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More "Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fellows I have now," he went on as he led the way toward the men's quarters. "Not a trouble maker in the bunch, except a half breed that I'm not particularly stuck on, and that I'm going to get rid of as soon as work gets slack. But take them all together I ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... creature of fighting breed. It lunged forward with such suddenness that both its mistress and its enemy were taken unawares. The girl was dragged in tow. Zeke would have leaped aside, but he was too late to escape the encounter, though he mitigated it. The iron jaws clanged shut, but in the slack of the victim's sturdy jeans, instead of in the flesh. The massive mouth was locked vise-like. Because of the cloth's sturdiness, the dog swung clear of the floor. The girl still strove frantically, though ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... 1856, from eminent historians. When they were old men, he and Ranke, whom, in hot youth, there was much to part, lived on terms of mutual goodwill. Doellinger had pronounced the theology of the Deutsche Reformation slack and trivial, and Ranke at one moment was offended by what he took for an attack on the popes, his patrimony. In 1865, after a visit to Munich, he allowed that in religion there was no dispute between ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... no battle in prospect," he said; "our country does not want us to fight for it. No foe or tyrant is questioning or threatening our liberty. There is nothing to be done. We are only taking a walk. Keep your hand on the reins, captain, and slack the fire of that spirit. It is not ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the Saint: "My son, If grief were lawful in a world redeemed The blood-stains on a land so strong in faith, So slack in love, might cloud the holiest brow, Yea, his whose head lay on the breast of Christ. Clan wars with clan: no injury is forgiven; Like to the joy in stag-hunts is the war: Alas! for such what hope!" Benignus answered ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... should be loose about the stomach, so that digestion may not be impeded; it ought to be loose about the bowels, in order that the spiral motion of the intestines may not be interfered with—hence the importance of putting on a belly-band moderately slack; it should be loose about the sleeves, so that the blood may course, without let or hindrance, through the arteries and veins; it ought to be loose, then, everywhere, for nature delights in freedom from restraint, and will resent, sooner or later, any interference. Oh, that a mother ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... ought to have accompanied the creation of life peers. Proxies ought to have been abolished. Some time or other the slack attendance of the House of Lords will destroy the House of Lords. There are occasions in which appearances are realities, and this is one of them. The House of Lords on most days looks so unlike what it ought ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... he made at the line, the fish gave a peculiar wallow, which felt as if it had spun itself round in the water, and began in spite of the mate's efforts to move off, the line gliding through his fingers, till by a sudden action he twisted the slack round his ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... take the slack so fast. Hard a port. Now kick your stern over. That's the stuff. Pay out. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... advancing toward us at a brisk canter and the drum turned fast, taking up the slack of the tether; but, as though not satisfied with this rate of progress, several soldiers were running back and jumping up to haul in the rope. The sergeant who took care of the telephone was hard put to it to coil down the twin wires. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... that the chance to "make money" is to-day the most powerful stimulus in use. But thoughtful managers of industrial enterprise tell you, incredible as it may seem, that the worker's objection to applying himself to his task is not invariably overcome by anticipation of the wage return; he will slack or be perverse or throw over a job in the face of opportunities to earn as good a wage or a better one than he can get elsewhere. It is well known that workers joint unions in the face of opposition of employers and at the ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... idea for something artistic in the way of patterns there; but, as you love me, do not offer to buy any. We grocers only put the currants out for show, and so that we may run our fingers through them luxuriously when business is slack. I have a good line in shortbreads, madam, if I can find the box, but no currants this evening, I ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... visitors after her five o'clock tea. It was the habit at the Villa Amette to lunch at one o'clock, English tea at five o'clock, and dinner at eight—when the Rooms were slack save for the tourists from seven till ten. Strange! The tourists always think they can win while the gambling world has gone to its meals! They get seats, it is true, but they ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... remained upon the wharf. As he saw the rush coming he had ordered his men to abandon their load; then he ran to the after-mooring, and, taking slack from a deck hand, cast it off. Back up the dock he went to the forward hawser, where, at a signal, he did the same, moving, toward the last, without excessive hurry, as if in a spirit of bravado. The ship was clear, and he had not cut a hawser. He had done his work; ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... men, the marake, as it is called, "sharpens them, prevents them from being heavy and lazy, makes them active, brisk, industrious, imparts strength, and helps them to shoot well with the bow; without it the Indians would always be slack and rather sickly, would always have a little fever, and would lie perpetually in their hammocks. As for the women, the marake keeps them from going to sleep, renders them active, alert, brisk, gives them strength and a liking ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to the satisfaction of John Ayliffe, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... year we had a committee meeting of the Alpha Delta Phi in Charles Washburn's room at 15 Holworthy. Roosevelt and I sat in the window-seat overlooking the College Yard and chatted together in the intervals when business was slack. We discussed what we intended to do after graduation. "I am going to try to help the cause of better government in New York City; I don't know exactly how," ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... superior to the mere consciousness of life, and which in its immensity of contradictions, delight, dread, exultation and despair could not be faced and yet was not to be evaded. There was no peace in it. But who wanted peace? Surrender was better, the dreadful ease of slack limbs in the sweep of an enormous tide and in a divine emptiness of mind. If this was existence then he knew that he existed. And he knew that the woman existed, too, in the sweep of the tide, without speech, without movement, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... of his guilt. Then he put back the ink and the dictionary, the blotting pad and sealing wax, and replaced them with a loaf of bread, a table knife, a bottle of brandy, and a drinking glass. After that he made up the fire with a shovel of slack, that it might burn until morning; removed the lamp from the table to the window recess that it might cast its light into the darkness outside; and unchained the outer door that a wanderer of the night, if any such there were, might ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... landing he had been dismissed, And now was traveling toward his native home. This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up, An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill-suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear To turn from present hardships ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... And he found a very nice little one; who, when he asked her, made a courtesy and said, "Yes, thank you," in the prettiest way possible. Then the Prince was pleased, and sent for a priest. The priest's name was Slack. He belonged to the Methodist persuasion, Otsego Conference, but he married the Prince and the Princess just as well as though he had been an archbishop. They went to live in a small palace of their own, and after awhile some little princelings came to live with them, and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... minutes he was standing at the cliff edge, with a padded bight of the rope about his body, and the two joined ranging-rods in his hand, quite ready to be lowered down the face. Then two peons whom he had specially selected for the task, drew in the slack of the rope, passed a complete turn of it round an iron bar driven deep into a rock crevice, and waited for the command of a third who now laid himself prone on the ground, with his head projecting over the edge ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... generally, as I have said, have worked loyally and well, there have, I regret to say, been instances where absence, irregular timekeeping, and slack work have led to a marked diminution in the output of our factories. In some cases the temptations of drink account for this failure to work up to the high standard expected. It has been brought to my notice on more than one occasion that the restrictions of trade unions have undoubtedly ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... grave words were said to me of my future life; although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more slack." Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken to me, and as Beatrice willed ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... tightened round its shoulders, Tom galloping his own horse hard behind. By the most skilful manipulation of the lariat, Edna's horse was compelled to slacken its pace, Tom getting nearer and nearer by degrees and taking in the slack until he was right alongside. He soon brought the runaway to a stand-still, and directed me to release Edna's foot from the stirrup, which I did. She sank to the ground, completely exhausted. And little wonder. Her hands were cut and bleeding ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... hundred men by an explosion in a British battery at York just as Sheaffe was marching off. Forty British had also been blown up in one of the forts a little while before. Sheaffe appears to have been a slack inspector of powder-magazines. But the Americans, who naturally suspected other things than slack inspection, thought a mine had been sprung on them after the fight was over. They consequently swore revenge, burnt the parliament buildings, looted several ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... three inches. The best quality of baked brick is of a yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue; a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red. The earliest baked bricks are of this last color. The sun-dried bricks have even more variety of size than the baked ones. They are sometimes as large as 16 inches square and seven inches ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... time!" Mac called. "Let him think it out," as step by step Roper followed, the halter running slack on the water. When almost out of his depth, he paused just a moment, then, obeying the tightening rope, lifted himself to the flood and struck ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... two going away together, and he turned to the others. He and Obed worked fast, and within five minutes the last man was released. But as they crept back toward the chaparral the slack sentinels caught sight of the dusky figures retreating. Two musket shots were fired and there were rapid shouts in Mexican jargon. Ned and Obed rose to their feet and, keeping the escaped prisoners before them, ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Slack up, if you please, and let me have all the line you can, without casting off from your body. Keep fast the end for fear ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him fussy than careless," said Chowne, "because life cures a chap of being fussy, if he's got a brain and a sensible outlook; but the careless and slack sort go from bad to worse, and I ain't here to keep my constables in order: they be here to strengthen my hands and keep the rest ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... were waiting when they had finished, and they were soon under way. A mile of comparatively slack water brought them out into one of the larger estuaries of the river, and there the long, uphill pull began. O'Neil had equipped his two companions with high rubber boots, which they were only too eager to try. As soon as they got ashore they began to romp and play and splash through ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... replies for different ranks so that the officer of the deck may know how to receive the people that are coming aboard. It would make him awful mad if you gave such an answer that he would extend wardroom honors to a steerage officer. Now, stand by to slack away ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... come the command, and some men would go down into the smother of the lee rail and haul in or slack away sheets, while others at the mastheads would shift ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... authors who describe the thing otherwise, I appeal to the common sense of mankind. One late writer defines it thus: "LANGUAGE is any means by which one person communicates his ideas to another."—Sanders's Spelling-Book, p. 7. The following is the explanation of an other slack thinker: "One may, by speaking or by writing, (and sometimes by motions,) communicate his thoughts to others. The process by which this is done, is called LANGUAGE.—Language is the expression ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... whispered to 'Frisco Kid, who went for'ard and dropped the anchor, paying out the slightest quantity of slack. ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... his horse, as he usually did, his left hand holding a slack rein, his right resting on his hip, with bent head and dreamy eyes, he made his first steps along that incline, at once glorious and fatal, which was to lead him to a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Chicago now—a good-natured creature, but slack, like her mother. Her surly husband was still talking of his rights and crying down with the rich. They had two children. Minnie wrote of them, and of the delights of city life. Movies every night. Halsted ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... strongly against any tell-tale jerk, with the additional security of an anchor obtained by driving the pick of his ax deeply into the surface ice. It was Bower's business to keep the rope quite taut both above and below; but the American was sure that he was gathering the slack behind him with his right hand while he carried the ax in his left, and did not use it ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his days. But she ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... then, and haul aft the leeward. Slack out the mizzen sheet a little, Jack. That's it; now she's off again, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... sure to sleep like a top, and seven is time enough for me to rise. Two hours aint such a bad lot of sleep for a woman of my years. Let's see, I'm sixty-eight. In one sense sixty-eight is old, in another sense it's young. You slack down at sixty-eight; you don't have such a draw on your system, the fire inside you don't seem to require such poking up and feeding. When you get real old, seventy-eight or eighty, then you want a deal of cosseting; but sixty-eight is young in one sense of the word. This ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... jagged spurt of flame; The window seemed a furnace door That gave upon a bed of ore; The thunder rumbled out the muttered Words that his failing tongue had uttered— Another flash, a rending crack— The old man crumpled like a sack; I felt his stringy arms go slack. How could he sit so dead, so still! While wind snouts ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... loosed the steed,—his slack hand fell;—upon the silent face He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad place: His hope was crushed, his after fate untold in martial strain:— His banner led the spears no more, amidst the hills of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts listen sadly and proudly and they almost ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... never been to a circus; and when Fanny told him what it was,—how men rode standing up on their horses; how they turned somersets, and played all sorts of antics on the tight rope and the slack rope; and, above all, what funny things the clowns said and did,—he was quite ready to do almost anything to procure so rare a pleasure as witnessing such a performance must afford him. It did not require any ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... step, Colonel Brent!—not a step! What business have you going into action? You did enough fighting forty years ago." Brent, deaf to her expostulation, is rushing to the steps, buckling his belt on the run, but "M'ria" grabs the slack of the Khaki coat and holds him. Stuyvesant springs for his hat. It has vanished. Marion, her hands behind her, her lips parted, her heart pounding hard, has darted to the broad door to the salon, and there, leaning against the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... it would have been more of a miracle had she done it in a balmy August, in the midst of other occupations, instead of in a tempestuous January when business was slack; but, on the whole, I did not believe that either the Madonna or my sins had had anything to do with my cold which I considered to be a natural, or non-miraculous, consequence of the rain and the wind. But the sceptical guard objected that even so the Madonna could not get quite clear, ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... stretch far over the quay, and from them hang spars and planks as a gangway to each ship. This immense establishment is worked by from one to three thousand hands, according as the business is either brisk or slack.'" ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... advertised "Just arrived from Halifax and to be sold, ten strong hearty, Negro men mostly tradesman, such as caulkers, carpenters, sailmakers and ropemakers.[3] Any person wishing to purchase may enquire of Benjamin Halliwell of Boston." Such an advertisement indicates that shipbuilding was slack at Halifax and more brisk at Boston. A conjecture may be hazarded that these slaves had been taken by their master to Halifax to build ships and then returned to the colony when ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... without the benefit of the diversion of any copes-mate or corrival at all, but should withal shun and eschew them, fly from them, and eternally forsake and reject them as impious heretics and sacrilegious persons, according to the accustomed manner of other gods towards such as are too slack in offering up the duties and reverences which ought to be performed respectively to their divinities—as is evidently apparent in Bacchus towards negligent vine-dressers; in Ceres, against idle ploughmen and tillers of the ground; in Pomona, to unworthy fruiterers ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Borderland, a rude spirit of chivalry and a passion for wild adventure lingered among the Eliots, Armstrongs, Kerrs, Rutherfords, Homes, Johnstons, and other marauding clans, who acknowledged no law but march law, and held slack allegiance to "the King of Lothian and Fife." Every owner of a half-ruinous "peel" or border keep had a band of retainers within call, like the nine-and-twenty knights of fame who hung their shields in Branksome Hall; and he could ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the hostess, addressing a little girl of twelve years old, who had by this time appeared, "tak the gentleman's horse to the stable, and slack his girths, and tak aff the bridle, and shake down a lock o' hay before him, till the dragoons come back.—Come this way, sir," she continued; "ye'll find my house clean, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was extremely strong, and my rod was a single bamboo. Accordingly, I put on a powerful strain, which was replied to by a sullen tug, a shake, and again my rod was pulled suddenly down to the water's edge. At length, after the roughest handling, I began to reel in slack line, as my unknown friend had doubled in upon me; and upon once more putting severe pressure upon him or her, as it might be, I perceived a great swirl in the water, about twenty yards from the rod. The tackle would bear anything, and I strained so heavily upon my adversary, that I soon reduced ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... said, staring at vacancy, "what trivial matters a man thinks of in the shadow of death. I can't consider it; I can't be reconciled to it; I can't even pray. One absurd idea possesses me—that Singleton will have the Legion now; and he's a slack drill-master—he is, indeed!... I've a million things to think of—an idle life to consider, a misspent career to repent, but the time is too short, Ormond.... Perhaps all that will come at the ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... strong believer in strict discipline, at once ran to obey the order, accompanied by the most active among the men, while others ran to slack off the sheets and lower ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... the ground, I took hold of the rope and shook it. I am not generally nervous, but I was a little nervous then. I did not shake the grapnel loose. Then I let the rope go slack, for a foot or two, and gave it a big sweep to one side. To my great delight, over came the grapnel, nearly falling on our heads. I think I saw Maiden's Heart make a grab at it as it came over, but I ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... united insult of the united public! Why should an educated and cultured man, a gentleman in point of fact, be absolutely prohibited from hearing a "classical" concert because he wore the Queen's uniform and did that most important and necessary work which the noble Briton is too slack-baked, too hypocritically genteel, too degenerate, to perform, each man ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... distaste. He had no liking for Squires, a harsh, arrogant man, notorious for his relentless persecution of any director or officer who, in Squires' opinion, had become slack in his duties to the Machine. But he had a large following in the upper echelons, and ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... superintend the training of an eyas, or young hawk, which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... yet but once at Fawn Court since he had written to Lucy Morris asking her to be his wife. That was three weeks since, and as the barrier against him at Fawn Court had been removed by Lady Fawn herself, the Fawn girls thought that as a lover he was very slack; but Lucy was not in the least annoyed. Lucy knew that it was all right; for Frank, as he took his last walk round the shrubbery with her during that visit, had given her to understand that there was a little difference between him and Lady Fawn in regard to Lizzie Eustace. "I am her only ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... power per hour, instead of 1-3/4 lb., as is done in the best steam engines. The only producer that makes gas for gas engines at present is the Dawson, and in it anthracite is used, because of the difficulty of getting rid of the tar coming from the Siemens and Wilson producers, using any ordinary slack. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... fit for strenuous work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical exertion. It is not a good time ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... mind. No power could impede the march of his mercy to the predestined point; no casualties defeat his great design; and no lapse of years, or revolution of centuries, diminish the ardour of infinite love, to secure the felicity of his people. The Lord was never "slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;" for it must never he forgotten, in estimating the movements of eternal Providence, that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it! ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany, and by them have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if judgment have been exercised according to the laws of the realm, we be without blame. If we have been too remiss or slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth."[41] Such were the first Protestants in the eyes of their superiors. On one side was wealth, rank, dignity, the weight of authority, the majority of numbers, the prestige ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... navigable rivers of this country are comparatively long and shallow. In order that they may be made fully useful for navigation there has come into vogue a method of improvement known as canalization, or the slack-water method, which consists in building a series of dams and locks, each of which will create a long pool of deep navigable water. At each of these dams there is usually created also water power of commercial value. If the water power ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... time finding the way again, so it was after nine when we reached Mason's stile at last; and then before we could open our mouths to give the countersign, several dogs came bounding over the fence, with great riot and noise, and each of them took a soldier by the slack of his trousers and began to back away with him. We could not shoot the dogs without endangering the persons they were attached to; so we had to look on, helpless, at what was perhaps the most mortifying spectacle of the civil ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of "giggling and making giggle" with Thurlow in an attorney's office, was now entered at the Temple and amusing himself at times with literature in company with such small men of letters as Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and Lloyd. It was a slack tide of literature; the generation of Pope had passed away and left no successors, and no writer of the time could be put in competition with the giant now known as ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... Rome, where they throw hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among the village people—but they were too beastly slack, ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... went about his work in a scientific fashion. First he fastened and threaded a length of silk rope through one of the rails of the bed and into the slack of this he lifted Milburgh's head, so that he could not struggle except at the risk ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... at the clump of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... you and give thanks with our whole heart to God and to your fatherly care. And because there is still need of great watchfulness, because the place is new, and the land unaccustomed to the monastic life, yea, without any experience of it, we beseech you in the Lord,[970] that you slack not your hand,[971] but perfectly accomplish that which you have well begun. Concerning our brothers who have returned from that place,[972] it had pleased us well if they had remained. But perhaps the brothers[973] of your country, whose characters ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... not going anywhere in particular," Captain Wilson replied. "The chief says he thinks that things have got rather slack, since I have been away. There are several bands of bush rangers, who have been doing a deal of mischief up country; so to begin with, he wishes me to make a tour of inspection, and to report generally. After that, I think I shall be settled ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... her a drawin' of tea and a couple of nut-cakes: mebby she'll relish 'em, for I shouldn't wonder ef she hadn't had a mouthful this blessed day. She's dreadful slack at the best of times, but no one can much wonder, seein' she's got nine children, and is jest up from a rheumatic fever. I'm sure I never grudge a meal of vittles or a hand's turn to such as she is, ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if judgment has been exercised according to the laws of the church, and conformably to the laws of this realm, we be without blame. If we have been too remiss and slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth. If any man hath been, under pretence of this [crime], particularly offended, it were pity to suffer any man to be wronged; and thus it ought to be, and otherwise we cannot answer, no man's special case being declared in the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... archipelagos of light made by groups of candles in front of great pale images. The church was comparatively empty, and most of the people present were kneeling in the chapels; for Christine had purposely come, as she always did, at the slack hour between the seventh and last of the early morning Low Masses and the High Mass ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... distance, he observed that the fingers held a sheet of printed paper; and he remembered Florence. Instead of pressing his brow he unfolded the journal she had thrust upon him. As he began to read, his eye was lustreless, his gait slack and dreary; but soon his whole demeanour changed, it cannot ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... from the table, running the ends of all the cords through another cord that could, upon being pulled, adjust their height by pulling or releasing, thus controlling the distance between the upper and the lower beams, and changing the amount of slack in the carpet that was stretched between them. I then removed the legs from the tabletop, leaving just it and the beams together, the carpet ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... when A slack rope tightens. Smoke beats downward. Sun is red in the morning. There is a pale yellow ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Virginia; and to Mrs. Colfax, who received them with red eyes and a thousand queries as to whether that Yankee ruffian would pay any attention to the Sovereign law which he pretended to uphold; whether the Marshal would not be cast over the Arsenal wall by the slack of his raiment when he went to serve the writ. This was not the language, but the purport, of the lady's questions. Colonel Carvel had made but a light breakfast: he had had no dinner, and little rest on the train. But he answered his sister-in-law with unfailing courtesy. He was too honest ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... brave enough man, but the ordeal of those last five minutes especially had brought his nerve to near its breaking strain. His lips twitched and quivered, his jaw hung slack, and at Macalister's invitation he tittered hysterically. There was a stir and a movement at the back of the spectators that by now thronged the trench, and an officer ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... some of our less flighty looking customers revealed to me the fact that there were those who predicted for him a fall as rapid as had been his rise. But I could not help feeling a little of my former jealousy return, as I noted how slack and unprofitable our business ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-strom, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack water again, when we weighed and made for ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... already mentioned, of words used both adjectively and adverbially, our dictionaries exhibit many primitive terms which are to be referred to the one class or the other, according to their construction; as, soon, late, high, low, quick, slack, hard, soft, wide, close, clear, thick, full, scant, long, short, clean, near, scarce, sure, fast; to which may as well be added, slow, loud, and deep; all susceptible of the regular form of comparison, and all regularly convertible into adverbs in ly; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the Sarkee has complained of this, and the Sheikh, to do him justice, has ordered the Sarkee to seize any Bornouese committing these misdemeanours, and execute what justice he pleases upon them. The Sarkee, now, will not be slack to obey his master's commands. Still it is not surprising the people ran ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back;— Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— Then ceased—and all is wail, As they strike the shatter'd sail, Or in conflagration pale ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... would make me forget all, and wear even the remembrance of the evil of sin, the worth of heaven, and the need I had of the blood of Christ to wash me, both out of mind and thought: but I thank Christ Jesus, these things did not at present make me slack my crying, but rather did put me more upon it (like her who met with adulterer, Deut. xxii. 26), in which days that was a good word to me, after I had suffered these things a while:- I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, etc., shall ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... came in to rest after the Guards had gone, and before they left again for the line, gave a big race meeting on the sands. Luckily for us there was no push on just then, and work was in consequence very slack. A ladies' race was included in the Programme for our benefit. It was one of the last events, and until it came off we amused ourselves riding available mules, much to the delight of the Tommies, who cheered and yelled and did their best to get them to "take off!" ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... lands, he ordered a round score. When he dammed water in his mountains he dammed it by the hundreds of millions of gallons. When he ditched his tule-swamps, instead of contracting the excavation, he bought the huge dredgers outright, and, when there was slack work on his own marshes, he contracted for the draining of the marshes of neighboring big farmers, land companies, and corporations for a hundred miles up ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... a wider channel, or finally by a lacustrine or marine basin which receives its waters. Wherever it lets fall solid material, its channel is raised in consequence, and the declivity of the whole bed between the head of the embankment and the slack of the stream is reduced. Hence the current, at first accelerated by confinement, is afterwards checked by the mechanical resistance of the matter deposited, and by the diminished inclination of its channel, and then begins ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... uniform, and does useful work as doorkeeper and orderly, always on the watch to welcome poor souls such as he was. He has had his share of trials since he was converted. Bronchitis and asthma often keep him a prisoner and make work slack. 