Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pump thunder v.

to bluster.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

In exclamations

go to hell and pump thunder!

excl.of emphatic dismissal.

1861		letter 17 Mar. in McKean Blood and War (2011) 1179: God Damn Anna, she may go to hell, and pump thunder so far as I care.
1890-1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. & Its Analogues.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 24 May 2/2: ‘Sooner than I’d work for your two dollars a week I’d go and pump thunder for two cents a clap’.
1957		W. Woods Manuela 30: ‘I went from office to office, because I wanted to work my passage. They only laughed. “Go to hell and pump thunder, they said”’.
1961		J. Ashmead Mountain and the Feather 197: ‘Why don’t you go to hell and pump thunder at a nickel a clap?’.
1980		M. Hennessy Soldier of the Queen 75: ‘I shall always remain myself, though, and people who don’t like it can go to hell and pump thunder’.