripts could be found.

In 1970, Yuri Matiyasevich proved that this could not be done.

The cell used as the donor for the cloning of Dolly was taken from a mammary gland, and the production of a healthy clone therefore proved that a cell taken from a specific part of the body could recreate a whole individual.

The idea of creating artificial intelligence led some computer scientists to believe that teachers could be replaced by computers, through something like an expert system ; however, attempts to accomplish this have predictably proved inflexible.

" However the Times also reflected widespread skepticism as to whether the forward pass could be effectively integrated into the game: " There has been no team that has proved that the forward pass is anything but a doubtful, dangerous play to be used only in the last extremity.

Given their strategic location in the North Atlantic, the Faroes could have proved useful to Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic, possibly as a submarine base.

While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.

The rebels dispersed and there was no fighting, as Washington's forceful action proved the new government could protect itself.

Black was long known to have a big advantage, even before L. Victor Allis proved that black could force a win ( see below ).