'I don't have to look for troubles, they come trooping along, but grace keeps them company,' he says joyfully. Then a shade of sadness steals into his voice as he continues, wistfully, 'What was I doing to miss all those years? Wretched, terrible ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... down, put his hands on the arms of the chair, and kissed me violently, twice. The fire that consumes the world ran scorchingly through me. Every muscle was suddenly strained into tension, and then fell slack. My face flushed; I let my head slip sideways, so that my left cheek was against the back of the chair. Through my drooping eyelashes I could see the snake-like glitter of his eyes as he stood over me. I shuddered ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... grave. Sir Edward Coke spent the last six years of his life in revising and improving the works upon which his fame now rests. John Wesley only the year before he died wrote: "I am now an old man, decayed from head to foot.... However, blessed be God! I do not slack my labors; I can preach and write still." Arnauld, one of the greatest of French theologians and philosophers, retained, says Disraeli, "the vigor of his genius and the command of his pen to his last day, and at the age of eighty-two was still the great Arnauld." It was he ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him— Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... "It is slack-water, Sir Gervaise, and the vessels are looking all ways at once. Most of us are clearing hawse, for there are more round turns in our cables, than I remember ever to have seen in so ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... captain that walks the quarter-deck Is the monarch of the sea; But every day, when I'm on my dray, I'm as big a monarch as he. For the car must slack when I'm on the track, And the gripman's face gets blue, As he holds her back till his muscles crack, And he shouts, "Hey, hey! Say, you! Get out of the way with that dray!" "I won't!" "Get out of the way, I say!" But I stiffen my back, and I stay on the track, And I ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... darker border, which seems placed there on purpose to make them conspicuous; and this was a great puzzle to naturalists, because the long coarse gray or greenish hair was evidently like tree-moss and therefore protective. But an old writer, Baron von Slack, in his Voyage to Surinam (1810), had already explained the matter. He says: "The colour and even the shape of the hair are much like withered moss, and serve to hide the animal in the trees, but particularly when it has that orange-coloured spot between the shoulders ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... with the said James Burbage in the aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this deponent's conscience, he bestowed thereupon ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... these to keep in order, as well as cope with those in the field. Besides, one must remember that in a matter like this we cannot fully depend on any force that we may gather. The archers and men-at-arms would be drawn largely from the same class as the better portion of these rioters, and would be slack in fighting against them. Certainly, those of the home counties could not be depended upon, and possibly even in the garrison of the Tower itself there may be many who cannot be trusted. The place, if ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... known it for half an hour. He had been noticing river details, and he could not fail to recognize that little boat. His hands trembled as he steered the launch to take advantage of slack current and dead water, and his throat choked with an emotion which he controlled with difficulty. He looked fearfully at the gaunt River Prophet whose own cheeks were staining with warm blood, and whose eyes gazed so keenly at the young woman who ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... "Humph! business is slack," remarked a younger edition of the old gentleman, who was standing on the hearth rug, with his silk hat on the back of his head, in ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... entered so largely into the theory of M. le Comte de Monte-Cristo. However closely disguised, himself is always the heroic figure, and he is ever busy in arranging discovery and triumph. To his chance-mates he is but an eccentric person, an amateur tinker, a slack-baked gipsy, an unlettered hack; to his audience he is his own, strong, indifferent self: presently the rest will recognise him and he will be disdainfully content. And recognise him they do. He throws off his disguise; there is a gape, a stare, a general conviction that Lavengro is the greatest ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... as the enemy's departments (perhaps better), and the government will have to keep its wits at full pressure. But once let England try what she is trying now: that is, to combine the devoted silence and obedience of the German system with the slack and muddle of Coodle and Doodle, and we are lost. Unless you keep up as hot a fire from your ink-bottle on the Government as the soldier keeps up from the trenches you are betraying that soldier. Of course they will call you a pro-German. What of that? They call ME a pro-German. We also must ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... gallantly to block; and when, in the early hours of yesterday morning, the Vindictive groped her way through the smoke-screen and headed for the entrance, it was as though the old fighting-ship awoke and looked on. A coastal motor-boat had visited her and hung a flare in her slack and rusty rigging; and that eye of unsteady fire, paling in the blaze of the star-shells or reddening through the drift of the smoke, watched the whole great enterprise, from the moment when it hung in doubt to its ultimate ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... or through his gill, put it again into his mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water; that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, pull that part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will turn, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... utterly easy-going, perhaps in token of his gratitude for the assistance we had rendered him at a critical time; but chiefly, I fear, because he was slack to check anything which seemed to defy constituted authority or promised to give an uneasy time to the representatives of ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... runner saw the shadow of it, and with a cry that they heard, half turned and threw out his arms to ward it off. The loop was too large, the cowman missed it, and as the Indian pulled up in a cloud of dust, he whipped in the slack, and the noose tightened fairly about the renegade's waist. An instant after, however, the second pony, plunging ahead of the Indian's, threw the rider forward, slackening the lariat. In a twinkle the cowman had loosened the noose, and was ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... some months before, that Bashley being away for a day's holiday, Antoine took his place at the scale; for it was a slack time, and few workpeople were there to be served. He believed he had given out the last skein of silk, and had weighed the last bobbin, so shutting the slide, and putting up the bar, he unlocked an inner door, and went into the house and up the stairs. Pausing on the first landing, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... admits his obligations to the mendicants, from whom he obtained many choice transcripts. "When indeed," says he, "we happened to turn aside to the towns and places where the aforesaid paupers had convents, we were not slack in visiting their chests and other repositories of books, for there, amidst the deepest poverty, we found the most exalted riches treasured up; there, in their satchells and baskets, we discovered not only the crumbs ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... be a sad march through all the length of the fair land that had slipped from his slack fingers, up to far-off Riblah, in the great valley between the Lebanon and the anti-Lebanon. Observe how, in verses 5 and 6, the king of Babylon has his royal title, and Zedekiah has not. The crown has fallen from his head, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... reach down for the slack rein running from her father's hand to Diablo's mouth. "Missed! She's got it!" he cried, eagerly. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... the weight Our own weaknesses create; Crook the knee and shut the lip, All for tamer fellowship; Load our slack, compliant clay With ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... rise to new construction projects. The MOSCOSO administration inherited an economy that is much more structurally sound and liberalized than the one inherited by its predecessor. Even though export demand is likely to remain slack in some key markets - especially the Andean countries - GDP growth in 2000 probably will be 3% to 4%. Key reform initiatives from the previous administration - including the privatization of public utilities - remain uncompleted. Although President MOSCOSO ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... because we talked of a newspaper of our own. When you are with me you know I'm a man; when you get away from me you think I'm a cheat and a cad.... There's not a word of truth in the things they say about us. I've been slack. I've left things. But we have only to exert ourselves. You do not know how wide and far we have spread our nets. Even now we have a coup—an expedition—in hand. It will put us on ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even answered. The workmen were clamorous, now. The Colonel and Harry retired ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... clear, so that both ships sailed night and day; until one day, towards the time the day turns to shorten, Karle and his people took up the land near an island, let down the sail, cast anchor, and waited until the slack-tide set in, for there was a strong rost before them. Now Thorer came up, and lay at anchor there also. Thorer and his people then put out a boat, went into it, and rowed to Karle's ship. Thorer came on board, and the brothers ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... had just as it were reached a climax, when, instead of the line breaking or Mark going over the side, the strong cord, which had been hissing here and there through the water, suddenly grew slack, and the tension was taken off Mark's muscles and mind to give place to ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... course, but I had enough confidence in Stranor Sleth to think that he could handle the situation himself. I didn't know he'd gone slack—" ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... heart and core of the trade." Dr. Surtaine leaned forward, to tap with an earnest finger on his son's knee, a picture of expository enthusiasm. "Here's the theory. You see, along about March or April people begin to get slack-nerved and out-of-sortsy. They don't know what ails 'em, but they think there's something. Well, one look at that ad. sets 'em wondering if it isn't their kidneys. After wonder comes worry. He's ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... few completed the course of which I have spoken without issuing therefrom reliable, seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most embarrassing of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men, distracted with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything or, grown slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the weapons of prudence, exerted a ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... slack in London, it unfortunately occurred to me to try what I could do in the country. I had heard of Maplesworth as a place largely frequented by visitors on account of the scenery, as well as by invalids in need of taking the waters; and I opened a gallery there at the beginning of the season ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Burbage in the aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this deponent's conscience, he bestowed thereupon for his owne ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... sallow, slow-footed man, between twenty and forty. You would say he had been brought up a bushelman in Essex Street. When business is slack he likes to talk, so I had my hat cleaned even oftener than it deserved, hoping Finch might let me into some of the ...
— Options • O. Henry
... pleasant to us. The dirt, ground in till it became part of the texture; the worn cloth, shapeless, but yet molded to the man by long association—all was an expression of the stocky little soldier inside. The new khaki hung slack. Caps were overlarge for Flemish heads. To us, watching the change, it was the loss of the last possession that connected them with their past; with homes and country gone, now the very clothing that had ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... Sleepy, and soon had two packs in the sling ropes, a third on top, with all ready to lash. Rob asked no questions, but went on, taking slack and cinching ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... In the slack time between the seasons, Isak smooths down some new tree-trunks he has thrown; to be used for something or other, no doubt. Also he digs out a number of useful stones and gets them down to the house; as soon as there are stones ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... ruddied; high bleak nose jutting out with a steep fall to the long upper lip; savage mouth under a straight blond fringe, a shark's keen tooth pointing at the dropped jaw. Arched forehead drooping to the spread ears, blond eyebrows drooping over slack lids. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... wooing and his presence had faded out of her imagination. She went slowly, until she, also instinctively, knew that she was safe, and then still she went slowly. Prince chose his own gait. Diana, with the reins slack in her hand, sat still and thought. There was no need for hurry; it was not near church time, not yet even church-going time; Will would be quiet for a while yet, before it would be necessary to make any hue-and-cry after the runaway; and she and Prince would be far ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room for their ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... recollect distinctly the general make-up of the train. The train was composed of coach bodies, mostly from Thorpe and Sprague's stage coaches, placed upon trucks. The trucks were coupled together with chains, leaving from two to three feet slack, and when the locomotive started it took up the slack by jerks, with sufficient force to jerk the passengers who sat on seats across the tops of the coaches, out from under their hats, and in stopping, ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... hearts, and both of them sought the Lord for forgiveness of their sins, and both entered into the grace of conversion. The joy of this experience made their Bible study still more delightful. They had not been strangers to grace, but they had become slack and lukewarm, and when the light of God began to shine more brightly they felt that they should make sure work of it, and so they began at the bottom round of the ladder. They were glad afterwards that they had done this, because it ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... toward us at a brisk canter and the drum turned fast, taking up the slack of the tether; but, as though not satisfied with this rate of progress, several soldiers were running back and jumping up to haul in the rope. The sergeant who took care of the telephone was hard put to it to coil down the twin wires. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... The slack sail shifts from side to side, The boat, untrimm'd, admits the tide, Borne down, adrift, at random tost, The oar breaks short, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan o'clock in ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... of Cap'n Amazon, however, quite overtopped the gossip about Louise. Idlers who seldom dropped into the store before afternoon came on this day much earlier to have a look at Cap'n Amazon Silt. Women left their housework at "slack ends" to run over to the store for something considered suddenly essential to their work. Some of the clam-diggers lost a tide to obtain an early glimpse of Cap'n Amazon. Even the children came and peered in at the store door to see that strange, ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... heard a deep groan, and before he could even look up the master's mate fell forward, shot through the head. His boat took the lead. "Now's your time," cried Dick Rogers; "we'll be the first aboard, lads." The crew were not slack to follow the suggestion. In another moment they were up to the schooner, and, leaping on her deck, led by Pearce, laid on them so fiercely with their cutlasses that the Frenchmen, deserting their guns, sprang ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... would lightly adventure the pestilential perils of a tropic stream, or fever-haunted water-way or canal, who would yet shrink from being caught—owing to want of care, and cautious calculation as to the exact hours of slack and safety—by the hideous, irresistible, all-engulfing, all-wrecking whirl of the terrifying Stroem! Once drawn within the down-draught of that hideous vortex, a whole army might be destroyed more certainly than even by the manifold death-dealing contrivances of modern science, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... her companions, and she felt a pang of dread lest that difference should ever grow less. While she affected to read one of the magazines which lay on a side table, she was really occupied making a number of vehement resolutions: Never to slack in her care of her personal appearance; never to give up brushing her hair at night; never to wear a flannel blouse; never to give up manicuring her hands; never, no, never to allow herself to grow short-sighted, and be obliged ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... most important matters of internal improvement now confronting the Government. Most of the navigable rivers of this country are comparatively long and shallow. In order that they may be made fully useful for navigation there has come into vogue a method of improvement known as canalization, or the slack-water method, which consists in building a series of dams and locks, each of which will create a long pool of deep navigable water. At each of these dams there is usually created also water power of commercial value. If the water power thus created ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... was not in the entrance hall at the time from eight to nine. It is usually a slack time ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... for rain when The tree frog cries. Fish swim near the surface. Walls are unusually damp. Flies are troublesome and sting sharply. A slack rope tightens. Smoke beats downward. Sun is red in the morning. There is a ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... Her hunchbacked Little Commodore is dead. The other two of her old crew, George Widger and Looby Smith are nowhere to be seen: they must be nearly grown up by now. The fishermen themselves appear less picturesque and salty than they used to do. It is slack time after a bad herring season. They are dispirited and lazy, and ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the lieutenant, "I will tell you my secret. As soon as the officer I relieve is gone below and out of sight, while the watch is mustering, I walk forward, look round at things generally, and say casually to the captain of the forecastle: 'Just slack off a little of this jib-sheet.' Then about ten minutes before eight bells, after the last log of the watch has been hove, while the men are rousing to go below, I go forward again and say, 'Come here, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... for a moment slack my speed, and I had now gained the centre point between the park-gate and the mansion-house. Here the avenue made a wider circuit, and in order to avoid delay, I directed my way across the smooth sward round which ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly of it, and so slack pursuit of it, as if we did not believe it at all. Truly, my beloved, there is a great mistake in this, and it is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to her disgust, found that her eyes were blurring up with tears. She was a little bit slack and ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... that the rich are surrounded with lies in which they themselves believe. Thus, in the last phase, there are no parasites but only friends, no gifts but only loans, which are more esteemed favours than gifts once were. No one vicious but only tedious, and no one a poltroon but only slack. ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... the passing of her vision Dinah never fully knew, so slack had become her grip upon material things. Her spirit seemed to be wandering aimlessly about the mountain-side while her body lay in icy chains within that miserable shelter. Of Isabel's presence she was no longer even dimly aware, and she knew neither fear nor pain, only a wide desolation ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... leaned and peered into the face of Miguel, his jaw hanging slack. "You don't mean to ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... due partly to the debilitating heat of the new habitat, partly to its easier conditions of living, whether the intruders came as conquerors and appropriated the fat of the land, or as immigrant colonists who dropped into slack methods of agriculture, because rain and sun and soil made their reluctant labor scarcely necessary. Everywhere in the Tropics the enervating effects of heat, moisture, and abundance make not only the natives ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... display their acquirements to the wondering throng. We have known bears of undoubted ability who, when the expectations of a large audience have been wound up to the utmost pitch, have peremptorily refused to dance; well-taught monkeys, who have unaccountably objected to exhibit on the slack wire; and elephants of unquestioned genius, who have suddenly declined to turn the barrel-organ; but we never once knew or heard of a biped lion, literary or otherwise,—and we state it as a fact which ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... oilcoth in the hall, and he smelt the smell of stale cooking which floated through the green lattice door at the back. All the sweetness of life, all the beauty, all the decency even, seemed strangled in that smell as if in some malarial air. And in the midst of it, the unkempt, slack figure of Belinda, with her bitter eyes and her sagging skirt, passed perpetually under the flickering gas-jet up and down the dimly lighted staircase. This was how one marriage had ended—one marriage among many which had started out with passion and courage and the belief in happiness. Knowing ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... winding the raw silk, putting a large number of ends together, giving them a slack twist, then doubling and twisting in the reverse direction ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... possible when by constant trials the chance came of each being given good or fair handhold at once. Then came a shriek of wind and a blown-out lull and a wrinkle lapsed into a fold. We shouted "Now!" left hold of the jack-stay, and with feet outstretched grabbed slack canvas and hung on as another squall came singing like shrapnel across the peaks of the leaping sea. "Hold on now, hold on!" so sang all of us, and we cursed each other furiously. "Oh, oh, you miserable devil, hang on or it's lost again!" We cursed ourselves, felt ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... for he drew the rope in slowly, till the slack was all gathered in, tightened it more and more, and the loop glided ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... being aggressively active towards the world which gives man a miraculous assurance that the world is something he can make. In creative moments men always draw upon "some secret spring of certainty, some fundamental well into which no disturbing glimmers penetrate." But this is no slack philosophy, for the chance is denied by which we can lie back upon the perfection of some mechanical contrivance. Yet in the light of it government becomes alert to a process of continual creation, an unceasing invention of forms to meet ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... And heavy hangs each unstrung limb, 'Tis sweet through smoke-puffs, wreathing slow, To watch the firelight flash or glow. As each soft cloud floats up on high, Some worry takes its wings to fly; And Fancy dances with the flame, Who lay so labor-crammed and lame; While the spent Will, the slack Desire, Re-kindle at the dying fire, And burn to meet the morrow's sun With all its day's work ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... tiger" provides a rendezvous for all the outcasts of society. "Boot-legging" is a common subsidiary occupation for the pander, the thief and the cracksman. Where it flourishes, it serves to bridge over many a period of slack trade. Franchises whose validity is subject to political attack, bring to the aid of the underworld some of the most powerful interests in the community. The police are almost helpless when confronted by a coalition of persons of wealth and respectability ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... served as the boom or cross-spar. The spars were cut to proper length, and the sail was then tied on, as illustrated, with the crotch of the cross-spar fitted against and tied to the center of the mast. A light rope, long enough to provide plenty of slack, was tied to the ends of the mast to assist in guiding the sail when in use. In the meantime I had procured another sheet from one of our neighbors, and Bill helped me make a sail for myself. It was not until long after dark that we ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... at the bottom of a flight of steps, watching the continuous stream of descending passengers, mostly women, and generally young. Some among the less young were swollen, heavy, and awkward; most were slack, drooping, limp, bony, or bent; a few were lithe and lissom; one or two had the emotional vivacity and muscular tone of abounding vitality. Not one plainly indicated that, stripped of her clothing, she would have transformed those Underground ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... twice essay to speak. Twice I stop, choked. How can I put into words the insult I have received? How can I reveal to him the slack levity, the careless looseness, with which I have kept the honor ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... on his horse, as he usually did, his left hand holding a slack rein, his right resting on his hip, with bent head and dreamy eyes, he made his first steps along that incline, at once glorious and fatal, which was to lead him to a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... to-night, that but for me you would be riding yonder. I realized all you meant, and you must not remain. The guard-lines are slack to-night, and you can get through, but if you wait until to-morrow it may be too late. Believe me, I am your friend, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... When some mens' slaves was caught on another man's place he was allowed to whoop them and send them home and they would git another whooping. Some men wouldn't allow that; they said they would tend to their own slaves. So many men had to leave home to go to war times got slack. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... came the answer. "It will run out the cable and down the cab. I've left them plenty of slack to move around when they ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... House, and pointed out the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said, was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack creature, Gerald ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... cranked the wheel with a sharp, expert turn. The explosions settled into a dull, regular succession, and he coupled the propeller and slowly maneuvered the ketch up over the anchors, reducing the strain on the hawsers and allowing Halvard to get in the slack. He waited impatiently for the sailor's cry of all clear, and demanded the cause of ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... they managed to rid themselves of their armour, and then held on with ease to the rope. They hauled the bucket to the surface and tied a knot in the slack of the rope, so that the bucket hung four feet below the level of the water. Putting their feet in this, they were able to stand with their heads ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... a thing as slack tide in the affairs of men, when a crisis seems as if it would never come, and all things stagnate. The Law Courts had as yet not concerned themselves about the will, vacation time had come and all was at a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... legs, dived under swimming dogs, made bold dashes along the bank, and hidden in belts of reeds. Its capture had often looked certain and yet it had escaped. At first Grace had noticed the animal's confidence, beauty of form, and strength; but it had gradually got slack, hesitating, and limp. Now, when it lurked, half-drowned, in the depths of the pool while its pitiless enemies waited for it to come up to breathe, she began to wish ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the best gun of Jimmie Time; in the other—there seemed to be a well-gripped connection with the slack of a buckskin shirt—writhed the alleged real doughnuts of a possibly Peruvian character. The captor looked aloft and remained vocal, waving the gun, waving Jimmie Time, playing them together as cymbals, never loosening ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... issues. The main fact stands out above them. We have been steadily adding to the burdens on industrial and commercial equipment; even more have we increased the stresses and the strains on human life. A devastating war is now suddenly taking up the slack, and the slow and painful task of making the world efficient must be hastened in order that society may bear the load. In these circumstances we need not apologize for making efficiency the main support of business standards. Nor need we assume, as does the author ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... sequestred from the court? No notice? shall I not know the cause Of these my secret and suspitious ils? Accursed brother! vnkinde murderer! Why bends thou thus thy minde to martir me? Hieronimo, why writ I of they wrongs, Or why art thou so slack in thy reuenge? Andrea! O Andrea, that thou sawest Me for thy freend Horatio handled thus, And him for me thus causeles murdered! Well, force perforce, I must constraine my-selfe To patience, and apply me to the time, Till Heauen, as I haue hoped, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... them in his own, caressing them, kissing them. Would it be possible to forget them, to reconcile oneself to them? He must think—must get away from these crowded streets where faces seemed to grin at him. He remembered that Parliament had just risen, that work was slack in the office. He would ask that he might take his holiday now—the next day. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... hour's sleep. Firing began just after daylight. It was slack for some time, but the Boers crept round. Then the firing became furious. Our men ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... been deeply shaken and very much in earnest; but he was never the man to give for any lengthy while too slack a rein to emotion; and so he now sat down upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled. Yet he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of men and an inhabitant of the most glorious world imaginable—a ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... or"—he gulped the words down that should have followed. "Especially when you see 'em walking a roof-top, right again the sky, when a cat, as is a proper cat, is sure to stick her tail stiff out behind, like a slack-rope dancer a-balancing; but these cats having no tail, cannot stick it out, which captivates some people uncommonly. If yo'll allow me, I'll bring one for Miss there," jerking his head at Margaret. Job assented ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was slack, I would walk far afield with Diana for my companion, or we would jog to market with the Tinker in the four-wheeled cart, hearkening to his shrewd animadversions upon men and life in general; and ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... give em anything. Truth of it was they didn't have much to keep less givin' the niggers something. We all had little to eat and wear and a plenty wood to burn and a house to shelter us. The work didn't slack up none. The fences down, the outhouses had to have more boards tack on. No stock cept a scrub or so. We had no garden seed cept what be borrowed round and raised. Times was hard. We had biscuits bout once a week, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... watched, with infantile delight, the blast of the furnace, and the shower of sparks that fell from the anvil, and where she often slept, lulled by the monotonous chorus of trip and sledge. As she grew older, the mystery of bellows and slack-tub engaged her attention, and at one end of the shop, on a pile of shavings, she collected a mass of curiously shaped bits of iron and steel, and blocks of wood, from which a miniature shop threatened to rise in rivalry; and finally, when strong enough ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... meals; wet and cold, heat and wind and tempest, and no great gains at last. But the sturgeon fishers, who come later and are seen the whole summer through, have an indolent, lazy time of it. They fish around the 'slack-water,' catching the last of the ebb and the first of the flow, and hence drift but little either way. To a casual observer they appear as if anchored and asleep. But they wake up when they have a 'strike,' which may be every day, or not ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... British who survived to desert the hard work against Napoleon for the easier, safer, and better paid work under the Stars and Stripes; while the mere want of any enemy to fight for the command of the sea after Trafalgar had tended to make the British get slack. