He left the room, and Boone remained standing, his gaze wandering, but his brain singularly numb and inoperative, like stiff machinery, until he heard footsteps again, and with a conscious effort shook off his heaviness of torpor.
"The Tempering"
Charles Neville Buck
There was no middle course, apparently, to the rabbit kind, lethodyne was either fatal or else inoperative.
"Hilda Wade A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose"
Grant Allen
Make it inoperative, and the institution was doomed.
"America To-day, Observations and Reflections"
William Archer