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... presented was one in which it required a very clear sense of higher duty to act against habit. Generally, after wavering awhile, they obeyed and returned. The Roman States, which had received them with so many testimonials of affection and honor, on their retreat were not slack to show a correspondent aversion and contempt. The towns would not suffer their passage; the hamlets were unwilling to serve them even with fire and water. They were filled at once with shame and rage; ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... first place, don't be slack in anything that you are doing. Whether it be work or play, do it with all your might. You will find that this great Empire can only be maintained by the exercise of self-denial, by training, by discipline, and ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Carleton proposed to work chiefly through their old leaders, the seigneurs and the clergy. He would restore to the people their old system of laws, both civil and criminal. He would confirm the seigneurs in their feudal dues and fines, which the habitants were growing slack in paying now that the old penalties were not enforced, and he would give them honors and emoluments such as they had before enjoyed as officers in regular or militia regiments. The Roman Catholic clergy were already, in fact, confirmed in their right to tithe and ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... of yesterday morning, the Vindictive groped her way through the smoke-screen and headed for the entrance, it was as though the old fighting-ship awoke and looked on. A coastal motor-boat had visited her and hung a flare in her slack and rusty rigging; and that eye of unsteady fire, paling in the blaze of the star-shells or reddening through the drift of the smoke, watched the whole great enterprise, from the moment when it hung in doubt ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... the noise and faltered—he knew instinctively. Something told him with the bellowing assurance of a cannon who was there. He must look. He forced his slack face past the granite image that was his employer, saw a serge-clad figure that he knew, one ear and the curve of a cheek. Then a cascade broke inside his head. It buzzed and chattered and crashed, with now and again the blank brutality of thunder bashing through ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the various barges, shallops and canoes tied to the mossy piles, left their employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string and a piece of salt pork, allowed their lines to fall slack and their intended victims to walk coolly off with the meat, so intense was their interest in the oncoming sail. A knot of negro women had left the great house kitchen and stood, hands on hips, chatting volubly with a contingent from the quarters, their red and yellow turbans ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... boys above to cling tightly to the rope and to pay it out slowly, Nestor slid swiftly downward until the slack of the line was gone, and was then brought up with a quick jerk, with the still slipping boy's head a foot away from his hands. He whirled about and dropped ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... referred to his position as overseer of mines here at Halsetown. Hither Irving was brought in his fourth year, and his memories of Cornwall remained vivid to his dying day. "I recall Halsetown," he said, "as a village nestling between sloping hills, bare and desolate, disfigured by great heaps of slack from the mines, and with the Knill monument standing prominent as a landmark to the east. It was a wild and weird place, fascinating in its own peculiar beauty, and taking a more definite shape in ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Paul strode over to the tent where a quantity of the provisions were kept. Entering this, he quickly saw that it was exactly as he had suggested. Three of the tent pins, which the boys had pounded down with the camp axe, had been pulled up, and this slack allowed the intruder to crawl under the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... "sharpens them, prevents them from being heavy and lazy, makes them active, brisk, industrious, imparts strength, and helps them to shoot well with the bow; without it the Indians would always be slack and rather sickly, would always have a little fever, and would lie perpetually in their hammocks. As for the women, the marake keeps them from going to sleep, renders them active, alert, brisk, gives them strength and a liking for work, makes them good housekeepers, good workers at the stockade, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... one another and nodded to the man on the end of the first bunk; and he, shifting a quid of tobacco to the slack of his right cheek, expectorated gravely into the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Misther skealmaisther, the evenin' is desperate fine, I thowt I wad gie ye a call aboot that young sonnie o' mine. I couldn't persuade him to come, sea I left him behont(1) me at yam,(2) Bud somehoo it's waintly(3) possess'd me to mak a skealmaisther o' Sam. He's a kind of a slack-back, ye knaw, I niver could get him to work, He scarcelins wad addle(4) his saut wiv a ploo, or a shovel, or fork. I've tried him agean an' agean, bud I finnd that he's nea use at yam, Sea me an' my missus agreed to mak a skealmaisther o' Sam. If I sends him to wark, why, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... when he appeared with the tray and lit my candle; and I had breakfasted and read (with indescribable sinkings) the whole of yesterday's work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent stuff misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps upon a camel. But could I, in my present disposition, do much more with it? in my present pressure for time, were I not better employed doing another one about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long slender threads of spider webs clinging to the leaves of the birches by the burnside, and the bracken green and strong, with the white cuckoo spittals on them that will leave a mark like froth on the knees of a horse. To the pebbly ford above the "Waulk Mill" came Bryde, riding loosely with slack rein, for he was thinking much these days. In the burn his horse halted to drink, and then rested a little from the water—his head high and his ears forward—Bryde looking to his path for the South End, for ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... evenly, as far as he could see,—not slanting either up or down; so that the sill of the upper window must be about upon a level with the great knob in the beech-trunk. Oliver tied knot upon knot, till no more rope was left to knot. It still hung too slack, if it was meant for a bridge. He did not think he could ever cross the water on a rope that would keep him dangling at every move: but he had pulled it tight with all his force, and he could do no more. When he had tied the last knot, he and Mildred stood in front of ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... all of them lost their former virtues. The neurotic temper of the times is known to all. The nation, as was shown in 1745, when a handful of Highlanders penetrated without opposition to the heart of the kingdom, has grown slack and cowardly. Gambling penetrates every nook and cranny of the upper class; the officers of the army devote themselves to fashion; the navy's main desire is for prize money. Even the domestic affections are at a low ebb; and the grand tour brings back a new species of Italianate Englishman. The ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... were sold the three Giant Hotels of Giants' Bay. The bidding was very slack, but we understand the lots were eventually knocked down to a dealer ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... notch with a small round file in each tip half an inch from each extremity, running the groove straight across the 'back,' and slanting it across the sides away from the tips toward the middle or handle of the bow. Make a strong string of slack-twisted shoe-maker's thread, with a loop in each end, so that when the string is put on the bow by slipping the loops into the nocks, it will bend the bow so much that the middle of the string is five inches from the handle. If the bow when thus bent is ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed idea that he must only work because he was a carpenter, but at every carpenter's shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on account of work being so slack, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stone sawer; he split wood, lopped the branches ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... dissolved; and if perhaps any more Faeces remain, they will be very few, cast them away, for they are good for nothing. Put the Solution into a glass-Gourd, with a Head luted upon it, set it into Balneum Mariae, with its receiver to take the Spirits, distil slowly with a slack heat, till all the Spirit of Wine be come over, pour it in again upon the dry matter, draw it off again as before; this pouring in & abstracting continue so often, till you see the Spirit of Wine ascend over the helm in various colours, then it is time that you follow it with a strong ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... opportunity to see some of their comrades dropping with moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... when a woman with child in the ninth month bringeth forth her son, with two or three hours of her birth great pains compass her womb, which pains, when the child cometh forth, they slack not ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... there soon after the doors were open. There were not many clients present, and the clerks were enjoying a slack time. Jack had recalled to his mind the exact date of his former visit; and thus the sole difficulty was overcome. The clerk found the name of Ellen Martineau entered under that date ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... classification of prisoners is one based on the length of sentence. Some imperfect attempt is made to separate those waiting trial from the recidivist or hardened offender, but too often the association is indiscriminate. Prison discipline is generally slack and ineffective, the staff of warders, from ill-judged economy, too weak to supervise or control. The officers themselves are of inferior stamp, drunken, untrustworthy, overbearing, much given to "trafficking" with the prisoners, accepting bribes to assist escape, quick to misuse ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... his chest, in a voice like a deep-toned bell. His arms hung slack at his sides, but the muscles stood out on them ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... whose lack of conscience is back of all manner of crimes, from murder down to careless, slack work; whose cruelty, lust, and selfishness operate unhampered by restraint. On the other hand there are others whose hypertrophied conscience works in one of two directions. If they are zealots, ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... market than last week, but a good demand continues for the home trade, and occasionally a small advance upon the last July rates is paid on such sorts suitable for that branch, but there is almost no demand for export, the consumption of the article in foreign countries being this year unusually slack. The shipments to Russia, since the opening of the season, amount to only 2,209 chests, against 3,439 chests during the same time last year. A public sale was held yesterday, in Liverpool, of about 400 chests of East India, and 120 ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... little sorry about his own lack of ambition and want of application. He did not pretend now that it was of no moment. He told her he would like to achieve, only somehow he always found his attention wander to other things, and his desire grow slack after a week ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... English blue-eyed type. Just then it was suffused with almost boyish merriment, and indeed an irresponsible gaiety was a salient characteristic of the man. One would have called him handsome, though his mouth was a trifle slack, and there was a certain assurance in his manner that just fell short of swagger. He was the kind of man one likes at first sight, but for all that not the kind his hard-bitten neighbours would have chosen to stand by them through the strain ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... there once myself, but they sent me to Winchester instead. It was partly through me that he got his berth here, though not much to thank me for, I am afraid. Sixty pounds a year and his rations isn't much for a man who has been at Cambridge. But even that he could not get in the navy when the slack time came last year. He held no commission, like many other fine young fellows, but had entered as a first-class volunteer. And so he had no rating when this vile peace was patched up—excuse me, my dear, what I meant to say was, when the blessings of tranquillity ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... ground, to rest. Trevison had meditated, not without a certain wry humor, upon the strength and the protracted potency of Manti's whiskey, for not once during his home-coming had Levins shown the slightest sign of returning consciousness. He was as slack as a meal sack now, as Trevison lifted him from the pony's back and let him slip gently to the ground at his feet. A few minutes later, Trevison was standing in the doorway of the cabin, his burden over his shoulder, the weak glare ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... his later years are, however, worthy of more special mention—a tour up the Rhine, which he took in 1828, in company with Wordsworth and his daughter; and, some years earlier, a meeting with John Keats. "A loose, slack, not well dressed youth," it is recorded in the Table Talk, published after his death by his nephew, "met Mr.———" (it was Mr. Green, of whom more hereafter) "and myself in a lane near Highgate. Green knew him and spoke. It was Keats. He was introduced ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... word. It is adding insult to injury to use it. And what can he mean? He seemed so keen about the order. Said he was so slack that he would be able to put on all ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... beggar-woman stealing into a palace. She felt out of her element in those big theaters, where she had not appeared for ever so long, having come down to the level of one-horse circuses, patched canvas tents, acrobatic performances in the open air, on the slack-wire stretched from tree to tree. Lily looked a princess beside her, really. Ave Maria was even surprised to see her address a gentleman who was there: it was the architect, with a bandage over his eye. Ave Maria recognized him; and he, rendered prudent by the blow ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... brothers scattered forever. The voice of hate was whispering that the "classes" would ride down the children of the poor, and with this gloomy thought I went to bed. My couch was a bed of coal slack, and I was journeying to a mill town in a ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... with Weldon, anyhow?" another of the group queried, as dispassionately as if the subject of discussion had been absent in Rhodesia. "His face is a yard long, and his lips hang down in the slack of the corners." ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... fished up the stream; that is, the angler throws his line into the stream above where he stands, and allows it to float down opposite to him, when he makes another throw; by this means he always keeps his line slack, and the May-fly floats on the surface, which is essential to his success. I mention these two methods of angling because both are practised in bright weather, and therefore prove that fish both discern and feed in such days. I believe the fact is, that at such times they frequently ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... in Falkenberg's drawn face; neither of us could eat as we used. And by way of trying to hide our troubles from each other, I went about talking all sorts of cheerful nonsense, while Falkenberg bragged loudly at every meal of how he'd got to eating too much of late, and was getting slack ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... man, while Dodge, not a whit less capable, took his as a philanderer. He now had an office in a big down-town building, but he never went near it except when his partner took it into his head to go away for a month's vacation at the slack season of the year. At such periods Mr. Dodge, being ages younger than the junior member of the firm, made it his practice to go down to the office and attend to the business with an earnestness that surprised every one. He gave over frolicking and stuck resolutely to the "knitting" that Johnson ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... consists of a sound-box about 3 ft long, 5 in. wide, and 3 in. deep, made of thin deal, or preferably of pine, and having beech ends to hold the tuning-pins and hitch-pins. A dozen or less catgut strings of different thickness, but tuned in exact unison, and left rather slack, are attached to the pins, and stretched over two narrow bridges of hard wood, one at each end of the sound-board, which is generally provided with two rose sound-holes. To ensure a proper passage for the wind, another ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... heedless pair of sportsmen slack! You never mark, though trout or jack, Or little foolish stickleback, Your baited snares may capture. What care has SHE for line and hook? She turns her back upon the brook, Upon her lover's eyes to look In ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... temple 'mid the various tribes Who ply the AEgean. Though their business claims Dispatch immediate; though the inviting gales Ill brook the lingering mariners' delay: Soon as they reach thy soundings, down at once Drop the slack sails, and all the naval gear. The ship is moor'd: nor do the crew presume To quit thy sacred limits, 'till they have pass'd A painful penance; with the galling whip Lash'd thrice around ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... hold your head up. Endure it. Live through it. Don't fight it. Make yourself slack—slack in your mind; and your body will slack. Yield. Remember how you taught me ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... with the short iron bar, in the end of which a V-shaped cut had been made. While Pete caught the slack wire with this bar, and, using the post as a fulcrum, the bar as a lever, drew it taut, Conniston with hammer and staples made it secure. Now and again they found a rotten post which must be taken out, while a new one ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... away. Then with a snake-like wriggle I grasped it, and there was a cry of relief from the watchers. I got a bight around Ormond's shoulders, and after some difficulty fastened it. One cannot use ordinary knots on hide. Ready hands gathered in the slack, and my rival was drawn up swiftly, while they guided him diagonally around instead of under the jutting shelf from which ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... that: I have hold of his mind. And I can slack it off or fetch it taut. And make him dance a score of miles away An answer to the least twangling thrum I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last Safely; and all the while, what has he been? An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time I haul'd him in. You'll ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Chinese in China. The importance of this work cannot be measured by its bulk. Nor is it to be estimated by any census of countable immediate results. It is a kind of work, which, according as it is done, or left undone; or as it is done with slack and nerveless hand or with vim and vigor, will test the very character of our churches; will touch the conscience and well-being of the nation; and will, without a doubt, have vital and decisive connection with the future ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... with our whole heart to God and to your fatherly care. And because there is still need of great watchfulness, because the place is new, and the land unaccustomed to the monastic life, yea, without any experience of it, we beseech you in the Lord,[970] that you slack not your hand,[971] but perfectly accomplish that which you have well begun. Concerning our brothers who have returned from that place,[972] it had pleased us well if they had remained. But perhaps ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... haven't the sense to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries you. And perhaps you get sevenpence ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... they are commonly about 13 inches square, with a thickness of three inches. The best quality of baked brick is of a yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue; a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red. The earliest baked bricks are of this last color. The sun-dried bricks have even more variety of size than the baked ones. They are sometimes as large as 16 inches square and seven inches thick, sometimes as small as ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... But his legs, slack and unsteady, gave way beneath him, as if any prolonged exertion were beyond his power. He ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... not slack, Now stand as tightly by your tack, Ne'er show your lug an' fidge your back, An' hum an' haw; But raise your arm, an' tell your crack ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at the very outset, in getting men to ship for service on the regular cruisers. Privateers were being fitted out in every port; and on them the life was easy, discipline slack, danger to life small, and the prospects for financial reward far greater than on the United States men-of-war. Accordingly, the seafaring men as a rule preferred to ship on the privateers. At no time in the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... around the limb so that the compress (pad) will press the artery against the bone. Slip under the compress and over the artery a small stone. Pass a stick under the bandage and turn the stick around slowly until the slack is taken up and the bleeding stops. Then tie the stick ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... he flopped out, flapping as if he hated the touch of the snow, now. She gathered him up and put her lips to his beak. She was flushed and handsome, her eyes bright, her hair slack, thick, but more witch-like than ever. ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... right, sir," and shoved the boat off to a little distance from the frigate. The yard and stay-tackles fell, at the next instant were overhauled down and hooked by the man in the boat. The boatswain's mate, in the gangway, piped "haul-taut," and the slack of the tackle was pulled in; then followed a long, steady blow of the call, piping "sway-away," and the boat, with all in her, rose from the water, and ascended as high as the hammock-cloths in the waist, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Arab horse will not shrink back, Though death confront him in his track, The Arab horse will not shrink back, And shall his rider's arm be slack? No!—By the God who gave us life, Our souls are ready for the strife. We need no serried lines, to show A gallant bearing to the foe. We need no trumpet to awake The thirst, which blood alone can slake. What is it that can ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... I have now," he went on as he led the way toward the men's quarters. "Not a trouble maker in the bunch, except a half breed that I'm not particularly stuck on, and that I'm going to get rid of as soon as work gets slack. But take them all together I haven't got ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... mysterious country where workmen find work. At first he had the fixed idea that he must only work because he was a carpenter, but at every carpenter's shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on account of work being so slack, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stone sawer; he split ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... closed. Archie waited a few moments, then went to the window and hauled in the slack. Presently the bag appeared over ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... hill country, the tide of population swept out. For the gulch hamlets between the Timanyonis there was still an industrial reason for being; but the railroad languished, and Angels became the weir to catch and retain many of the leavings, the driftwood stranded in the slack water of the outgoing tide. With the railroad, the Copperette Mine, and the "X-bar-Z" pay-days to bring regularly recurring moments of flushness, and with every alternate door in Mesa Avenue the entrance to a bar, a dance-hall, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... enough to be sure that she would thrust her matrimonial happiness with Oliver unsparingly upon his attention; while he, on the other hand, being provided with no corresponding Olivette, would be left, a sort of emotional celibate, with his slack times and his afternoons and his general need for flattery and amusement dreadfully upon his own hands. He would be tormented by jealousy. In which case—and here he came to verities—his work would suffer. It wouldn't grip him while all these vague ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... all will be well dissolved; and if perhaps any more Faeces remain, they will be very few, cast them away, for they are good for nothing. Put the Solution into a glass-Gourd, with a Head luted upon it, set it into Balneum Mariae, with its receiver to take the Spirits, distil slowly with a slack heat, till all the Spirit of Wine be come over, pour it in again upon the dry matter, draw it off again as before; this pouring in & abstracting continue so often, till you see the Spirit of Wine ascend over the ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... double. In my youth I rarely spent any care in keeping my hair in order, because of my inclination for other pursuits more to my taste. My gait is irregular. I move now quickly, now slowly. When I am at home I go with my legs naked as far as the ankles. I am slack in duty and reckless in speech, and specially prone to show irritation over anything which ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... came in a broken chorus, as the crew, partially sobered by the words, hurried to the long-boat, where a line of small kegs lay in the sand. A moment later they were gone, plowing up the hillside. Jeremy stood where he had been left. A tall, slack-jointed pirate in the most picturesque attire strolled over to the boy's side and looked him up and down with a roguish grin. Under his cloak Jeremy had on fringed leather breeches and tunic such as most of the northern colonists ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... clump of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too hot ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... more necessary, as it was essential that the wood under the hippopotamus hide should be preserved from internal as well as external influences. If the wood had shrunk after it had been once covered, parts of the hide would become slack, and serious inconveniences would have ensued. I never knew one of our Swan vessels to spring a leak or to wear out. The vessels built under my rule will exist unimpaired for many centuries, whilst those built under the former system were broken to pieces on account ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... handsome man, a man thought well of. You have great provisions upon your cart. This man has nothing but the unwashed shirt which hangs on his slack back. It will not become you to march handcuffed with his like, going between two policemen to ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... deck-beams, savagely, as the upward heave of the sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you slack-jawed irons!" ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... on this side, and he was gradually and steadily lowered down. Presently those above felt the rope slack. Another minute and it swung loosely. It was drawn up again, and Malcolm, placing one of the men at the loophole, with instructions to listen intently for any sound of alarm or conflict, turned his attention to ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... fasten the plumb line to a nail or other suitable projection. On coming down to the lower floor it is often found that the bob has been secured either too high or too low. When fastening the line give it plenty of slack and when the lower floor is reached make a double loop in the line, as shown in the sketch. Tightening up on the parts AA will bind the loop bight B, and an adjustable friction-held loop, C, will be had for adjusting the bob accurately either up or down. —Contributed by Chas. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... day Cynthia went up to the hotel and oversaw the preparation of Jeff's meals and kept taut the slack housekeeping of the old Irish woman who had remained as a favor, after the hotel closed, and professed to have lost the chance of a place for the winter by her complaisance. She submitted to Cynthia's authority, and tried to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is only his fossil-like way of treating the subject, but certainly the Major shows a very slack interest, Sally thinks, in the identity of this namesake of hers. He does, however, ask absently, what sort of way did he speak ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... legs is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an' don't worry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every piker ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... of thing was alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international politics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people attach ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... successful artisans, take care to publish in the off season. Thus within the last few weeks we have had novels from Eden Phillpotts, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Anthony Hope, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Miss Marie Corelli. At this rate the autumn will soon become the slack time; August will burn and throb with a six-shilling activity; publishers' clerks will form a union; and the Rt. Hon. W.F.D. Smith, M.P., who has always opposed an eight hours day, will bring in a Bill for an eight ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... of sentimental rubbish," he said. "It seems to me it's only a hindrance—this caring so much for people. It gets in a man's way. Not that it matters to you just now. You've got a slack time. You ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... and so did I. Now that it was all over I felt different from what I used to do, only half the man I once was. If we stayed in the Hollow for a month the police might think we'd gone straight out of the country and slack off a bit. Anyhow, as long as they didn't hit the trail off to the entrance, we couldn't be in a safer place, and though there didn't seem much to do we thought we'd manage to hang it out somehow. One day we were riding all together in the afternoon, when we happened to come near the gully ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... War Correspondent, who is counting the butter at Copenhagen, that great activity is manifesting itself among the officers and men of the German Slack-Water Fleet. This is owing to the fact that they are learning a new German National Anthem which has just been introduced into the Fleet, set to an old English tune. A rough translation of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... the industrial system. My idea is to make it compulsory for every man to undergo military training, about a couple of months every year, and call the men up to the camp in times of trade depression. You wouldn't have to call them all up at once ... trades aren't all slack at the same time ... and you'd arrange the period of training as far as possible to fit in with the slack time in each job. I mean, people who are employed in gasworks could easily be trained in the summer without dislocating the gas industry ... colliers, too, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... your heart to alleviate the unseen woes which will never come into painful contact with your sensibilities, to bestow pleasures in which you yourself have no immediate share. It will tell your hearts especially in the case of this very Hospital for Consumption not to be slack in giving, because so much of what you will give—it is painful to recollect how much—will be spent, not in prevention, not even in cure, but in mere alleviation, mere increased bodily ease, mere savoury food, even mere passing amusements for wearied minds. Be it so. If (which God ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... wares, and her basket is small, She earns her own living by these, when at all. She's there with her baby in wind and in rain, In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain. She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack— No home and no food, and no cloak to her back. She's kithless and kinless—one friend at the most, And that one is silent: the telegraph post! She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still, Altho' she is wretched, forsaken and ill, She cries Sabbath candles to ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... now gone if Cooper, who had already recovered his feet, had not immediately cut the sheet with his knife; there was no time to slack it; and, even as it was, the lower part of the sail was drenched, and the boat full of water. "Ship the helm!" ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... imagination, mistook himself for a person of importance very easily. He rattled away, and attacked this person and that; sneered at Lady John Turnbull's bad French, which her ladyship will introduce into all conversations in spite of the sneers of everybody; at Mrs. Slack Roper's extraordinary costume and sham jewels; at the old dandies and the young ones;—at whom didn't he ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find enough slack chain to permit him to worm himself back quite close to Dian. We were all standing, and as he edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in such a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce repress a smile; but it was a short-lived smile for on the instant ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... straight; his eyes had the deep, varying blueness of lake water. Little wisps and burrs, odors of the forest clung about his clothing; a beard covered his slack, formless mouth. When he told the Homesteader's daughter how the stars went by on heather planted headlands and how the bucks belled the does at the bottom of deep canons in October, she heard in it the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... within about four yards of a point immediately beneath the enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it had faded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a slack rope higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here the rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung in a breathless curve to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... had their headquarters. The flash revealed to me every point of the situation. I saw at once where I was, and how I got there: that the tide had turned while I was swimming, and with a much briefer interval of slack-water than I had been led to suppose,—that I had been swept a good way down stream, and was far beyond all possibility of regaining the point ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... distinctly the general make-up of the train. The train was composed of coach bodies, mostly from Thorpe and Sprague's stage coaches, placed upon trucks. The trucks were coupled together with chains, leaving from two to three feet slack, and when the locomotive started it took up the slack by jerks, with sufficient force to jerk the passengers who sat on seats across the tops of the coaches, out from under their hats, and in stopping, came together with such force as to send them ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... You see we're both pretty young in the profession and we aren't as well known as we hope to be later on. We have to take what we can get on the small-time circuits, and we know that if we make good there we'll get on the big-time circuit sooner or later. Just now things are slack in the theatrical line as they always are in summer. We've got our lines out for a job in the fall, but nothing definite has come of it yet. So we thought we'd come down to the seashore for a few weeks and get a little of the sea air ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... revealed himself to me. To one of my friends he had appeared as an eagle, which meant that he was to be a warrior, keen and victorious; and to another as a fox, so that he studied cunning; but without any vision I did not know what to make of myself. My heart was slack as a wetted bowstring. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... well. Billy, in an ordinary business suit, was not the man of the world of Graduation night, yet there was a new maturity in his eyes and the set of his jaw that Lydia liked without really observing it. Old Lizzie watched the two as they climbed the slope to the woods. Billy strode along with the slack, irregular gait of the farmer. Lydia sprang over the ground ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Boma sprawled amongst the low burnt-up hills, and every day the doctor with his bad liver came across in his boat under the blinding sunshine to within shouting distance, and put a few weary questions. The formalities were slack enough. Nilssen usually made the necessary replies (as he liked to keep himself in the doctor's good books), and then the boat ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... portraiture, and a knowledge of patting clay and using a chisel has saved many a sculptor, but technical equipment alone never made an illustrator, because he deals too directly with life in action. Slack drawing and impatience of method will always be pardoned in an ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... Germany?" Colonel Holt asked. "The Germans seem to be getting slack about prisoners lately. O'Malley and Jones got back a ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... for running away (if that should be advisable), or, if you are in pursuit, the strides they lend themselves to will make your enemy's escape impossible. Seriously now, are not these refinements of yours all child's play—something for your idle, slack youngsters to do? If you really want to be free and happy, you must have other exercises than these; your training must be a genuine martial one; no toy contests with friends, but real ones with enemies; danger must be an element in your character- development. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... all of them musical. There were swift actions, too: a Kanaka crawled out upon the bowsprit to make taut a slack stay, while two others with pulley-blocks swarmed aloft. Occasionally the canvas snapped as the wind veered slightly. The sea was no longer rolling brass; it was bluer than anything he had ever seen. Every so often a wall of water, thin and jade-coloured, would rise up ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... go down," said Raffles, promptly; "we'll slack it up here for a bit instead. No, Bunny, you stay where you are! I'll fetch you a drink and a deck-chair, and you shan't come down till you ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries you. And perhaps ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... will retain and hold fast the doctrine of redemption, and so by that have, through faith, an inlet into all the abounding mercy of God, must not deal in God's matters with a slack hand. It is not enough for them that would do so, to be content with sermons, family duties, and other public assemblies for worship, but there must be a continual exercise of the mind about these matters, and a labour of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were judiciously varied, and protracted by a constant succession of entertainments of various descriptions. Mr. Chalons exhibited many of his most surprising deceptions in the rotunda; where also young Gyngell displayed some capital performances on the slack-wire. In the long room the celebrated fantoccini exhibition, with groupes of quadrille dancers, enlivened the scene. In one walk of the garden, Mr. Gyngell's theatre of arts was erected, where were exhibited balancing, the Ombres Chinoises, gymnastic exercises, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... his work was done and that he had earned his rest. The stallion was pretty well spent, and after a few minutes of struggling he stood with feet far spread, nostrils dilated and eyes wide, watching me as I edged toward him, taking in the slack of the rope as I advanced. A dozen times he reared and tried to break away; but always I spoke soothingly to him and after an hour of effort I succeeded in reaching his head and stroking his muzzle. Then I gathered a handful of grass and offered ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... amid the masts and shrouds, They hung above the wave; The sky o'erhead was dark with clouds, And dark beneath, their grave. The water leaped against its prey, Breaking with heavy crash, And when some slack'ning hands gave way, They ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... had tripped and fallen. Bettles stopped long enough to grip him by the slack of his furs, then headed for a pile of cordwood already occupied by a number of his comrades. Yellow Fang, doubling after one of the dogs, came leaping back. The fleeing animal, free of the rabies, but crazed with ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in electioneering. Squires hid their ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... is the circus, a sort of travelling Astley's theatre, which belongs to a company in New York. This show visits all the large towns, once during the summer season. The performances consists of feats of horsemanship, gymnastics, dancing on the tight and slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good performers, and an excellent brass ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... wall of the tent is stretched to complete the rectangle. Wall pins are then driven through these loops. Each corner pin should be directly in rear of the corresponding front corner pin, making a rectangle. Unless the canvas be wet, a small amount of slack should be allowed before the corner pins are driven. According to the size of the tent one or two men, crawling under the tent if necessary, fit each pole or ridge or upright into the ring or ridge pole holes, and such accessories as hood, fly, and brace ropes are adjusted. If a tripod be ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... And now I can pay you back a little. But perhaps you won't mind, dearest, if I don't write anything very long, for I expect I ought to take it easy—for a bit—I can't think why I should have felt so slack. I never knew anything about nerves before. But the doctor has been very nice and understanding—a real, decent fellow. He declares I shall be as fit as a fiddle, long before the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... saw that her efforts were to be of little avail. Rope lay pitifully slack and unresponsive. At the end of an hour's work Ferguson bent over her with ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... skillfully to the black's weight on the rope. For a few minutes the animal at the loop end of the riata struggled desperately—plunging, tugging, throwing himself this way and that; but always the experienced cow-horse turned with his victim and the rope was never slack. When his first wild efforts were over and the black stood with his wide braced feet, breathing heavily as that choking loop began to tell, the strain on the taut riata was lessened, and Phil went quietly toward the ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Like dogs that snarl about a bone, And play together when they've none, As by their truest characters, Their constant actions, plainly appears. 30 Rebellion now began, for lack Of zeal and plunders to grow slack; The Cause and covenant to lessen, And Providence to b' out of season: For now there was no more to purchase 35 O' th' King's Revenue, and the Churches, But all divided, shar'd, and gone, That us'd to urge the Brethren on; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Perhaps I ran twenty yards, perhaps fifty; I do not know. I heard the steps behind me, quick as my own. Then I fell headlong on the road—tripped up! I understood. They had stretched a rope across my path; as I fell a man bounded up from either side, and I found the rope slack under my body. There I lay on my face; a man knelt on me, others held either hand; my face was pressed into the mud of the road, and I was like to have been stifled; my hand-bag had whizzed away from me. Then ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... at the imminent risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... there was no sign of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky. Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the rough path. He told her that few people ever passed that way. It was the short road to Saracinesca. The princes sometimes sent their carriage round by the longer way and rode ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... there wide awake and made no sign of displeasure, Torarin turned off at the first road that led westward to the sea. He flicked the horse with the slack of the reins and made ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... if spicier features incline to be slack There is always the Chief of the State to attack; We have standing instructions to cake him with mud And a couple of columns reserved for his blood. Oh, yes, there is Peace, but our property thrives— We are having, I tell you, the time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... round its shoulders, Tom galloping his own horse hard behind. By the most skilful manipulation of the lariat, Edna's horse was compelled to slacken its pace, Tom getting nearer and nearer by degrees and taking in the slack until he was right alongside. He soon brought the runaway to a stand-still, and directed me to release Edna's foot from the stirrup, which I did. She sank to the ground, completely exhausted. And little wonder. Her hands were cut and bleeding with the tenacious grip ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... to receive it, and the postmaster-general who permits the department to exceed that simple duty and intermeddle with the rights of the people should not only be impeached and removed from office in one time and two motions, but taken by the slack of the pantalettes and pitched headlong into the penitentiary. It appears that the indignant people assaulted the nigger postmaster. That is indeed to be regretted; still I can but wonder that they do not shoot the whole umbilicus out of every impudent tool of a petty ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... my younger Brother, by any and every means, to watch and pray against a slack or low view of his function as a preacher. From very many quarters at the present day we are invited to slight our sermon-labour. Sometimes it is "work," organization, committees, which is set against the sermon; sometimes it is the reading-desk and the Communion Table—the liturgical functions of ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... stretched string that gives out musical notes; the slack one is dumb. And if we desire that we may be able to be sure, as our Master was, when He said, 'I know that Thou hearest me always,' we must pray as He did, of whom it is recorded that 'He prayed the more earnestly,' and 'was heard in that He feared.' The word rendered ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... awake nights. When I drew the tender alongside he stepped in without further urging and sat down in the stern. I rowed ashore. Fortunately for the tender feelings of my cousin there wasn't a soul in sight when we landed. I fastened the boat, and then, with the oars on my shoulder and the slack of the codline in my hand, start him ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Brother Vickers wanted a call ter the church in the Cove, bein' ez his relations live hyar-abouts, an' he kem up an' preached a time or two. But he didn't git no call. The brethren 'lowed Brother Vickers war too slack in his idees o' religion. Some said his hell warn't half hot enough. Thar air some powerful sinners in the Cove, an' nuthin' but good live coals an' a liquid blazin' fire air a-goin' ter deter them from the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... new acquaintance; "it was the manner in which he beat every one who attempted to contend with him, till, in an evil hour, he entered the ring with Slack, without any training or preparation, and by a chance blow lost the battle to a man who had been beaten with ease by those who, in the hands of Broughton, appeared like so many children. It was the way of fighting of him who first taught Englishmen to box scientifically, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... what he did, and certainly not knowing why he did it, walked quickly out on to the floor, seized the huge hook attached to the lower pulley of the tackle that hung from the roof-beam, pulled up the slack of the rope-bandage on the hind part of the machine, and stuck the hook into it, then walked quickly back. The hauling-rope of the tackle had been carried to the iron ring of a trap-door in the corner near ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... and heart, or tie strap or rope over handkerchief or folded shirt wrapped about limb. If arm, put baseball in arm pit, and press arm against this. Or, for arm or leg, tie folded cloth in loose noose around limb, put cane or umbrella through noose and twist up the slack very tight, so as to compress ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... against which the raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential—a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion of the effects of this will be taken ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... ecclesiastical matters in Norfolk were in a very slack state—rectors and vicars lived away from their parishes, subscribing amongst them to pay the salary of a curate to undertake the church services. As his duties were consequently manifold some parishes were without his presence on Sunday for a month and sometimes longer. The ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... queerly. "Me, I'd call that riding, what we done," he retorted grimly. "I'm so sore I can hear my muscles squeak. Well, get down here and I'll show yuh how to stretch as yuh tack. And be sure you don't leave a hair's breadth of slack anywheres, or it'll all have to come off and be done ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... them, "Ah, there's no deceit in children. If I had had some, I should not have been the arch-rogue I am.". The industrious poor of Edge-hill found in Williamson a ready friend in time of need, and when work was slack many a man has come to the pay-place on Saturday, who had done nothing all the week but dig a hole and fill it up again. Once, on being remonstrated with by a man he had thus employed, on the uselessness of the work, Williamson said, "You do as you are told—you ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... dismissed, And now was travelling towards his native home. 425 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... A huge hand seized the slack of Thomas's shorts and the boy was heaved up to the muscular shoulder. The two faces were now on the same level and twinkling gray blue eyes were looking into ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... are yet in their leading-strings as to some parts of literature, there is the more room for improvement; and I am confident that the genius of my fellow-citizens will not be slack in the important work. You will please to recollect, sir, that during one hundred and sixty years of our childhood we were in our nonage; respecting our parent and looking up to her for books, science, and improvements. From her we borrowed much learning and some prejudices, which time alone ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... enclosure the youths threw down their weapons before them, and with the help of the initiated men divested themselves of the huge folds of native cloth in which they were enveloped, each man revolving slowly on his axis, while his attendant pulled at the bandage and gathered in the slack. The weapons and the cloth were the offerings presented by the novices to the ancestral spirits for the purpose of rendering themselves acceptable to these powerful beings. The offerings were repeated in like manner on four successive days; and as each youth was merely, as ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... came out, this time anxiously to consult sea and sky. The squall had cleared away, but the sky remained overcast. The two schooners, under all sail and joined by a third, could be seen making back. A veer in the wind induced them to slack off sheets, and five minutes afterward a sudden veer from the opposite quarter caught all three schooners aback, and those on shore could see the boom-tackles being slacked away or cast off on the jump. The sound of the surf was loud, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... pale blue; the cold freshened the spirits of the boys, and tightened their nerves and muscles, till they were like bow-strings. No doubt the winter was coming, but the sun, although his day's work was short and slack, was still as clear as ever. So gladsome was the world, that the boys received the day as a fresh holiday, and strenuously forgot to-morrow. The wind blew straight from Rothieden, and between sun and wind a bright thought awoke in ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... by suddenly leaning forward with her body, at the same time, for an instant, letting the rein slack and touching the neck with her bridle hand. She began to draw away ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... small assistance, he takes upon himself the responsibility of making this little working mate of his keep busy when in harness. Tad and Eric, the rear dogs, are the largest and heaviest of the pack, and perhaps the best haulers. Their traces are never slack, and they attend strictly ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... coincident, Miss Christie, one up and t'other down," said Dick lightly. "Work being slack at present at Devil's Ford, I reck'ned I'd take a pasear down to 'Frisco, and dip into the vortex o' fash'nable society and out again." He lightly waved a new handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... paper. Here was Hilo and there was our objective, 128 degrees west longitude. With the northeast trade blowing we could travel a straight line between the two points, and even slack our sheets off a goodly bit. But one of the chief troubles with the trades is that one never knows just where he will pick them up and just in what direction they will be blowing. We picked up the northeast trade right outside of Hilo harbour, but the miserable breeze was away around into ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the church and held thanksgiving services. A stillness brooded over the town. Life hardly moved; the strands hung slack. Thanksgiving soon changed to revival. Services lasted a week. The ministers preached terrible sermons, burning with terrible words. "Repent before it is too late. Twice God has warned this town." People vowed vows and sang as they had never ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... religion, and the happiness to be found in it, though the oracles of God in all ages have testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly of it, and so slack pursuit of it, as if we did not believe it at all. Truly, my beloved, there is a great mistake in this, and it is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but truly, I conceive there is nothing in the world so practicable ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the yeoman at the end of his long room, surrounded by his friends: glasses are filled, and a song is the cry, and a song is sung well suited to the place; it finds an echo in every heart—fists are clenched, arms are waved, and the portraits of the mightly fighting men of yore, Broughton, and Slack, and Ben, which adorn the walls, appear to smile grim approbation, whilst many a manly voice joins ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... hung slack, as a great back-wave lifted the boat on its crest and carried it seawards. But suddenly the strain came, carrying the two men on shore nearly off their feet, and grinding on the gunwale of the boat with a creak which could be heard even ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... he glanced furtively up toward Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... law of the Camp confined the girls to the pasture, but as it was the last week of the quarantine, they were beginning to grow a little slack about rules. The five victims of the salt cure waited until Miss Huntley and Nurse Robinson were enjoying their afternoon siesta; then, without waiting for any permission, they climbed the fence into the lane, found a thin place in the hedge, and scrambled into ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... neither was he sober. Why should he be the latter? he demanded seriously of himself. His glass was empty, the champagne was all gone. Mrs. Gilbert Bromhead was perceptibly leaning on Christian Wager, her skill blurred; Evadore's face was damply pallid, her mouth slack; she left the table, the room, hurried and unsteady, evidently about to repeat the thickness of the act that had marred her enjoyment of the night club; Claire was openly contemptuous ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Salerno, warranted to prevent toothache and death by drowning; and not far off, against another pillar, a tumbler was showing off his tricks on a small platform; while a handful of 'prentices, despising the slack entertainment of guerilla stone-throwing, were having a private concentrated match of that favourite Florentine sport at the narrow entrance ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Violet showed no signs of getting over it, no signs, at any rate, of settling down. On the contrary, before very long she slipped into her old slack ways. With all her fierce vitality it was as if she had no strength to turn her hand to anything. The charwoman came every week. (That was no more ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... steadfast, on her track, Not to be shaken off, untiring bent; And how awhile the fire from each grew slack, The shatter'd masts to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... had been tinkering about in the various barges, shallops and canoes tied to the mossy piles, left their employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string and a piece of salt pork, allowed their lines to fall slack and their intended victims to walk coolly off with the meat, so intense was their interest in the oncoming sail. A knot of negro women had left the great house kitchen and stood, hands on hips, chatting volubly with a contingent from the quarters, their red and yellow turbans nodding up and ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... aft to the spanker-sheet! Stand by to slack off and haul in! Man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o' you! Hard up the wheel! Check in port main and starboard cro'-jack braces! Shiver the topsail! ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... they may safely go on to accuse Dickens of bad grammar. The truth is that his grammar is not only good but strong; it is far better in construction than Thackeray's, the ease of whose phrase sometimes exceeds and is slack. Lately, during the recent centenary time, a writer averred that Dickens "might not always be parsed," but that we loved him for his, etc., etc. Dickens's page is to be parsed as strictly as any man's. It is, apart from the matter of grammar, a wonderful ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... fallen away in name and in fact." Some believe that the Germans are descended from the Galatians. There may be something to that. For the Germans are not unlike the Galatians in their lack of constancy. At first we Germans are very enthusiastic, but presently our emotions cool and we become slack. When the light of the Gospel first came to us many were zealous, heard sermons greedily, and held the ministry of God's Word in high esteem. But now that religion has been reformed, many who formerly ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... erase the stain from the honour of his family. But hard facts soon restored the equilibrium of his naturally prudent soul. The worst feature of the army was not that it had been beaten, but that it had not been commanded. The reins of discipline had been so slack that licence and indulgence had sapped its fighting strength. The tyranny of circumstances demanded a peaceful sojourn in the province, and Albinus ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... though no aphonia. The patient had gone to work as a sort of nurse for the old woman under protest, for she did not wish to do anything outside of her own light housekeeping, although the added income was sorely needed since work was slack in her husband's place of employment. The pain in her side caused her to quit work as nurse, much to her husband's dissatisfaction until she convinced him that her pain and disability were marked. It was evident that despite the controversies ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... to undo the elaborate lacing, without going out on the yard and climbing down the sail, unlacing as they go? So far as I am able to judge, their method is a most simple and effective one, for all that they do is to lower the sail, gather in the slack at the bottom, and as there are several sheets up and down the breech of the sail, the thing is done with the ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... the party broke up. The bicycles were brought round, and the four went gaily out of the front door to light lamps and see to suspiciously slack tyres. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... at the older man. The latter's eyes were half-closed and his pose was slack, as if he were languidly enjoying the warmth, but Jim thought he had been listening. Then he wondered why the other's short description had given him so distinct a picture; he could see the rugged blue ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... air was damp It made my curls hang slack As they kissed my neck and back While I footed the salt-aired ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... slackest of theatre conductors, the slackest of the slack old school. I may have mentioned that once I had the misfortune to play the piano part in a number of his trios; and though these are the only compositions of his known to me they suffice. A man who had the patience to plod through the task of writing such dreary stuff and the presumption to ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... one looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung taut—as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... heard the two knapsacks come bumping along until they slid over the eaves above me, and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso's end and braced myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack and help him as best I might. As he came slowly down from crack to crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in the rope until it was taut, and then hurriedly told him to drop. He hesitated a moment ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... nothing alow to slack his haste] His haste shall not be abated by my slowness. It ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... in the bow of your boat," I said. He did so. I drew in the slack until a fair towing length remained and made it fast. While he was busy I ventured to glance at Miss Colton. Her eyes were snapping with fun and she seemed to be enjoying the situation. But, catching my look, her expression changed. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... perfect thing,—and perhaps we never shall. But the desire, the search, the faith, must not fail us, as at times they seem to do. At times the very tides of the ocean seem to fail,—when the currents cease to run. Yet when they are at slack here, they are at flood on the other side of the world, turning already to ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... might The gift fully and fast set, which had God to him given, That war-deer did hold. Long was he contemned, While the bairns of the Geats naught told him for good, Nor him on the mead-bench worthy of mickle The lord of the war-hosts would be a-making. Weened they strongly that he were but slack then, An atheling unkeen; then came about change To the fame-happy man for every foul harm. Bade then the earls' burg in to be bringing, 2190 The king battle-famed, the leaving of Hrethel, All geared with gold; was not 'mid the Geats then A treasure-gem better of them ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... down with a blow of one enormous fist upon the mouth, and while he was yet stretched upon the deck kicked him savagely in the stomach. Then he allowed him to rise, caught him by the neck and the slack of his overcoat, and ran him forward to where a hatchway, not two feet across, opened in the deck. Without ado, he flung him down into the darkness below; and while Wilbur, dizzied by the fall, sat on the floor at the foot of the vertical companion-ladder, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... expense of $43,000 in money and labor, so that we could plant gardens and set out some fruit trees. A man was allowed $1.50 and a man and team $3 per day for labor. Our ditch ran through some formation that would slack up like lime; and as whole sections of it would slide, it kept us busy nearly all the time the following year enlarging and repairing the canal. Our labors only lessened as our numbers increased, and the banks became more solid, so that today (1894) we ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... 29th, the ice being slack for a short distance, we shifted the Hecla half a mile to the northward, into a less insecure berth. I then walked to a broad valley facing the sea near us, where a considerable stream discharged itself, and where, in passing in the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... of the cutter when he re-ascended on the deck, he would have discovered Smallbones hanging on by the rudder chains; for had the fog not been so thick, Mr Vanslyperken would have perceived that at the time that he cut Smallbones adrift it was slack water, and the cutter was lying across the harbour. Smallbones was not, therefore, carried away by the tide, but being a very fair swimmer, had gained the rudder chains without difficulty; but at the time that Smallbones was climbing up again by the rope, he had perceived the blade of a ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... recognition, appeal made through digestive organs, had disappeared. Nevertheless, he lavished upon her unwonted affection until Felipe gently but firmly urged him forward again. Then again he proceeded, pulling all of the load this time, bringing about a slack in the traces of the mare and a consequent bumping of her hind legs against the cart which seemed to awaken ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... The work is slack for the moment, but a great attack is expected at Nieuport, and they say the Kaiser is behind the lines there. His presence hasn't brought luck so far, and I hope it won't ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... us out of the high mountains and into a narrow valley when the stream became more moderate in its speed and we floated along easily enough. In a little while after we struck this slack water, as we were rounding a point, I saw on a sand bar in the river, five or six elk, standing and looking at us with much curiosity. I signaled for those behind to go to shore, while I did the same, and two or three of us took our guns and went carefully ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack! ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... trees in the hot, bright weather, Clear-cut, with shadows very black, As freely we rode on together With helms unlaced and bridles slack. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... trouble in the tent. The bear had tangled himself in the canvas and was blindly tossing it about, rolling himself up in the slack, and audibly complaining of the fire and smoke. The rifles, shot-guns and all but one revolver had been left in the tent, and presently they began to pop. Doughnut Bill, safe in a sycamore, hitched around to the lee side of the trunk and said: ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... presented,—the German, erect, well-poised, plainly a soldier in spite of his ill-fitting clothes; the American, lank and stomachless, yet taller than the other in spite of his bent shoulders. His tawny beard was guiltless of care. Of all his slack body only his eyes showed alertness as they looked sidewise from under his ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... when work became slack in the district, Telford undertook to do small jobs on his own account such as the hewing of grave-stones and ornamental doorheads. He prided himself especially upon his hewing, and from the specimens of his workmanship which are still to be seen in the churchyards ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... laughed with such genial heartiness as to lay Jerry's silky ears back and down in self-deprecation of affection and pleadingness to bask in the sunshine of the god's smile. Also, Skipper's laughter set Jerry's tail wildly bobbing. The half-open hand closed in a firm grip that gathered in the slack of the skin of one side of Jerry's head and jowl. Then the hand began to shake him back and forth with such good will that he was compelled to balance back and forth on ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... you my word on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Shaker of the earth, answered him again: "Idomeneus, never may that man go forth out of Troy-land, but here may he be the sport of dogs, who this day wilfully is slack in battle. Nay, come, take thy weapons and away: herein we must play the man together, if any avail there may be, though we are no more than two. Ay, and very cowards get courage from company, but we twain know well how to battle even with ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... CABLE. A sufficient quantity of cable left slack to allow the anchor to reach the ground before the cable is checked by the double turns round the bitts, the object being to let the anchor hook the bottom quickly, and to prevent the heavy shock which would be caused if its weight were suddenly ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... in India many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a difficult ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... unto God, and are all under the condemnation of His holy law. Shall the traitor arraign the Judge? And unto the repenting traitor, God's hand falleth not in punishment, but only in loving discipline and fatherly training. You slack not, I count, to give Honor her physic, though she cry that it is bitter and loathsome; nor will God set aside His physic for your Ladyship's crying. Yet, dear my Lady, this is not because He loveth to see you weep, but only because He would heal you of the deadly plague of your ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and her basket is small, She earns her own living by these, when at all. She's there with her baby in wind and in rain, In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain. She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack— No home and no food, and no cloak to her back. She's kithless and kinless—one friend at the most, And that one is silent: the telegraph post! She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still, Altho' ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... try to get through Belgium to England. He says she hates England. Harriet began to look pale as she studied the map and saw how little Belgium was and that the Channel was so narrow. She said she felt as if England had been silly to let herself get so slack and she almost wished she hadn't looked at the geography. She said she couldn't help thinking how awful it would be to see the German army marching up Regent Street and camping in Hyde Park, and who in goodness' name knew what ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of America, to unsettle the doctrines upon which the throne of your kingdom is based. But we come as cotton planters, to supply your looms with cotton, that British commerce may not be abridged, and England, the great civilizer of the world, may not be forced to slack her pace in the performance of her mission. This is our character and position; and your honor will at once see that it is your duty, and the interest of your Government, to treat us as gentlemen and your most faithful allies." The ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... of fellows I have now," he went on as he led the way toward the men's quarters. "Not a trouble maker in the bunch, except a half breed that I'm not particularly stuck on, and that I'm going to get rid of as soon as work gets slack. But take them all together I ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... squire. One he placed round his own waist; two others he fastened one on each side of the horse's girth. Then his friend lowered the bridle, and he managed to put it on the horse and attached a rope to it. The fishermen took the lines, and, paying out as they went so as to leave plenty of slack line, got on the rocks just above the little beach whereon, sheltered though it was, the seas broke heavily. There they waited, ready to pull the horse through the surf when he ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... Norgate went on. "She believes—Germany believes—that Italy will come in. She also believes, from false information that she has gathered in this country, that under no circumstances will England fight. It isn't about that I came to you. We've become a slothful, slack, pleasure-loving people, but I still believe that when the time comes we shall fight. The only thing is that we shall be taken at a big disadvantage. We shall be open to a raid upon our fleet. Do you know that the entire German ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heart; work day by day; Tread, ever tread, the knightly way; Make lawful war; long travel dare; Tourney and joust for lady fair; To everlasting honor cling, That none the barbs of blame may fling; Be never slack in work or fight; Be ever least in self's own sight;— This is the rule for the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "what you doin' thah! That fellow's makin' notes of all your slack; keep your tongue! aftah awhile you'll tell the nombah of the foces! Don't you ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of ice was to be seen along the edges of the slack water. Heavy, black frosts whitened the shadows and nipped the unaccustomed fingers early in the day. The sun was swinging to the south, lengthening the night hours. Whitefish ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... the slackest of theatre conductors, the slackest of the slack old school. I may have mentioned that once I had the misfortune to play the piano part in a number of his trios; and though these are the only compositions of his known to me they suffice. A man who had the patience ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... him in the captive's place, Scarcely could see the outline of his face. I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back: "Loose thou my hands," I said. "This pace let slack. Forget we now that thou and I are foes. I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close; I like the courage of thine eye and brow; I like thee better than ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... en dey run'd," Uncle Remus went on, "twel dey come ter Brer Tarrypin house, en dey sorter slack up 'kaze dey done mighty nigh los' der win'. Brer Tarrypin, he up'n ax um wharbouts dey gwine, en dey 'low dey wuz a monst'us tarryfyin' racket back dar in de woods. Brer Tarrypin, he ax w'at she soun' lak. One say he dunno, n'er say he dunno, den dey all say dey ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... to know, sir, if you'd like summat to eat, as they're a goin' to have a morsel; we are getting into slack water now.' ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... growled the other, watching him suspiciously. "You've been lying low for a long time, and it's not like you to slack off except when there's ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... much trouble in gathering wood for fire. Grettir always employed the man to collect the drift, and there were often logs cast ashore there which he brought home for fuel. The brothers had no need to work beyond going to the cliffs, which they did whenever they chose. The thrall began to get very slack at his work; he grumbled much and was less careful than before. It was his duty to mind the fire every night, and Grettir bade him be very careful of it as they had no boat with them. One night it came to pass that the fire went out. Grettir was very angry and said it would only be right that Glaum ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... at this rate, one per second for 5,600 years! This, however, is not probable; but Mr. Sorby's remarks has completely removed all doubt as to its physical possibility from the Darwinian theory; "and they prompt us," says Slack, "to a wonderful conception of the powers residing in minute ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... would have been a comfort. But you can't cork that kind; they would die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think something would surely happen to her works, by and by; but no, they never got out of order; and she never had to slack up for words. She could grind, and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week, and never stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... trust their souls, fortunes, or bodies to his direction; because that power is neither fit to judge or teach those qualifications which are absolutely necessary to the several professions. Put the case that walking on the slack rope were the only talent required by act of parliament for making a man a bishop; no doubt, when a man had done his feat of activity in form, he might sit in the House of Lords, put on his robes and his rochet, go down to his palace, receive and spend his rents; but it requireth very little ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... watching us: for, dark as the evening had grown, almost as soon as our helm went down the sound of oars ceased astern—to begin again a few seconds later, but more gently, as if someone had given the order for silence. O.P. peered under the slack of ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tide passed, and then the ship began to swing idly as the slack came. Then with the turn of tide came little flaws of wind, and we hoisted the sail, and Kenulf hove the anchor short. Yet we heard no more sounds ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... would it be so easy as in the navy to become slack. If the public sees a naval review it knows that its ships can steam and keep their formations; if it goes on board it knows that the ships are clean—at least, the limited part of them which it sees; and it knows that there are turrets ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... is cleared, yet on the smoother road Their speed they slack not till they reach the house Of a poor drunken settler then abroad On his nocturnal revels, while the spouse Was left to mourn his oft-indulged carouse, And tremble for his safety from the cold. No sense of danger ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... more and they were at the fork in the way, and, leaving the trail to Cragg's, the girl pulled into the grass-grown, less-traveled trail to the south, which entered the timber at this point and began to climb with steady grade. Letting the reins fall slack, she turned to her mother with reassuring words. "There! Now we're safe. We won't meet anybody on this road except possibly a mover's outfit. We're in the forest again," ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... fiercely, mighty arms straining and tight-clenched, writhing, swaying, reeling, in fast-locked, desperate grapple. Now to Roger's strength and quickness Beltane opposed craft and cunning, but wily Roger met guile with guile nor was to be allured to slack or change his gripe. Therefore of a sudden Beltane put forth his strength, and wrestled mightily, seeking to break or weaken Roger's deadly hold. But Roger's iron arms gripped and held him ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... fight for it, eh, Luke? You're rather apt to slack when I'm not by." Was there a hint of wistfulness in the words? It almost ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... a silver saucepan at dinner, garnished with lemons, to flank the roast leg of mutton. Others prefer it cooked with leeks and onions, or pickled, and eaten with oil and lemon juice. The Englishman calls this Sea Weed, Laver; the Irishman, Sloke; the Scotchman, Slack; and the student, Porphyra. It varies in size and colour between tidemarks, being sometimes long and ribbon-like, of a violet or purple hue; sometimes long and broad, whilst changing to a ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... religious exactness and punctuality; nor was she, for some time, less observant of the agreement they had made. Nevertheless, she, by degrees, became so negligent and cold in her expression, and so slack in her correspondence, that he could not help observing and upbraiding her with such indifference; and her endeavours to palliate it were supported by pretexts so frivolous, as to be easily seen through by a ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of employing the crew is, "setting up" rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack, (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowsed well taught, the seizings and coverings replaced; which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... much at home in the water as a porpoise. They saw his sleek head now and again flung out of the trough of the waves, and his huge shoulders labouring against the weight of the storm. Then suddenly the rope they were holding fell slack in their hands,—they said afterwards it had snapped on a jagged razor of rock,—and the man disappeared. A day or two later his battered and bruised body was flung up on the bathing strand, where in summer the city ladies ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... of his start for Italy, that was easily excused. And even granting that Fergus did the last bit of mischief, your friend may be romantically generous, if you please; but he must have been very slack in ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... population later on if we were allowed to consume their stocks of flour. H.Q. actually managed to secure a turkey, which was picketed out near the Quartermaster's stores to wait for Christmas. The programme here was "Road Improvement," but all the same we had a slack time for ten days or so, when we were told what was to be the next stunt. We were to assist in a big turning movement in which we were to go along the Zeitun Ridge, the object being the gaining of some elbow room to the north of Jerusalem. The 60th Division were to make ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... put it upon a moral and dynamic foundation. It remains to the last a mysterious principle, and was easily open to the antinomian interpretation, that upon the exercise of faith God for Christ's merits "counts man justified"—an interpretation dear to those who are slack-minded and prone to forensic schemes ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... past there used always to be something happening such as famines, or the invention of printing. The whole world has got very slack. ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... little grassy knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... north of the Tavern the enemy had obtained a lodgment from 10,000 to 15,000 strong in the rear of our wing, on the morning of the 7th. His strength consisted in part of the following rebel Divisions, as was subsequently ascertained: Frost's, Slack's, Parson's, and Rains's; and the batteries of Ghebor, Clark (six pieces), E. McDonald (three pieces), and Wade (four pieces). There was present also one Regiment of Indians, the whole commanded by General Van Dorn in person, and General Price, ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... bearing it bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and along a dusty road. In place of enlivening his patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck, and not one of ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... On the 8th valuable geological specimens were collected and brought along, and then the descent of the Great Glacier commenced. The Beardmore temperatures to begin with were rather high, and Scott seems to have considered this a disadvantage, for he says it made the party feel slack. Evans was rested half-way down the Beardmore, Oates looking after him, while the other made a halt for geological investigation by the ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... spite of it. The distorted joints of the cripple do not help him to fight. The firm is not rich because its business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition—what happens? What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants goes straight ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... left eye closed, right eye looking through the notch of the rear sight so as to perceive the object aimed at, second joint of forefinger resting lightly against the front of the trigger and taking up the slack; top of front sight is carefully raised into, and held in, the line ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... with deliberation, observing closely, yet half-lazily—for his brain was slack and needed rest—the different types about him, musing on the possibilities of their lives, smiling at the gambols of the intent girls, and the impudent frolics of the little boys who seemed the very spawn of sand and sea and sun, till he had nearly passed the harbor, and was opposite ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... melancholy (and in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and has had two children, both of whom ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... hear my old friend talk like this; still more to notice how he began to lose grip in Sharpe's house. No news flies so fast in a school as that of a responsible head boy being slack or "out of collar." And when once it is known and admitted, it takes a good deal to keep the house from going slack and "out ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... cope with those in the field. Besides, one must remember that in a matter like this we cannot fully depend on any force that we may gather. The archers and men-at-arms would be drawn largely from the same class as the better portion of these rioters, and would be slack in fighting against them. Certainly, those of the home counties could not be depended upon, and possibly even in the garrison of the Tower itself there may be many who cannot be trusted. The place, if well held, should stand ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... goodly Paris donned his beautiful armor, and hastened after his brother, whom he overtook, and he made excuse for his long tarrying. And Hector answered him, "No man can justly speak lightly of thy deeds, for thou art strong; but thou art slack and careless, and I am grieved when I hear shameful things said of thee by the Trojans, who for thee bear so much toil. ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... characteristic of the French (particularly in the bourgeoise) than the thorough way in which they do their month at the sea-shore. They generally come for the month of August. Holidays have begun and business, of all kinds, is slack. Our plage was really a curiosity. There is a splendid stretch of sand beach—at low tide one can walk, by the shore, to Trouville or Houlgate on perfectly firm, dry sand. There are hundreds of cabins and tents, striped red and white, and umbrellas on ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze, that is, he should slowly and steadily contract his ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... this metal slack'd At'lanta's pace, And on the am'rous youth[1] bestow'd the race; Venus (the nymph's mind measuring by her own), Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise Th' advent'rous lover how to gain the prize. Nor less may Jupiter ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... when work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room for their ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... of the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps. Their thoughts dance on the slack wire of the clarinet. Their veins beat time to the whinny of the derby wreathed cornet. The fiddles and the drums are partners for their arms and their muscles. But their hearts embrace shyly the Mother Aphrodite. Their hearts listen sadly and proudly ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... lives have they Who help him in war, Can run to the mast-head Or manage the oar; Make the row-locks to creak, And the row-bench to crack, And in their lord's service Are never found slack." ...
— The Nightingale, the Valkyrie and Raven - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... that work was unusually slack in his own yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his days. But she paid small attention. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... when a friend marries,—and I grant he's rather young,—but I should say it's the best thing for him. A decent woman—and you have proved not one thing against her—a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"—his voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you talk as if you were ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the old country, and two three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... fire. The heat of the oven is of great importance for cakes, especially large ones. If not pretty quick, the batter will not rise; and if too quick, put some white paper over the cake to prevent its being burnt. If not long enough lighted to have a body of heat, or it is become slack, the cake will be heavy. To know when it is soaked, take a broad-bladed knife that is very bright, and thrust it into the centre; draw it out instantly, and if the paste in any degree adheres, return the cake to the oven, and close ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... desert-bred stock, he watched the horse. The minutes drifted by. The horse seemed more distinct. Waring thought he could discern the picket rope. He endeavored to trace it from horse to picket. Foot by foot his eyes followed its slack outline across the ground. The head of the metal picket glimmered faintly. Waring closed his eyes, nodded, and caught himself. This time he traced the rope from picket to horse. It seemed a childish thing to do, ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... had recovered their property. Naturally they felt remarkably grateful to Melky Rubinstein for his astuteness in circumventing Yada at what might have been the last moment. And one day, at that portion of it when business was slack and everybody was feeling comfortable after dinner, Melky called on Mrs. Goldmark and became confidentially closeted with her in a little parlour behind her establishment which she kept sacred to herself. Mrs. Goldmark, who had quick eyes, noticed that Melky was wearing his best clothes, and a ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... were open, his bony jaw slack. "Well, I'll be damned. Do you know who you're talking to, ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... with the same foes, our professional advocates of "preparedness," our cheerful chemists, our scientific "intellectuals"—all our materialistic thinkers hard- shell and soft-shell,—took the position of Flaubert, just presented; reproached us bitterly for our slack, sentimental pacificism; and urged us with all speed to emulate the scientific spirit of our enemy. There is nothing more instructive in this correspondence than to observe how this last fond illusion falls away from Flaubert under the impact of an experience which ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... barely eighty yards apart; the ground there is under water in the wet season; the trench is built of sandbags; all rifle fire is done from loop-holes, for to look over the parapet is to court certain death. A mountain of coal-slack lies between the lines a little further along, which are in "dead" ground that cannot be covered by rifle fire, and are 1,200 yards apart. It is here that the sniper plies his trade. He hides somewhere in the slack, and pots (p. 077) at our men from dawn to dusk and from dusk ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... by a lacustrine or marine basin which receives its waters. Wherever it lets fall solid material, its channel is raised in consequence, and the declivity of the whole bed between the head of the embankment and the slack of the stream is reduced. Hence the current, at first accelerated by confinement, is afterwards checked by the mechanical resistance of the matter deposited, and by the diminished inclination of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... follows: Mix ingredients with water into stiff dough; knead well, mould, place in bread tins, and bake in slack oven for from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours (or weigh off dough into 1/2 lb. pieces, mould into flat loaves, place on flat tin, cut across diagonally with sharp knife and bake about ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... were after-reflections when it was too late. I do not wonder at my poor father's senses being dazzled, for, as he said to me, "You see, Jack, after being used to see nothing but Point women, all so slack in stays and their rigging out of order, to fall aboard of a craft like your mother, so trim and neat, ropes all taut, stays well set up, white hammock-cloths spread every day in the week, and when under weigh, with a shawl streaming out like a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... thickness proportionate to their length. The number of props needed for the nets will vary—many or few, according to circumstances; a less number if the tension on the net be great, and a larger number when the nets are slack. (19) ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... Murghadeen, here he was doing well, and times and again asking her to come and live with him. Then Mick would have been able to help her out of his pay much more efficaciously than he could do by his earnings at Kilmacrone, where work was slack and its wage low, so that the result of a lad's daily labour sometimes seemed mainly the putting of a fine edge on a superfluous appetite. All these points were most clearly seen by Mick in the light of a fiercely burning desire; but that ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... friend of Count Bragard, his name is Monsieur Pet-airs." From time to time Monsieur Pet-airs remarked something delicately and pettishly in a gentle and weak voice. His adam's-apple, at such moments, jumped about in a longish slack wrinkled skinny neck which was like the neck of a turkey. To this turkey the approach of Thanksgiving inspired dread. From time to time M. Pet-airs looked about him sidewise as if he expected to see a hatchet. His hands were claws, kind, awkward and nervous. They twitched. The bony ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... other, "to call together, this evening, at this place, for the due consideration of this subject, such of the Assistants as may be here present in Boston, and to advise with them thereupon, when and where I shall hope to be favored with the presence and counsel of my friend, whose zeal is never slack in aught that may redound to the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... down the slack of the bell cord, pulled it twice firmly and listened. Two freezing pipes from the engine answered; they sounded cold. A stop was made and Glover, followed by the trainmen, went outside. Gertrude walking ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... Clay threw the slack of the line from the roof. He had no time to test the strength of the rope nor its length. As the police rushed him he slid over the edge and began to ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... momentum of his speed, plus the weight of Applehead and the saddle, hit the wires fair and full. They popped like cut wires on a bale of hay—and it was lucky that they were tight strung so that there was no slack to take some of the force away. It was not luck, but plain shrewdness on Applehead's part, that Johnny came straight on, so that there was no tearing see-saw of the strands as they broke. Two inch-long cuts on ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... will not dismount; for now that you have warned me I shall know what to expect, and shall not be taken unawares." And he gathered in the slack of his single bridle, tightly gripped the animal between his knees, and sat ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... shrieked for help; down tumbled the nearest hands, and hauled on the tackle in vain. Destruction was rushing on the ship, and on them first. But meantime the captain, with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see, had roared out, " Slack the main sheet." The ship righted, and the port came flying to, and terror-stricken men breathed hard, up to their waists in water and floating boxes. Grey barred the unlucky port and went aft, drenched in body, and wretched in mind, to report his own fault. He found the captain looking grim ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Gage carried the slack form inside. Then, his shoulders sagging, the heavy pistol in his right hand coming to a poise, the fingers of the left hand brushing the butt of the weapon in the holster at his left hip, the vacuous gleam in his eyes telling them all that his senses ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... this morning, going on till nearly noon, and we heard the noise of it in several directions. In the afternoon the ice was quite slack, with a large opening alongside the port side of the ship. At half-past seven pretty strong pressure began, the ice crashing and grinding along the ship's side. About midnight the roar of packing was ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... whose glances slay the folk, on whom he turns his eye; A branch, whose graces break all hearts, as he goes stately by Slack as the night his browlocks are, his face the hue of gold; Fair is his person, and his shape the spear-shaft doth outvie. Ah me, how hard his heart, how soft and slender is his waist! Why is the softness not transferred from this to that, ah why? Were but the softness of his sides made over to his ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... hap is slack and slow in coming, Desire increasing, ay my hope uncertain With doubtful love, that but increaseth pain; For, tiger-like, so swift it is in parting. Alas! the snow black shall it be and scalding, The sea waterless, and fish upon the mountain, The Thames shall back return ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... and divine poem. They will there find that, when the good man was prosperous, the Accuser brought against him the charge, that his serving God so well was from his being sure of good pay; and that therefore he would presently give over or slack his service, if the pay should be withheld: they will also find that, when he was in affliction, his comforters sought to comfort him with the cruel reproach of having been all the while secretly a bad man, and with arguments no less cruel, that his afflictions were sent upon him as a judgment for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... shape, but it may not bend truly; so file a notch with a small round file in each tip half an inch from each extremity, running the groove straight across the 'back,' and slanting it across the sides away from the tips toward the middle or handle of the bow. Make a strong string of slack-twisted shoe-maker's thread, with a loop in each end, so that when the string is put on the bow by slipping the loops into the nocks, it will bend the bow so much that the middle of the string is five inches from the handle. If the bow when thus bent is too stiff in any spot, file it a little ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... no' past wark. If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... dropped. The stifling heat, the whirling dust clouds broken by whiffs of air, dry as from a kiln and impregnated with the pungent scent of the tarweed, made the men drowsy. Jim Bailey nodded, the reins drawing slack between his fingers. Leonard slipped the rifle from his knees to the floor and relaxed against the back of the seat. Through half-shut lids he watched the whitened crests of the Sierra brushed on ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you're getting fat and lazy and can't deny yourself anything—and I call that dirty because it leads one straight into the dirt. You've let yourself get so slack that I don't know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. You—a doctor—sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your patients! In another three or four years you won't get up for your patients... But hang it all, that's ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... determined to mortify his rival Parrah More by a superior display of hospitality, waited upon that parsonage, and exacted a promise from him to come down and partake of the dinner—a promise which the other was not slack in fulfilling. Phaddhy's heart was now on the point of taking its rest, when it occurred to him that there yet remained one circumstance in which he might utterly eclipse his rival, and that was to ask Captain Wilson, his landlord, to ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... if-so-be he is thinking of putting any Johnny Raw over my head, why, I shall resign. I began forrard, Mistress Prettybones, and worked my way aft, like a man. I was six months aboard a Garnsey lugger, hauling in the slack of the lee-sheet and coiling up rigging. From that I went a few trips in a fore-and-after, in the same trade, which, after all, was but a blind kind of sailing in the dark, where a man larns but little, excepting how to steer by the stars. Well, then, dye see, I larnt how ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... since He uttered the promise, and still He lingers; the everlasting hills wear no streak of approaching dawn; we seem to listen in vain for the noise of His chariot wheels. "But the Lord is not slack concerning His promise;" He gives you "this word" in addition to many others as a keepsake—a pledge and guarantee for the certainty of ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... question; the line flew through my hands, cutting them till the blood flowed, and I was obliged to let the fish take his own way: this he did for about eighty yards, when he suddenly stopped. This unexpected halt was a great calamity, for the reel overran itself, having no check-wheel, and the slack bends of the line caught the handle just as he again rushed forward, and with a jerk that nearly pulled the rod from my hands he was gone! I found one of my large hooks broken short off; the confounded reel! The ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... During that slack week we took the opportunity to see a certain amount of Antwerp, and to call on many officials and the many friends who did so much to make our work there a success and our stay a pleasure. To one ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... at it. A case with a large lid, covered by the lashing, gives constant trouble; the whole lashing has to be undone for every little thing one wants out of the case. This is not always convenient; if one is tired and slack, it may sometimes happen that one will put off till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day, especially when it is bitterly cold. The handier one's sledging outfit, the sooner one gets into the tent and ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the month he wrote: "For the last two or three days I have been rather slack in point of work; not being in the vein. To-day I had not written twenty lines before I rushed out (the weather being gorgeous) to bathe. And when I have done that, it is all up with me in the way of authorship until to-morrow. The little dog is in the highest spirits; and jumps, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... as slack tide in the affairs of men, when a crisis seems as if it would never come, and all things stagnate. The Law Courts had as yet not concerned themselves about the will, vacation time had come and all was at a standstill, nor could any steps be taken for Lucas's exchange till it was certain into ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the manoeuvres. The sailors hesitated an instant. Then, recalled to obedience, they began to brace the yards and slack the sheets, and the schooner increased ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... human race. Now look here, Mis' Carrington, let an old woman talk. I'm old and I got wrinkles in my face but there ain't none in my heart, and the only way to keep 'em out of your heart is just to fill it to bustin' with love. Keep the skin tight; don't let it git slack. Why, you'll find you been goin' without love and it's like eatin' without an appetite. It's fillin' your life with somethin' that don't satisfy. Even if you feel you ain't got the best man in the world, make the ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... trout left the water about ten feet from the boat, and came directly at me with fiery eyes, his speckled sides flashing like a meteor. I dodged as he whisked by with a vicious slap of his bifurcated tail, and nearly upset the boat. The line was of course slack, and the danger was that he would entangle it about me, and carry away a leg. This was evidently his game; but I untangled it, and only lost a breast button or two by the swiftly-moving string. The trout plunged into the water ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... evening. Boyton sailing with a faint wind and in slack water. He has by this time crossed two tides. The flood up channel still. 8 P.M.—The ebb down channel to the Varne, being carried many miles north and south respectively by each, and is now in a fair way to reach England, being only four ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... enough to discover the line; keep it always in your eye, and learn to walk upon it; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poise you, till you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk well upon that line, than upon the slack-rope; and, therefore, a good performer shines so much ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... lustre of whose eye Can blot away the sad remembrance Of all these things: Oh my Evadne, spare That tender body, let it not take cold, The vapours of the night will not fall here. To bed my Love; Hymen will punish us For being slack performers of his rites. Cam'st ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a niaiserie as that of the Tractarians who insisted on getting into the pulpit in their surplices, as a sign that the clergy only had the right of preaching to the people, while they forgot that, by means of a free press (of the licence of which they, too, were not slack to avail themselves), every penny-a-liner was preaching to the people daily, and would do so, maugre their surplices, to the end of time. The man who makes the people's songs is a true popular preacher. Whatsoever, true or false, he sends ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... commonly about 13 inches square, with a thickness of three inches. The best quality of baked brick is of a yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue; a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red. The earliest baked bricks are of this last color. The sun-dried bricks have even more variety of size than the baked ones. They are sometimes as large as 16 inches square and seven inches thick, sometimes as small as ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... leet, but they said nought about it, but went back to their wark, lookin' sulky. But I've had very little bother with 'em sin'. I never see'd a lot o' chaps so altered sin' th' last February, as they are. At that time no mortal mon hardly could walk through 'em 'beawt havin' a bit o' slack-jaw, or a lump o' clay or summat flung a-him. But it isn't so, neaw. I consider th' men are doin' very weel. But, come; yo mun go deawn wi' me a-lookin' at yon ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... Greg returned. "I am glad he does," Dick went on. "This is no time for slack soldiering. Greg, I'll feel consoled for working eighteen hours a day if it results in making the Ninety-ninth the best ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... A slack rope tightens. Smoke beats downward. Sun is red in the morning. There is a pale yellow ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... brow; His dark cropt pate that erst at church or fair, So smooth and silky, shew'd his morning's care, Which all uncouth in matted locks combin'd, Now, ends erect, defies the ruffling wind; His neck-band loose, and hosen rumpled low, A careful lad, nor slack at labour shew. Nor scraping chickens chirping 'mongst the straw, Nor croaking rook o'er-head, nor chatt'ring daw; Loud-breathing cow amongst the rampy weeds, Nor grunting sow that in the furrow feeds; Nor sudden ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... not freeze until the middle of January, and opens early in May. There are two swinging ferries for crossing the river. A stout cable is anchored in mid-stream, and the ferry-boat attached to its unanchored end. The slack of the cable is buoyed by several small boats, over which it passes at regular intervals. The ferry swings like a horizontal pendulum, and is propelled by turning its sides at an angle against the current. I crossed on this ferry in ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... first he had the fixed idea that he must only work because he was a carpenter, but at every carpenter's shop where he applied he was told that they had just dismissed men on account of work being so slack, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he made up his mind to undertake any job that he might come across on the road. And so by turns he was a navvy, stableman, stone sawer; he split wood, lopped the branches of trees, dug wells, mixed mortar, tied up faggots, tended ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... a man thought well of. You have great provisions upon your cart. This man has nothing but the unwashed shirt which hangs on his slack back. It will not become you to march handcuffed with his like, going between two policemen ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... the bows of the leading boat, glanced over his right shoulder and beheld his line of followers, all in perfect order, extend themselves and close the mouth of the Cove. Ahead of him—ahead but a few yards only—he heard the slack tide run faintly on the shingle. From the dark beach came no sound. Overhead quivered the expectant stars. He lifted his sword-arm, and from point to hilt ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sailors were hauling in the slack hawsers, and the bearded stevedores on the floating quay tugged at the gangway. Many of our presumed passengers had only come to say good-bye, which they were now waving and shouting from the shore. The rain fell dismally, and a black, hopeless sky settled down upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... the ends of the rope can be tucked through, in opposite directions, below the knot, and the latter is then drawn tight. There are then two loops—which should be made small—through which the hands are to pass after the rest of the tying is done. Just sufficient slack is left to admit of the hands passing through the loops, which, lastly, are drawn close to the wrists, the knot coming between the latter. No one, from the appearance of such a knot, would suspect it could be slipped. The mediums thus tied can, immediately after the committee have inspected the ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... along the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... workmen generally, as I have said, have worked loyally and well, there have, I regret to say, been instances where absence, irregular timekeeping, and slack work have led to a marked diminution in the output of our factories. In some cases the temptations of drink account for this failure to work up to the high standard expected. It has been brought ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... immortal fingers did imprint That heavenly path with many a curious dint That runs along his back; but my rude pen Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, 70 Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes; Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his That leapt into the water for a kiss Of his own shadow, and, despising many, Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen, Enamour'd of his beauty had he been: His presence made the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... wild romance aboard these cars—and in the sturdy bosom of Annie herself. The time for soft romance is in the morning, between ten o'clock and one, when things are rather slack: that is, except market-day and Saturday. Thus Annie has time to look about her. Then she often hops off her car and into a shop where she has spied something, while the driver chats in the main road. There is very ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... by the country people, who were partial to their old master, and irritated against his successor. In the Baron's own words, 'The matter did not coincide with the feelings of the commons of Bradwardine, Mr. Waverley; and the tenants were slack and repugnant in payment of their mails and duties; and when my kinsman came to the village wi' the new factor, Mr. James Howie, to lift the rents, some wanchancy person—I suspect John Heatherblutter, the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... salesladies. But business was slack, and people went right by our door, and I jumped out one day and started to pull 'em in. And ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... her!"—and whether the puff of wind slackened or the mate lost hold of the wheel, he never has been able to tell, but she righted enough for a moment to let him get on the deck and rush forward to slack up the fore-sheet, bawling meanwhile through the darkness to the mate to keep her head up, as he himself tore and tugged at ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the floor of my cell close by the wall, in a strained and distorted posture, as though I were dead after a struggle or convulsions. When he should stoop over me I had but to grasp his throat with one hand and strike him a terrific blow with the slack of my chain, which I gripped firmly in my right hand for ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... out the ragged clothes on the althea-bushes and the rickety fence. "Cynthy, air ye a-goin' ter sit thar in the door all day, an' that thar pot a-bilin' all the stren'th out 'n that thar cabbige an' roas'in'-ears? Dish up dinner, child, an' don't be so slow an' slack-twisted like yer dad." ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... had also other causes to tremble; for it received the counter-shock of commercial crises, of failures, strikes, slack seasons, all inherent to great political disturbances. In times of revolution misery is both cause and effect. The blow which it deals rebounds upon it. This population full of proud virtue, capable to the highest degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... receive it, and the postmaster-general who permits the department to exceed that simple duty and intermeddle with the rights of the people should not only be impeached and removed from office in one time and two motions, but taken by the slack of the pantalettes and pitched headlong into the penitentiary. It appears that the indignant people assaulted the nigger postmaster. That is indeed to be regretted; still I can but wonder that they do not shoot the whole umbilicus ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... pupil. These glittering eyes looked out upon the world from beneath their eyelids of bronze, in the time of Abraham. You will find it in the museum at Cairo. Ride a donkey in the Mooskee if you want real sport; and if you feel a little slack, climb the Great Pyramid. Ask for an Arab named Schehati, and tell him you want to do it one minute quicker than any lady has ever done ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Americanisms, gleamed the little gold cross of the adobe Church of San Antonio. Around it were green, tall cottonwoods and the straggling mud-houses and pungent goat-corrals of its people. Toward the canyon rose the tipple and fans of the Dauntless colliery, banked in slack and slate, and surrounded by paintless mine-houses, while to the right swept the ugly shape of the company's store. The mine end of the town was not pretty, nor was it quiet, like the plaza. Just at present the whistle was blowing, and throngs of miners were gathering ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... had been freshly cross-cut," declared Thurston with an ominous glitter in his eyes. "I understand you are pretty slack just now. As a favor, would you hire your chopping gang to me for a few days? I'll tell you why I ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... prayer, especially that of the morning, meekness, compunction, careful self-examination every evening, fasting, humility, alms, &c. In Pa. 43, p. 146, he thus apostrophizes the rich: "Hear this, you all who are slack in giving alms: hear this, you who, by hoarding up your treasures, lose them yourselves: hear me you, who, by perverting the end of your riches, are no better by them than those who are rich only in a dream; nay, your condition is fair worse," &c. He says that the poor, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... pate that erst at church or fair, So smooth and silky, shew'd his morning's care, Which all uncouth in matted locks combin'd, Now, ends erect, defies the ruffling wind; His neck-band loose, and hosen rumpled low, A careful lad, nor slack at labour shew. Nor scraping chickens chirping 'mongst the straw, Nor croaking rook o'er-head, nor chatt'ring daw; Loud-breathing cow amongst the rampy weeds, Nor grunting sow that in the furrow feeds; Nor sudden breeze ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... to grumble about, sir; but I must say that it has been more slack than it was. We have all done our best, but we have missed you terribly; and the men don't seem to take quite as much pains with their drill as they used to do, when you were in command. However, that will be all right now that you have come back again. I have ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-stroem, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... most of this privilege, and competes with his fellow-manufacturers to the utmost in the market: so that the distribution of wares is organized on a gambling basis, and as a consequence many more hands are needed when trade is brisk than when it is slack, or even in an ordinary condition: under the stimulus also of the lust for acquiring this surplus value of labour, the great machines of our epoch were invented and are yearly improved, and they ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... What to resolve upon?—So many cares Entangle me at once, and rend my mind, Pulling it diff'rent ways. My love, compassion, This urgent match, my rev'rence for my father, Who yet has ever been so gentle to me, And held so slack a rein upon my pleasures. —And I oppose him?—Racking thought!—Ah me! I know ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... seasons, times, Let all remind the soul of heaven; Our slack devotion needs them all; And faith, so oft of sense the thrall, While she, by aid of Nature, climbs, May hope ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... catching sight of a strapping-looking fellow in blue overalls, a trunk on one shoulder, a carpetbag in his hand, called out: "John, dear, come here! I want ye. Here, Mike! You and Bobby get that steamer baggage out on the sidewalk, and don't be slack about it, for it goes to Hoboken, and there may be a block in the river and the ferry-boats behind time. Wait, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... me. "You cannot give a better sign," said he. "My only fear of you was, that you would dash into debate at once, like a tumbler jumping from a precipice; and that, like him, all that you would have gained by it would be broken limbs for life. If the fellow had kept to his slack-rope and his stage, he would have been safe enough, and gained some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... knapsacks come bumping along until they slid over the eaves above me, and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso's end and braced myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack and help him as best I might. As he came slowly down from crack to crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in the rope until ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... very hard on me. I've come here to my native place to settle down, and if I settle I've got to marry, and I have never seen a girl whom I would rather marry and settle with than Miss Mayberry. She may be a little slack about taking care of the baby, but I'll talk to her about that, and I know she will keep a closer eye on him. Now if you want to see everybody happy, don't prejudice Mrs. Cristie against that girl. Give ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... opened slightly and his slack lower jaw tightened in a ghastly little grimace. The transported Pablo seized him and shook him furiously, meanwhile deluging Don Mike with a stream of affectionate profanity that fell from his ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... The "slack" Beowulf, like the sluggish Brutus, ultimately reveals his true character, and is presented with a historic sword of honor. It is "laid on his breast" (l. 2195) as Hun laid Lāfing on Hengest's ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... anxious to gain your suffrage to his views, he endeavours rather to conciliate your opinion than conquer it by force. Still there is enough of tenacity of sentiment to prevent, in London society, where all must go slack and easy, W.C. from rising to the very top of the tree as a conversation man, who must not only wind the thread of his argument gracefully, but also know when to let go. But I like the Scotch taste better; there is more matter, more information, above ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... illumined the horizon and the Texan's voice blended with a low rumble of thunder. "With the force of water the way it is," he explained, "we can't move this boat an inch. It'll carry to the middle on the slack of the line, an' in the middle we'll stay. It'll be uphill both ways from there an' we can't budge her an inch. Then, either the line'll bust, or the river will keep on risin' till it just naturally ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... requires a brisk oven, but not too hot, or it would blacken the crust; on the other hand, if the oven be too slack, the paste will be soddened, and will not rise, nor will it have any colour. Tart-tins, cake-moulds, dishes for baked puddings, pattypans, &c., should all be buttered before the article intended to be baked is put in them: things to be baked on ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... came down through bare rocks, then through twisted mountain-pines, then through green and lovely valleys, and so into the plains of northern Italy. He saw the mountain torrents leap and flash, and grow always bigger and stronger. He saw them slack their speed and widen their beds in the upland valleys. He saw them grow sluggish, tawny with mud, ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... hemp, in order to procure the necessary elasticity and guard against the wire-rope parting when the terrific strain should be put upon it. After this the hemp portion of the tow-rope was secured to bollards on the quarter-decks of both craft, the slack of the hawsers attached to the kedge-anchors was taken up, the skippers stood by their respective engine-room telegraphs, and, at a signal from Wong-lih, the San-chau went slowly ahead until the towing hawser was taut. Steam was then given to the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... pair of sportsmen slack! You never mark, though trout or jack, Or little foolish stickleback, Your baited snares may capture. What care has SHE for line and hook? She turns her back upon the brook, Upon her lover's eyes to look In ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reports not only of Sir John Boswell, but of the other two English knights, were so strong that he dared not express his discontent. He himself had twice been engaged with pirates, but had gained no particular credit, and indeed had, in the opinion of his comrades, been somewhat slack in the fray. He was no favourite in the auberge, though he spared no pains to ingratiate himself with the senior knights, and had a short time before been very severely reprimanded by the bailiff for striking ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... surely, "That he be found faithful," and that he truly dispense, and lay out the goods of the Lord; that he give meat in time; give it, I say, and not sell it; meat, I say, and not poison. For the one doth intoxicate and slay the eater, the other feedeth and nourisheth him. Finally, let him not slack and defer the doing of his office, but let him do his duty when time is, and need requireth it. This is also to be looked for, that he be one whom God hath called and put in office, and not one that cometh uncalled, unsent for; not one that of himself presumeth to ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... the horse's mouth, cursing in low, abrupt sentences. The horse stopped, the blades slipped, again tearing up a hill of corn. From sheer rage the boy was silent, then he jumped from the cultivator, and gathering the slack of the reins, hit the horse about the head with all his might. His face was dry and white, his eyes blazing. As he continued to strike the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... certain native tone or temper in the pupil's psychological constitution than on anything else. Some persons appear to have a naturally poor focalization of the field of consciousness; and in such persons actions hang slack, and inhibitions seem to exert ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... O'er Wibsey Slack aw coom last neet, Wi' reekin heead and weary feet, A strange, strange chap, aw chonced to meet; He made mi start; But pluckin up, aw did ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... of Maimie's visit sped by on winged feet. To Ranald they were brimming with happiness, every one of them. It was the slack time of the year, between seeding and harvest, and there was nothing much to keep him at home. And so, with Harry, his devoted companion, Ranald roamed the woods, hitching up Lisette in Yankee's buckboard, put her through her paces, and would now and then get ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line lay upon ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... trigger." But since the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure a good aim, the shooter should squeeze, that is, he should slowly and ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... at the School. It was an absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields' never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so the house is. He was the most inconspicuous ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... to Lucy Morris asking her to be his wife. That was three weeks since, and as the barrier against him at Fawn Court had been removed by Lady Fawn herself, the Fawn girls thought that as a lover he was very slack; but Lucy was not in the least annoyed. Lucy knew that it was all right; for Frank, as he took his last walk round the shrubbery with her during that visit, had given her to understand that there ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... school and continued a tradition; only the school and tradition were Scotch, and not English. While the English language was becoming daily more pedantic and inflexible, and English letters more colourless and slack, there was another dialect in the sister country, and a different school of poetry tracing its descent, through King James I., from Chaucer. The dialect alone accounts for much; for it was then written colloquially, which kept it fresh and supple; and, although not shaped for heroic flights, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Before he knew it, he was standing with his back to Angele's grave, was facing the north, facing the line of pear trees and the little valley where the Seed ranch lay. At first, he thought this was because he had allowed his will to weaken, the concentrated power of his mind to grow slack. And once more turning toward the grave, he banded all his thoughts together in a consummate effort, his teeth grinding together, his hands pressed to his forehead. He forced himself to the notion that Angele was alive, and to ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... minutes more and they were at the fork in the way, and, leaving the trail to Cragg's, the girl pulled into the grass-grown, less-traveled trail to the south, which entered the timber at this point and began to climb with steady grade. Letting the reins fall slack, she turned to her mother with reassuring words. "There! Now we're safe. We won't meet anybody on this road except possibly a mover's outfit. We're in ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... Ambassador and half the Embassy staff were on leave in England. As matters were very slack just then, the Charge d'Affaires and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four days' fishing, leaving me in charge of the Embassy, with an Attache to help me. My servant came to me early one morning as I was in bed, and told me that an ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... walked fifty miles without stopping or eating. I slept under a shed that night, and the very next day found work at good wages on some steamers the Erie Railroad was then building for the Lake Superior trade. With intervals of other employment when for any reason work in the ship-yard was slack, I kept that up all winter, and became quite opulent, even to the extent of buying a new suit of clothes, the first I had had since I landed. I paid off all my debts, and quarrelled with all my friends about religion. I never had any patience ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... bracing himself strongly against any tell-tale jerk, with the additional security of an anchor obtained by driving the pick of his ax deeply into the surface ice. It was Bower's business to keep the rope quite taut both above and below; but the American was sure that he was gathering the slack behind him with his right hand while he carried the ax in his left, and did not ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... places in France," serving under John, Duke of Bedford, in the "Hundred Years' War," and after fighting in eleven battles within the space of two years he won knighthood at the duke's hands at St. Luce. In the churchyard was buried William Newton, the Minstrel of the Peak, and Samuel Slack, who in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was the most popular bass singer in England. When quite young Slack competed with others for a position in a college choir at Cambridge, and sang Purcell's famous air, "They that go ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... here," said Mr. Cram to the attorney and his companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to the satisfaction of John Ayliffe, he rolled away along the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... ended we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be led to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a good demand continues for the home trade, and occasionally a small advance upon the last July rates is paid on such sorts suitable for that branch, but there is almost no demand for export, the consumption of the article in foreign countries being this year unusually slack. The shipments to Russia, since the opening of the season, amount to only 2,209 chests, against 3,439 chests during the same time last year. A public sale was held yesterday, in Liverpool, of about 400 chests of East India, and 120 serons of Caracas. Of the former about 100 chests were withdrawn ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... made by following, towards the longer loop, the direction as numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and is terminated by the loop, 6, 7, 6, finally passing it over the head of the post, A. This knot holds itself, the turns being in opposite directions. To untie it, we slack the turns of the cable sufficiently to again pass the loop, 6, 7, 6, over the post, A, and turn the ends in the contrary direction to that in which they were made (as 5, 4, 3, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... quickly and rounded to while her weather fore and mizzen yards flew forward until they touched the starboard backstays and the men hauled in the slack of the braces. With the main yard square to check her way the jibs drooped down along the stays. "Mr. Broadrick, you may let go the starboard anchor and furl sails." The mate grasped a top maul and struck the trigger of the ring stopper ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... one of our firm—gave me a week's notice to quit: 'work was slack,' he said, 'and they didn't want so many girls.' But I'm just as sure as sure can be that Mr. Snipe's at the bottom of it, for I've been at the store, as I told you, four years and more, and they always reckoned me one of their best hands, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... Wilkins worked hard at first, and his ability, his shrewdness, confounded us, as it had confounded Silas Upham. Then, he began to slack, as boys put it. Small duties were ill done or not done at all. But we liked him, were, indeed, charmed by him. As Ajax remarked, Fascination does not trot in the same class ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... my future life; although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more slack." Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken to me, and as Beatrice willed was ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... thee, good master," quoth Stutely, springing to his feet, "that thou hast chosen me for this adventure. Truly, my limbs do grow slack through abiding idly here. As for two of my six, I will choose Midge the Miller and Arthur a Bland, for, as well thou knowest, good master, they are stout fists at the quarterstaff. Is it not so, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of it which are subject to the annual inundation. The chief employment of this material by the Assyrians was for bricks, which were either simply dried in the sun, or exposed to the action of fire in a kiln. In this latter case they seem to have been uniformly slack-baked; they are light for their size, and are of a pale-red color. The clay of which the bricks were composed was mixed with stubble or vegetable fibre, for the purpose of holding it together—a practice ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... his wharfage and was edging the Belle Julie up to it. The bow men paid out slack, and Griswold and the black, dropping from the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to the nearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-line man's first duty, Griswold took a fraction of a second to look around him. The mooring-ring ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... main clue-garnets, some o' you!" yelled the captain. "Clue up! Weather main-braces, the rest o' you! Slack away to looward! Round wi' the yards, you farmers—round wi' 'em! Down wi' the wheel, there! Bring her up three points and hold her. H——l an' blazes, what's he firin' ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... as they pace the deck, so as to brace the body and keep their trowsers up at the same time; their gait is loose, and their dress loose, and their limbs loose; indeed, they are rather too fond of slack. They climb like monkeys, and depend more on their paws than their legs. They tumble up, but never down. They count, not by fingers, it is tedious, but by hands; they put a part for the whole, and call themselves ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... drinking their wine; when the first explosion threw them off their seats, and struck them against the carlings of the upper deck, so as to stun them. Captain Pellow, however, had sufficient presence of mind to fly to the cabin windows, and seeing the two hawsers, one slack in the bit and the other taut, threw himself with an amazing leap, which he afterwards said, nothing but his sense of danger could have enabled him to take, upon the latter, and by that means saved himself from the general destruction, though his face had been badly cut against the carlings, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... ROOFS OF HOUSES.—Slack Stone Lime in a large tub or barrel with boiling water, covering the tub or barrel to keep in the steam. When thus slacked pass six quarts through a fine sieve. It will then be in a state of fine flour. To this add one quart Rock Salt and one gallon of Water. Boil the mixture and skim ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... it were reached a climax, when, instead of the line breaking or Mark going over the side, the strong cord, which had been hissing here and there through the water, suddenly grew slack, and the tension was taken off Mark's muscles and mind to give place to ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... leaping upon their victims and "seizing" them with malevolent delight. The concrete comparison was ready to their hand in the attack of fierce beasts of prey; and as the tiger leaps for the head to break the neck with one stroke of his paw, the wildcat flies at the face, the wolf springs for the slack of the flank or the hamstring, so these different disease demons appear each to have its favorite point of attack: smallpox, the skin; cholera, the bowels; the Black Death, the armpits and the groin; and pneumonia, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... I am not going anywhere in particular," Captain Wilson replied. "The chief says he thinks that things have got rather slack, since I have been away. There are several bands of bush rangers, who have been doing a deal of mischief up country; so to begin with, he wishes me to make a tour of inspection, and to report generally. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... said her elderly friend. "Besides, there's nothin' amiss with him, settin' aside his foolishness. I've a-thought sometimes, now, o' buildin' a boat down here, an', when the time came, makin' believe to exchange. Boat-buildin' is slack just now, but I might trust to tradin' her off on someone—when he'd done with her—which in the natur' of things can't be long. I've a model o' the old Pass By hangin' up somewhere in the passage behind the shop. We might run her up in two months, fit to launch, an' finish her ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... If the rope snapped when it was taut, those on board would feel the spring of it, and I should be without doubt discovered before I could sever the other: whereas, if the severance was made when the rope was slack, there would be no shock, and the men would be aware of nothing until the vessel swung round on the tide. I so timed my knife work, therefore, that the last strand was cut through when the bow was dipping. The moment it was done I sank down ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... determination that did not spring altogether from love of the sport. The water of the British Columbian river in which he stood knee-deep was icy cold; his rubber boots were badly ripped and leaky, and he was wet with the drizzle that drove down the lonely valley. It was difficult to reach the slack behind a boulder some distance outshore, and the arm he strained at every cast ached from hours of assiduous labor; but there was another ache in his left side which was the result of insufficient food, and though the fish ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... bullet, and nodded his approbation with a smile, but again receded into the bushes, suffering the slack of the twine to fall down in an easy curve into the ravine: so that the double communication would scarce have been perceived, even by one looking for ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling of relief and satisfaction by the full grown, and of extravagant anticipation by the callow brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold glittering expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... as was his wont when grog was being passed. The rum he consumed seemed to affect him very little. No one ever heard him sing, though his cruel face, with its awful, livid scar, would lean forward and sway to and fro with the rhythm of the choruses. He could walk a reeling deck or climb a slack shroud as well, to all appearances, when he had taken a gallon as most men when they were sober. From Newfoundland to Trinidad he was known among the pirates as a man whose head would stand drink like a sheet-iron bucket. This reputation was made possible by the fact that he was no talker ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... that a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... often a great many Christian labourers to be seen in the Jewish Guberniums, in consequence of their business being slack in their ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... by poor Robert's son, and if he will be such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in electioneering. Squires hid ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... mainly by its wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils constituting the family furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, is familiar to all who live in cities. There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than these children of rich families, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... published. Even the right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... beating or whether the throbbing came from the pulses in his finger tips. As well as he could he bound up the wounds with handkerchiefs and stanched the bleeding. With ice-cold water from the stream he drenched the bruised face. A faint sigh quivered through the slack, ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... had a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn, when the man's hand reached out and clutched him, half by the jowl, half by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no threat in that reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, all-confident, and it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. To him it was the most natural ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... the many changes necessary, in his opinion, to bring the business to a paying basis. All which information Gard accepted for testing purposes, but gathered from the total the fact that through ill health on the part of the departing captain, the ropes all round had got slack and that the tightening of them would be a matter of no ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... hollow of their hands: And, notwithstanding our own great extremity, they were given it, to teach them some humanity, instead of their accustomed barbarity both to us and other nations. Some put leaden bullets into their months, to slack their thirst by chewing them. In every corner of the ship, the miserable cries of the sick and wounded were sounding lamentably in our ears, pitifully crying out and lamenting for want of drink, being ready to die, yea many dying for lack ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as Diggory says, 'I defy him to extort that d——d muffin face of his into madness.' I was very sorry to see him in the character of the 'Elephant on the slack rope;' for, when I last saw him, I was in raptures with his performance. But then I was sixteen—an age to which all London condescended to subside. After all, much better judges have admired, and may again; but I venture to 'prognosticate ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Nor was Franklin slack. Hovering with his great division in the plain below and knowing that he was beaten, he nevertheless turned one hundred and sixteen cannon that he carried with him upon Jackson's front and swept all the woods and ridges ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his watch. It was half-past five. It was the slack time of the day in such a region, as he well knew, yet he was curious to see. In all his score of years of wandering and studying social conditions over the world, he had carried with him the memory of his old ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... began to insist upon payment of his debts. Spring was at hand, the store would soon be closed up, for business was slack in the summer, and besides, Foxy had ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... on the ground, to rest. Trevison had meditated, not without a certain wry humor, upon the strength and the protracted potency of Manti's whiskey, for not once during his home-coming had Levins shown the slightest sign of returning consciousness. He was as slack as a meal sack now, as Trevison lifted him from the pony's back and let him slip gently to the ground at his feet. A few minutes later, Trevison was standing in the doorway of the cabin, his burden over his shoulder, the weak ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the Finnish sailors were hauling in the slack hawsers, and the bearded stevedores on the floating quay tugged at the gangway. Many of our presumed passengers had only come to say good-bye, which they were now waving and shouting from the shore. The rain fell dismally, and a black, hopeless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... foul interior the first thorough washing it ever received, driving the despoilers before it with the force of a battering-ram, yet even then, unsatisfied, following up its victory. With perhaps half a dozen soldiers and as many mill-hands hauling on the slack of the hose behind him, through a north window came the tall, slender, serious-faced person of Mr. Davies, a laughing young lance corporal manning the butt with him, and, aiming low and driving discipline and punishment at the rate ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... catch the first streak of the Norwegian coast above the horizon, as if it was something he hardly dared hope that he should live to see. He paced up and down for hours together, anathematising through his teeth the old tub with her slack sails and rolling motion—they seemed to be drifting, not sailing; and from the restlessness and impatience he exhibited, it began to be whispered among the crew that the Englishman must have a screw loose somewhere. When the dim outline of Lindesnaes became discernible ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... it with my line. My expectation was that as the spar parted and fell it would be held hanging by my tackle until I could get down to the deck again and lower it away; and that really was what did happen—only as it fell there was a bit of slack line to take up, and this gave such a tremendous jerk to the cross-trees that I was within an ace of being shaken out of them and of going down to the deck with a bang. But I didn't—which is the main thing—and ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... put his hands on the arms of the chair, and kissed me violently, twice. The fire that consumes the world ran scorchingly through me. Every muscle was suddenly strained into tension, and then fell slack. My face flushed; I let my head slip sideways, so that my left cheek was against the back of the chair. Through my drooping eyelashes I could see the snake-like glitter of his eyes as he stood over me. I shuddered and ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... sleep I lay a-dream With the goblins and the bears Winding like mad arabesques Through my slack and heated brain. ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... of the swollen river. The barge was first to feel its influence, and was hurried towards the river against the strongest efforts of its boatmen. One by one the other and smaller boats contrived to get into the slack water of crossing streets, and one was swamped before his eyes. But James Smith kept only the barge in view. His difficulty in following it was increased by his inexperience in managing a boat, and the quantity of drift which now charged the current. Trees torn by their roots ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... small forks, the notches not deep; they should be stout and solid, of a thickness proportionate to their length. The number of props needed for the nets will vary—many or few, according to circumstances; a less number if the tension on the net be great, and a larger number when the nets are slack. (19) ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... A large ship was bearing down towards us from the eastward. We had our whole sail set, and as the sun shone on it, I hoped that we might now possibly be seen. I was not so sanguine as some of the men had suddenly become on seeing the ship. I knew that too often a very slack look-out is kept on board many ships, and even then only just ahead to see that no vessel is in the way or likely to get there. The topsails and more than half the courses of the stranger had already appeared above the ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... glanced furtively up toward Willem's room in the bedroom gallery above his head. Then he picked up the photograph and looked at it long with eyes full of trouble and apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid of a ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... together. You are both of you negligent of social duties—duties they are, Ruthie, for man was not born to serve alone—though Phil is far better than you, with your queer habits, and Heaven only knows where you got them, neither your father nor your dear sainted mother was slack ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... silence his comrade commenced to struggle into his underclothes and "fatigue-slacks." Yorke snapped the line and reeled in the slack. "Stiff!" he kept ejaculating "stiff! Yes, by gad! and I can make a pretty good guess who that stiff is! . . . Burke'll have all the evidence he wants—now. You beat it, Reddy, as soon as you're fit ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... well in double harness, it seems to me," he responded. "I can't see that either is taking all the load while the other soldiers and lets the traces slack." ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... I seized it with my hands, below the part that gave; then—one fierce little run back—and I brought him level with the edge. He clutched at Elsie's hand. I turned thrice round, to wind the slack about my body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh; but nothing mattered now, except to save him. 'Catch the cloak, Elsie!' I cried; 'catch it: pull him gently in!' Elsie caught it and pulled him in, with wonderful pluck and calmness. We hauled him over ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... half-fainting form of the Leopard Woman. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her muscles had all gone slack, so that her body felt soft and warm. Kingozi, waiting, remembered her as she had looked the evening of his call—silk-clad, lithe, proud, with blood-red lips, and haughty, fathomless eyes, and the single ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... better tieing are employed than is usual. It takes four strands of No. 10 to give the same working stress as a -in. threaded rod and the tieing in of four strands of wire so that they will be without slack and give is a task requiring some skill. Bolts are much more easily placed and made tight. In the matter of cost of metal left in the wall, the question is between the cost of scrap gas pipe and of wire; the pound ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... was alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international politics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people attach any great ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... in the captive's place, Scarcely could see the outline of his face. I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back: "Loose thou my hands," I said. "This pace let slack. Forget we now that thou and I are foes. I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close; I like the courage of thine eye and brow; I like thee better than my ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... round-cheeked, blue-eyed rogue who takes my thumb in all his fingers when we go walking. His jumpers are slack behind and they wag from side to side in an inexpressibly funny manner, but this I am led to believe springs not from any special genius but is common to all children. It is only recently that he learned to walk, for although he was forward ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... than these might endanger the peace was shown about the same time at certain Tennessee mines where prevailed the bad system of farming out convicts to compete with citizen-miners. Business being slack, deserving workmen were put on short time. Resenting this, miners at Tracy City, Inman, and Oliver Springs summarily removed convicts from the mines, several of these escaping. At Coal Creek the rioters were resisted by ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the sound of the lone sentry's tread As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed, Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their mother,—may Heaven ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... which were her native trade. In busy times she could afford to hire over one of the Saltash fish-women—the Johnses or the Glanvilles; you'll have heard of them, maybe?—to lend her a hand: but in anything like a slack season she'd be down at low water, with her petticoat trussed over her knees, raking cockles with her own hands. Yes, yes, a powerful, a remarkable woman! and a pity it was (I've heard my mother say) to see such a healthy, strong couple ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... powers developing, and glory in the thought that they have been given him for his own joy and that of humanity. Then when temptation comes to him, and he remembers how its indulgence has left him slack and bored, it will seem to him like a candle-flame in the sun of his happiness, a wretched little mean and unworthy thing breaking in on and threatening to ruin the peace and harmony of his life. And so he will ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... pilot on board the Resolution, who imagined the tide was setting against us. In this, however, he was much deceived; as we found, upon making the experiment, that it set to the northward till ten o'clock. The next morning he fell into a similar mistake; for, at five, on the appearance of slack water, he gave orders to get under weigh; but the ignorance he had discovered, having put us on our guard, we chose to be convinced, by our own observations, before we weighed; and, on trying the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... standing to arms while others ate; but dinner-time is slack time, even among animals, and it was close ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for reforms, George,—when ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... anticipation of an immediate advance east, feared that such an obstacle would hamper them. When I saw Foch on this afternoon, however, he was all in favour of the inundation. He told me he thought the enemy was very "slack" in the north, that fresh French troops were being landed at Dunkirk, and that he still expected to see his hopes of an early advance realized. It was impossible to be closely associated with Foch and not come under the spell of his sanguine temperament, which was always a ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... talk in that way before Sally, father, for her head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was a-showin' ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... steed,—his slack hand fell; upon the silent face He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad place. His hope was crushed, his after fate untold in martial strain: His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... fields—perforce they were no more than slaves. As for the vital industries, everything prospered. The members of the great labor castes were contented and worked on merrily. For the first time in their lives they knew industrial peace. No more were they worried by slack times, strike and lockout, and the union label. They lived in more comfortable homes and in delightful cities of their own—delightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they had formerly ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... being slack for a short distance, we shifted the Hecla half a mile to the northward, into a less insecure berth. I then walked to a broad valley facing the sea near us, where a considerable stream discharged itself, and where, in passing ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... was a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... infantile knuckles with harness soap. Out of the love that he bore for the beautiful dumb brutes grew an understanding that in time became almost uncanny. All the jockeys and hostlers said there was magic in the lad's hands. He could ride anything on hoofs with a slack rein; and the worst biter in the stable would take a bridle from him as ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... said Morley, turning it over and over admiringly. "If that isn't the cleverest thing I ever saw. This little screw regulates the slack, doesn't it? Does your legal mind get on ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... hazardous passage from one ship to the other. The "Thisbe" had but slight way on her; the hawser was consequently somewhat slack, and the weight of the people on it brought it down into the water. The lieutenant and several of the men clung on, but the midshipman was by some means or other washed off. Unable to swim, he cried out ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... find we are in a great fright about Plunket's motion on the 16th. The Opposition are fortunately split upon it, but our country support is very slack upon it, and if Plunket don't make a better case than he did before, we shall be in a scrape—in fact, it will come to the question of whether the Irish Government is to stand or fall, or whether the Catholic or Protestant ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... or finally by a lacustrine or marine basin which receives its waters. Wherever it lets fall solid material, its channel is raised in consequence, and the declivity of the whole bed between the head of the embankment and the slack of the stream is reduced. Hence the current, at first accelerated by confinement, is afterwards checked by the mechanical resistance of the matter deposited, and by the diminished inclination of its channel, and then begins again to let fall the earth it holds in suspension, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on—slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... weak and faint desire Strive against God most high— Never be slack in service, never tire Of sacred loyalty; Nor fail to wend unto the altar-side, Where with the blood of kine Steams up the offering, by the quenchless tide Of Ocean, Sire divine! Be this within my heart, indelible— Offend not with thy tongue! Sweet, sweet ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Winter was the ranchman's "slack season"; but Roosevelt found, nevertheless, that there was work to be done even at that time of year to test a man's fiber. Activities, which in the ordinary Eastern winter would have been merely the casual incidents of the day's work, took on some of the character of Arctic exploration in ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Strange how few, After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment. Few indeed! When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more." There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth That can for long keep footing under that When its slack syllables tighten to a thought? Here, let me write it down! I wish to see Just how a thing like that ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... much as it does in washing dishes. I guess Andrew's books must be some good after all because he surely does mull over them without end. I can forgive his being a shiftless farmer so long as he really does his literary chores up to the hilt. A man can be slack in everything else, if he does one thing as well as he possibly can. And I guess it won't matter my being an ignoramus in literature so long as I'm rated A-1 in the kitchen. That's what I used to think as I polished and scoured and scrubbed and dusted and swept and then ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... rap. A Prussian hussar on a grey horse goes by at a dash. From other shops, the noise of striking blows: Pounds, thumps, and whacks; Wooden sounds: splinters—cracks. Paris is full of the galloping of horses and the knocking of hammers. "Hullo! Friend Martin, is business slack That you are in the street this morning? Don't turn your back And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole. I've just been taking a stroll. The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs Elysees. I can't get the smell of them out of ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... job. I give you my word on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... up? It's beastly when a friend marries,—and I grant he's rather young,—but I should say it's the best thing for him. A decent woman—and you have proved not one thing against her—a decent woman will keep him up to the mark and stop him getting slack. She'll make him responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie, I always find him a little effeminate. And, really,"—his voice grew sharper, for he was irritated by Ansell's conceit, "and, really, you talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They pay a civil visit to your rooms, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... voice went on; only when it stopped was she aware of the mother's serene attitude of waiting, of polite regret at being present at a disagreeable scene; then the girl's lips resumed their sweetness, the beautiful hands fell slack upon her knees, the head lifted and, turning, rested peacefully against the cushion of her chair. The table was violently shaken. A small ornament upon it leaped into the air and fell in Kate's lap. She sprang to her feet with a cry of alarm, shaking the thing away as if ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... planned, and possibly are now finished, still other works, by which the perilous roadstead outside this harbor shall be transformed into a secure anchorage of sixteen hundred acres. Past events warrant us in believing that these improvements will be pursued with no slack hand, until astonished Europe finds another Cherbourg, a safe harbor, ample means of repair, and frowning guns to repel all invaders. Imprudent Young France, indeed, whispers now that Algiers makes the Mediterranean a French lake. But ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone, resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the general shaky appearance was ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... an open one. Things in the trade were slack; and as Soames had reflected before making up his mind, it had been a good time for building. The shell of the house at Robin Hill was thus completed by the end ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... plumb line to a nail or other suitable projection. On coming down to the lower floor it is often found that the bob has been secured either too high or too low. When fastening the line give it plenty of slack and when the lower floor is reached make a double loop in the line, as shown in the sketch. Tightening up on the parts AA will bind the loop bight B, and an adjustable friction-held loop, C, will be had for adjusting ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... a man already chastened by misfortune and fatigue. He went into the waiting-room and after a vain search for the poker—the new stationmaster evidently kept it in a different place—sat down in front of an irritatingly dull fire banked up with slack, and nursed his damaged hand and meditated ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... within a few feet of the surface of the water. Through these passages, the tide, especially the ebb, rushes with great velocity—six or seven knots at least—and vessels when leaving the lagoon, generally waited till slack water, or the first of the flood, when with the usual strong south-east trades, they could stem the current and avoid the dangerous "mushrooms." But no shipmaster would ever attempt either of these passages, except ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... but of the other two English knights, were so strong that he dared not express his discontent. He himself had twice been engaged with pirates, but had gained no particular credit, and indeed had, in the opinion of his comrades, been somewhat slack in the fray. He was no favourite in the auberge, though he spared no pains to ingratiate himself with the senior knights, and had a short time before been very severely reprimanded by the bailiff for ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... but for it, would have been employed for other purposes. Meanwhile the causes making for unemployment will be unaffected. Miscalculations will still be made, the building trades will still become slack in the winter, the casual methods of engaging dock laborers will still continue, trade cycles will still recur, while beneath them, and concealed by them, some industries will expand and others will decay. Thus, like the armies at Salonika, the new business ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... miser ever do for you?" the voice went on, "or his slack-twisted son for that matter? Let them stew in their own juice. Give me your word, and you'll be ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... is slack, He kicks a leather ball about; Recalls old tales of wing and back, The Villa's rush, the Rovers' rout; Or lays a tanner to a pup On Albion (not "perfidious") ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... He tried at once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not arrive ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sand eel, strained for a gallant run. Down on the thwart went book, pencil, and spectacles, and I had an exciting five minutes in midstream with an undoubted "fish." He fought like a Trojan—and then the line fell slack. The fish was off. How do they escape from these triangles? Caught lightly by one hook, I suppose, and, as a result, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... fussy—but I know 'em," said Collie, as Boyar, apparently terror-stricken at a manzanita that he had passed hundreds of times, reared, his fore feet pawing space and the traces dangerously slack. Louise bit her lower lip and quickly called Anne's attention to a spot of vivid color on the hillside. To Dr. Marshall's surprise, Collie struck Apache, who was behaving, smartly with the whip. Apache leaped forward, bringing Boyar down to his feet again. The doctor would have ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... not this discourse cool your charity; lest, seeing the souls enjoy so much comfort in Purgatory, your compassion for them grow slack, and so continue not equal to their desert. Remember, then, that notwithstanding all these comforts here rehearsed, the poor creatures cease not to be grievously tormented; and consequently have extreme need of all your favorable assistance and pious endeavors. When Christ Jesus was ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... view. The train rumbled on; then it went from half speed to a stop with one jerk that brought a cry from the coaches. During the next second there was the successive crashing of couplings as the coaches took up their slack. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... of such a transformation, of putting immediate social convenience in the first place, and respect for truth in the second, are seen, as we have said, in a distinct and unmistakable lowering of the level of national life; a slack and lethargic quality about public opinion; a growing predominance of material, temporary, and selfish aims, over those which are generous, far-reaching, and spiritual; a deadly weakening of intellectual conclusiveness, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... made as to drop. A policeman caught her in his arms, but the woman shook herself free. "I sha'n't faint—no—I sha'n't faint," she gasped, "the cellar—look—look—" She ran forward and raised the head of the dead man. When the officers saw the dangling slack wire disappearing through a hole in the floor they grasped the situation. "The passage outside!" cried Deborah, directing operations; "the trap-door," she ran to it, "fast bolted below, and them ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... this evening, at this place, for the due consideration of this subject, such of the Assistants as may be here present in Boston, and to advise with them thereupon, when and where I shall hope to be favored with the presence and counsel of my friend, whose zeal is never slack in aught that may redound to ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... arrangements. For supper we had, not unleavened bread, but that which contained "the little leaven," that having had no time to "leaven the whole lump," rendered it still heavier of digestion; butter half-worked, tea made of water that did not get time to boil, and slack-baked cakes. I supped on cucumbers, and complaining of fatigue, was conducted by my kind aunt to the sleeping apartment next her own, as it would seem like old times to have me so near. What was wanting to make my bed comfortable, might have been owing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... crisis. When they go out to lunch, the younger ones leave their top-hats behind them, and take the air with plastered polls; and after lunch is over, young and old alike have a round of dominoes before placing threepence under the coffee-cup and returning to business. If business is slack, they tell each other jokes, which get into the papers with some such introduction as, "A good story going the round of the Stock Exchange." Probably it was going the round of the nurseries in 72, but the ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... Moors, Arabians, Ethiops black, Of the left wing that held the utmost marge, Spread forth their troops, and purposed at the back And side their heedless foes to assail and charge: Slingers and archers were not slow nor slack To shoot and cast, when with his battle large Rinaldo came, whose fury, haste and ire, Seemed earthquake, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... especially that of the morning, meekness, compunction, careful self-examination every evening, fasting, humility, alms, &c. In Pa. 43, p. 146, he thus apostrophizes the rich: "Hear this, you all who are slack in giving alms: hear this, you who, by hoarding up your treasures, lose them yourselves: hear me you, who, by perverting the end of your riches, are no better by them than those who are rich only in a dream; nay, your condition is fair worse," &c. He says that ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... cannot imagine how grinding our trade is— Long hours, and long waits, BOB, when custom is slack! When the premises hold one old gent and two ladies, 'Tis hard for twelve chaps to be kept on the rack. To knock off at five on a Saturday eases Our week's work a little. One evening in six Ain't more than the Public can spare—if it pleases— If only its hours 'twill ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... place behind the counter was uncongenial to him in many ways. There was too much in-doors about it, to begin with. From early morning until late evening he had to be at his post, with brief intervals for meals; and the colour was leaving his cheeks, and his muscles were growing slack and soft, owing to ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... oracles of God in all ages have testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly of it, and so slack pursuit of it, as if we did not believe it at all. Truly, my beloved, there is a great mistake in this, and it is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... were little archipelagos of light made by groups of candles in front of great pale images. The church was comparatively empty, and most of the people present were kneeling in the chapels; for Christine had purposely come, as she always did, at the slack hour between the seventh and last of the early morning Low Masses and the High Mass ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Philadelphia, has republished The Ministry of the Beautiful, by HENRY JAMES SLACK, of the Middle Temple, London, consisting of a series of conversations on the principles of aesthetic culture. A vein of refined and pure sentiment pervades the volume; the style is often of exquisite beauty; but the discussion ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... get at some of the secrets to-morrow," he said, "but it will mean early rising, as the trap is to be hauled at slack water." ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the balcony, and then descend, taking with him the man on guard at the door. Apportion men and bags in all the boats but one. That one I shall take charge of. Put Greusel in command of the flotilla, and tell him to convey his fleet as quietly as possible to the eastern shore; then paddle up in slack water until he is, say, a third of a league above Pfalz. There he must await my skiff. You will stand by that skiff until I join you. I shall likely be accompanied by three women, so retain the largest and most ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... of either of the principal parties concerned; but even then the rude, open-spoken husband would consider himself absolved from any attention to an ill-favoured wife, and the free tongues of her surroundings would not be slack to make her aware of her defects. The cloister was the refuge of the unmarried woman, if of gentle birth as a nun, if of a lower grade as a lay-sister; but the fifteenth century was an age neither of religion nor of chivalry. Dowers were more thought ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spirit, and were eager to exert themselves with the utmost zeal." Here also, however, he was biding his time for obvious reasons; for to his wife he writes, "I have done them all like honour, but it is because I would not have the world believe that there were officers slack in their duty. Without a thorough change in naval affairs, the discipline of our navy will be lost. I could say much, but will not. You will hear of it from themselves;" that is, probably, by their mutual recriminations. Such indulgent envelopment of good and bad ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Cynthia went up to the hotel and oversaw the preparation of Jeff's meals and kept taut the slack housekeeping of the old Irish woman who had remained as a favor, after the hotel closed, and professed to have lost the chance of a place for the winter by her complaisance. She submitted to Cynthia's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... all their little discoveries and interests. Bill rode a good many miles that day, always beside a wire fence; and occasionally he would stop, dismount, and busy himself in some small repair, where a fence-post had sagged down, or the wire become twisted or slack. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... cushion against which the raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential—a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion of the effects ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... suit me better than a night ashore," said I with truth, for I had had enough of the drink, the slack language, and the rough sea life, and looked forward to the land with a pleasant ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... ma'am, for what age d'ye take me?" Cai caught up the slack of the rope and hitched it taut over his shoulder. He was rejuvenated. He made a spring for the ladder, and went up it much as twenty years ago he would have swarmed up the ratlines. "Make yourself small," he commanded, as Skin, at imminent risk of falling, drew to one side before his ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... brought all the firmness of his high character to bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can inspire those with whom ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and has had two children, both of whom showed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... back to Bungroopim—when it happened to be a slack day for you on the run, and when the married couple had levanted and I'd got an incompetent black-gin in the kitchen—or when the store wanted tidying and you and I had a good old spree amongst ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... every little detail of a man's past life. Not that I've been a Don What's-his-name. Far from it. Costs a bit too much, that game. You simply can't do it on sixty quid a year, paid monthly, and that's all there is about it. Not but what I don't often think of going it a bit when things are slack at the office and my pal in the New Business Department is out for lunch. It's the loneliness makes you think of going a regular plunger. More than once, when Tommy Milner hasn't been there to talk to, I tell you I've half a ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... market, for, unless they were overcrowded, the cod lived quite as contentedly in the tanks as in the open sea. But in one respect the fishermen were disappointed. They found that the fish arrived slack, flabby, and limp, though well fed and in ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... iron, with brass tap and steam-pipe. In other respects it resembles Fig. 4, with which it possesses similar advantages of construction. Either maybe had at varying prices, according to size, from L5. 15s. up to L23. 10s. They are supplied by Messrs. Richard & John Slack ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... everybody, he was made a common sport and jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. Now that he was grown to the ripeness of manhood he was still looked upon as being—to use a quaint expression—"slack," or "not jest right." He was heavy, awkward, ungainly and loose-jointed, and enormously, prodigiously strong. He had a lumpish, thick-featured face, with lips heavy and loosely hanging, that gave him an air of stupidity, half droll, half pathetic. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... sacred work demands not lukewarm, selfish, slack souls, but hearts more finely tempered than steel, wills purer and harder ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Mac called. "Let him think it out," as step by step Roper followed, the halter running slack on the water. When almost out of his depth, he paused just a moment, then, obeying the tightening rope, lifted himself to the flood and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the jib halliards, Mason. Lay out there, Bert, and get in that slack sail. It's blowing a bit. Gee, see that bank of wind ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... hour later they were light-heartedly demolishing an excellent dinner, and the manager of the Hotel de Loup was congratulating himself upon the acquisition of two unexpected guests during the slack season. Afterwards they made another pilgrimage up to the Roche d'Or ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... farm, they looked for the wife but she was not to be seen. The children had evidently gone up to the little white schoolhouse at the head of the lane. Radbourn let the reins fall slack as he talked on. He did not look at the girl, his eyebrows were drawn into a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... late in the night that they feared to attempt it then lest the dawn might overtake them while they were swimming. 'Twas a great pity, said Joe, that their wits had hung fire, like a damp flint-lock, for this was the night when the pirates would be the most slack and befuddled and it would be precious hard waiting through another day. Jack glumly agreed with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... exceptions to the rule; but, except those who provide certain requisites for eating and drinking which are in continual demand, there are few workmen in Paris or elsewhere in France, who have not every year quite enough slack time to perplex them. They can ill afford the interference of any small crisis in the shape of a strike, or large crisis in the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... to FRAYNE, and speaking volubly and violently.] Now, look here, sir, I'm a busy woman—as busy and as hard-working a woman as any in London. Because you see things a bit slack Ascot week, it doesn't follow that my books, and a hundred little matters, don't want attending to. [Sitting at the desk and opening and closing the books noisily.] And I'm certainly not going to have gentlemen, whoever they may ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... setting to my Lips, I winde so lowd and shrill, As makes the Ecchoes showte from euery neighbouring Hill: 60 My Doghooke at my Belt, to which my Lyam's tyde, My Sheafe of Arrowes by, my Woodknife at my Syde, My Crosse-bow in my Hand, my Gaffle or my Rack To bend it when I please, or it I list to slack, My Hound then in my Lyam, I by the Woodmans art Forecast, where I may lodge the goodly Hie-palm'd Hart, To viewe the grazing Heards, so sundry times I vse, Where by the loftiest Head I know my Deare to chuse, And to vnheard him ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... instant did the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to be rather slack at this time; and it struck Mr. Fenton all at once that he could scarcely have a better opportunity for wasting two or three days in a visit of duty to the Listers, and putting an end to his sister's reproachful letters. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... brood, which must live mainly by its wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils constituting the family furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, is familiar to all who live in cities. There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than these children of rich families, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... attended at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by the vindication ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... "Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... himself just right when he talked to you and kept himself looking right up to the mark. His salary wasn't very big, but he had such a persuasive way that he seemed to get a dollar and a half's worth of value out of every dollar that he earned. Never crowded the fashions and never gave 'em any slack. If sashes were the thing with summer shirts, why Charlie had a sash, you bet, and when tight trousers were the nobby trick in pants, Charlie wore his double reefed. Take him fore and aft, Charlie looked all right ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... he was a very poor slack-twisted sort of fellow. Betty, I've never kissed you since you stood beside me as my little wife, twelve years and a half old! ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Lolling Table; where our Discourse is, what I fear you would not read out, therefore shall not insert. But I assure you, Sir, I heartily lament this Loss of Time, and am now resolved (if possible, with double Diligence) to retrieve it, being effectually awakened by the Arguments of Mr. Slack out of the Senseless Stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to demonstrate that Penitence accompanies my Confession, and Constancy my Resolutions, I have locked my Door for a Year, and desire you would let my Companions know I am not within. I ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... "Thursday is a slack day with him," she said rather gravely. "I assure you he works harder than most clergymen, and is very conscientious and painstaking. He is not at all strong, but he never ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... it be shot slowly from a slack bow (for if it be shot with too much speed the fire is extinguished), so as to stick anywhere, it burns obstinately, and if sprinkled with water it creates a still fiercer fire, nor will anything but throwing dust upon it quench it. This is enough to say of mural engines; let ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... his reason with firm hands he saw but one course to follow; but, when his mind went slack for a moment, the old desire to have her returned more strongly than ever, and he heard voices arguing, pleading, persuading—she was the equal of any woman in the world, they said, in mind, in purity, and in innocence. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the momentary slack tide of work, the giant had conceived the idea of searching out the driver crew for purposes of pugilistic vengeance. Thorpe's suspicions stung him, but his simple mind could see ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... polite native clerk, so the toil had to be done twice! Then to the post office at the docks; borrowed a rusty pen there from another native clerk and did a home letter. What a fine building it is, and what a motley slack lot of people you see there! Near me a group of half-naked natives were concocting and scratching off a wire between them, others squatted on the floor and beat up their friends black hair for small game. One man made netting attached to the rail round the ticket office, seated of course, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn, when the man's hand reached out and clutched him, half by the jowl, half by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no threat in that reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, all-confident, and it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. To him it ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... the clump of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too hot ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... be mighty slack for the great gland specialist, Stanley Fenwick. Is this all he can find for his pretty nurse ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some Brahman marriages a Darzi is called with ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... guess it's done.' 'Now,' says the captain, 'look here, pilot; here's a rope you hain't seed yet, I'll jist explain the use of it to you in case you want the loan of it. If this here frigate, manned with our free and enlightened citizens, gets aground, I'll give you a ride on the slack of that 'ere rope, right up to that yard by the neck, by Gum.' Well, it rub'd all the writin' out of his face, as quick as spittin' on a slate takes a sum out, you may depend. Now, they should rig up a crane over the street door of the State house at Halifax, and when any ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... moved outdoors every spring and summer and lived the wholesome life of the outdoors for three or four months! We could not have "slack times." ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... classified as belonging high in the spectacular drama; when the horse, having finished the meal of cracked corn he had been enjoying by the roadside, with the reins thrown slack over his neck, suddenly lifted his head with an air of arriving at some instant conclusion and started merrily down ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... am I thus sequestred from the court? No notice? shall I not know the cause Of these my secret and suspitious ils? Accursed brother! vnkinde murderer! Why bends thou thus thy minde to martir me? Hieronimo, why writ I of they wrongs, Or why art thou so slack in thy reuenge? Andrea! O Andrea, that thou sawest Me for thy freend Horatio handled thus, And him for me thus causeles murdered! Well, force perforce, I must constraine my-selfe To patience, and apply me to the time, Till Heauen, as I haue hoped, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... watcher, was a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... on, devising reasons for not thinking too harshly of the Devil. Most of it was an abridgement of some verses Jurgen had composed, in the shop when business was slack. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the major was not noted by Joel and his set, in the excitement of receiving so many guests, and in the movement of the wedding. But, as soon as the fact was ascertained, the overseer and miller made the pretence of a 'slack-time' in their work, and obtained permission to go to the Mohawk, on private concerns of their own. Such journeys were sufficiently common to obviate suspicion; and, the leave had, the two conspirators started off, in company, the morning of ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... chain-anchor slack," I calls, "and then up with her jibs," which they did. "And now her fores'l—up with her fores'l." Then we broke out her chain-anchor. I was to the wheel and knew the second the anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. "Don't stop to cat-head that anchor," ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... went—but slack and slow: His savage force at length o'erspent, The drooping courser, faint and low, All feebly foaming went.... At length, while reeling on our way, Methought I heard a courser neigh, From out yon tuft of blackening firs. Is it the wind those branches ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... that compacting small coal into lumps is a wrong operation, and that we ought rather to think of breaking big coal down into slack? The idea was suggested to me by Sir W. Thomson in a chance conversation, and it struck me at once as a brilliant one. The amount of coal wasted by being in the form of slack is very great. Thousands of tons are never ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... introduction, "there's only the picquets. They have everything to themselves excepting that the Frenchies are just alongside. The Frenchies watch us close, but we watch them closer, and there's always a way. Rounds are not kept up the whole night, for everything is slack now, and when they are finished the fun begins. The reliefs, lying on the ground, strip off everything so that they can crawl like snakes and that no one can get hold of them. They crawl in through holes, over walls, with never a match or a light to show ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... very glad of this job, as times were slack. So he took the cloth, and at once set to work. Half of it he made into a beautiful dress for the Thrush, with a skirt and jacket, and sleeves in the latest fashion; and as there was a little cloth left over, and he was an honest Tailor, he made her also a pretty ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... rate, one per second for 5,600 years! This, however, is not probable; but Mr. Sorby's remarks has completely removed all doubt as to its physical possibility from the Darwinian theory; "and they prompt us," says Slack, "to a wonderful conception of the powers residing in minute ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... dialogue between Mr. Liversedge and his relative allowed Glazzard to keep silence, save when he exchanged a few words with his hostess or Miss Pope. He had a look of extreme weariness; his eyes were heavy and without expression, the lines of face slack, sullen; he seemed to maintain with difficulty his upright position at the table, and his eating was only pretence. At the close of the meal he bent towards Mrs. Liversedge, declared that he was suffering from an intolerable headache, and begged her ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... oven, but not too hot, or it would blacken the crust; on the other hand, if the oven be too slack, the paste will be soddened, and will not rise, nor will it have any colour. Tart-tins, cake-moulds, dishes for baked puddings, pattypans, &c., should all be buttered before the article intended to be baked is put in them: things to be baked on sheets should be placed on buttered paper. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... be paid them home [Footnote: Two lines in this speech appear to have been lost.] By the just gods, they with their impious vaunts Will be consumed and perish utterly. To cope with thy Arcadian goes a man Modest in speech but nowise slack in deed, Actor, his brother of whom last I spake, Who will not let a tongue without an arm Within our gates rave to our overthrow, Nor entrance give the foe, who on his shield To flout us bears the hated effigy. His Sphynx, midst rattling darts, ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... seems to have been very slack, especially for the big girls. This is how Mary describes it: "The liberty which the first class had was so great that, if we attended our tutor in his study for an hour or two every morning, no human being ever took the trouble to enquire where we spent the ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... light line, it was a long one, and the slack of it was now in the water, so that Dickory had to pull hard upon it before he could grasp enough of it to pass around his body. He had scarcely done this, and had made a knot in it, before a lurch of the brig brought a strain on the rope, and he ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... twenty-one pounds of meat: Lean pork, seven pounds; fat, seven pounds; round beef, seven pounds. Seven ounces salt; one and one-half ounces black pepper; one coffee cup powdered sage and summer savory; one teaspoonful cayenne, slack; one tablespoonful freshly ground ginger; one tablespoonful ground mustard. Get your meat ground at the butchers. Mix the sausage yourself. Mix spices all together with salt, working it through the meat ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... your good," said Torpenhow, not in the least with reference to past clowning. "It would let you focus things at their proper worth and prevent your becoming slack in this hothouse of a town. Indeed it would, old man. I shouldn't have spoken if I hadn't thought so. Only, you make a joke ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to it, little lady," said Crayford. "Happen when I'm gone, when the slave-driver's gone, eh, he'll get slack, begin to think he knows more about it than I do! He's not too pleased making the changes. I can ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... doorkeeper and orderly, always on the watch to welcome poor souls such as he was. He has had his share of trials since he was converted. Bronchitis and asthma often keep him a prisoner and make work slack. 'I don't have to look for troubles, they come trooping along, but grace keeps them company,' he says joyfully. Then a shade of sadness steals into his voice as he continues, wistfully, 'What was I doing to miss all those years? Wretched, terrible ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... up. The bicycles were brought round, and the four went gaily out of the front door to light lamps and see to suspiciously slack tyres. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... fish in gently, then suddenly gave it plenty of slack line. These tactics were repeated, while Dave and Greg almost ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... terror, and nearly leaps overboard on the opposite side of the boat I give unwillingly the word to fire. Many of the foremost savages fall—the rest hang back. We shove off. The oars are quickly got out. The moon rises. I distinguish the channel. It is almost slack water. We pull for our lives. Golding and Taro stand up and fire. The savages either do not see their comrades fall or do not dread the bullets, for they rush along the rocks still within a few yards of us hurling their stones and darts. I feel assured that if we strike a rock our ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... is consistent with the liberty of other people, but no more. If we could infuse the spirit of this kind of discipline into family and school life, making it systematic and continuous from the earliest years, there would be fewer morally "slack-twisted" little creatures growing up into inefficient, bloodless manhood and womanhood. It would be a good deal of trouble; but then, life is a good deal of trouble anyway, if you come to that. We cannot expect ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... pink jes' a-creepin' back T' the pale, drawn cheek, an' ye note a smile, Then th' cords o' yer heart that were tight, grow slack An' ye jump fer joy every little while, An' ye tiptoe back to her little bed As though ye doubted yer eyes, or were Afraid it was fever come back instead, An' ye found that ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... none, the disappointment set him in a flame of rage, which, burning like an inward furnace, parched his throat. And now he laid him down on the bank, to try if in the cool stream, that murmured as it flowed, he could assuage or slack the fiery ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... purpose of small gamblers, in a neighbouring street below the rooms of the Board of Trade. The lift used by members of the Board of Trade would be sent down to bring up from the open Board what was known as a "bucketful" of the smaller speculators, when business was slack. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... hands and the feet. Georgie had been conscious of walking a little lamely lately; he had been even more conscious of the need of hot towels on his face and the "tap-tap" of Mr Holroyd's fingers, and the stretchings of Mr Holroyd's thumb across rather slack surfaces of cheek and chin. In the interval between the hair and the face, Mr Holroyd should have a good supper downstairs with Foljambe and the cook. And tomorrow morning, when he met Hermy and Ursy, Georgie would be just as spick ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... in his motor-boat. He had been out to sea to lift his lobster-pots and he had been waiting at the entrance of Clam River for the tide to make the water deep enough for him to come up. On days when the tide was not so low he could come up all right, even at "slack water." But this time the channel was not deep enough for his motor-boat and he had ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the stretching-machine said, "Slack up!" ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had made a discovery which brought with it a ray of hope. He found that with an effort he was able to bring his teeth against the rope where it passed over his shoulder. His hands were tied behind his back, but with the slack he would gain after gnawing through the rope, he would be able to loosen them. They had taken his revolver, but they had overlooked the hunting knife he always carried within his shirt suspended from his neck—a precaution which ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... of slack or fine coal, through more careful methods of mining, through limitations on the excessive use of powder and larger use of wedges, through the abolition of laws for the payment of miners on a run-of-mine basis, and in the case ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... varied, and protracted by a constant succession of entertainments of various descriptions. Mr. Chalons exhibited many of his most surprising deceptions in the rotunda; where also young Gyngell displayed some capital performances on the slack-wire. In the long room the celebrated fantoccini exhibition, with groupes of quadrille dancers, enlivened the scene. In one walk of the garden, Mr. Gyngell's theatre of arts was erected, where were exhibited balancing, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... training of an eyas, or young hawk, which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was to ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the stars. He was taken to a log cabin, under three guards. They tied his wrists and elbows together behind his back, with buffalo-hide thongs that bit into his flesh. They put a noose close around his neck and fastened the end of the rope to a beam above, giving him just enough slack so ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... answer. "It will run out the cable and down the cab. I've left them plenty of slack to move around ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... iron ore?—no, that mud that the river leaves when it rises—'Gumbo' the people call it. Some fellow found by accident that it became red flint when fired, and was making a fortune selling it to the railroad." To burn it, he used the slack coal from the Jonesburg mines nearby, which until then had also been waste. I put a handful of the stuff in my pocket; and, after the conductor left us, I turned the whole enterprise over to the Goodwin part. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... are in that order from east to west. The Carillon Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10 feet the Chute a Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4 feet and the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between the Carillon and Chute a Blondeau there is or was a slack water reach of three and a half miles, and between the latter and the foot of the Longue Sault a similar reach of one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... hard work against Napoleon for the easier, safer, and better paid work under the Stars and Stripes; while the mere want of any enemy to fight for the command of the sea after Trafalgar had tended to make the British get slack. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the lynx was cut into strips and fashioned into a rawhide line which Bill made fast to their belts, leaving plenty of slack to allow free use of the rackets. The rifle was left in the cave, and, muffled to the ears, the two stepped out ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... go home from their work at evening—drifting they go in droves, hurrying along. It is a startling thing to look closely at them. The people have bad mouths. Their mouths are slack and the jaws do not hang right. The mouths are like the shoes they wear. The shoes have become run down at the corners from too much pounding on the hard pavements and the mouths have become crooked from ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... journey, when he has got squaws and baggage with him, a red-skin never goes at a walk, and the horses will keep on at this lope for hours. That is right. Don't sit so stiffly; you want your legs to be stiff and keeping a steady grip, but from your hips you want to be as slack as possible, just giving to the horse's action, the same way you give on board ship when vessels are rolling. That is better. Ah! here comes Pete. I took this way because I knew it was the line he would come back by—and, by gosh, he has got ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... withdrew the money from the bank, and, when business got a little slack, in the afternoon set out in search of a clothing store. Dick knew enough of the city to be able to find a place where a good bargain could be obtained. He was determined that Fosdick should have a good serviceable suit, even if it took all the money they had. ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... warrior, six or seven years old. His claws were an inch and a quarter long, and curved like simitars. His forefeet and his left hindfoot were free, and as Kazan advanced, he drew back, so that the trap-chain was slack under his body. Here Kazan could not follow his old tactics of circling about his trapped foe, until it had become tangled in the chain, or had so shortened and twisted it that there was no chance for a leap. He had to ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... furnaces at the works of Ougree, near Liege. The works produce 20,000 tons of puddled bars per annum, in fifteen double furnaces. The consumption of coal per ton of ordinary puddled bar is under 11 cwt., and per ton of "fer a fin grain" (puddled steel, etc.) 16 cwt. The gas is produced from slack, and the waste heat raises as much steam as that from an ordinary double furnace. The consumption of pig iron per ton of puddled bar was rather less than 211/2 cwts. for the year 1882; and that of "mine" for fettling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... counted him for her own knight, grew wroth with him, and on a certain day she called him to her chamber, and said thus: "Sir Lancelot, I daily see thy loyalty to me doth slack, for ever thou art absent from this court, and takest other ladies' quarrels on thee more than ever thou wert wont. Now do I understand thee, false knight, and therefore shall I never trust thee more. Depart now from my sight, and come no more within ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... imbecility—applies to old men of unsound character, not to all. Appius governed four sturdy sons, five daughters, that great establishment, and all those clients, though he was both old and blind. For he kept his mind at full stretch like a how, and never gave in to old age by growing slack. He maintained not merely an influence, but an absolute command over his family: his slaves feared him, his sons were in awe of him, all loved him. In that family, indeed, ancestral custom and discipline were in full vigour. The fact is that old age is respectable just as long ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... his way on the parched Paroo and the Warrego tracks once more, And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the Western stations shore; But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack — The traveller never got hands in wool, though he tramped ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... the posts notes the time of each courier's arrival and departure; and there are often other officers whose business it is to make monthly visitations of all the posts, and to punish those runners who have been slack in their work.[NOTE 6]) The Emperor exempts these men from all tribute, and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... an ague, the prospector stood. His face had gone chalk white under its dirty stubble of beard. He looked sick and even more unwholesome than usual. From his slack jaws poured a constant whining of ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... that I need a new coat," he said. "I told Pietro when things were slack that he could make me one, but he gets lots of orders now. See the little girl in the corner? She's going out—no, she's going to stay here; they've found her room at that table. I suppose you'd turn your nose up at her because she has a lot too much powder on her ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a small spar and a block, to which a line and an iron bar were attached. The men looked strange in her eyes at that distance. In the marvellously clear light she could see their features distinctly, and, when Courtenay shouted to a sailor to haul in the slack of the line, she caught a trumpet-like ring that recalled the scene in the saloon when he held back the mob of stewards. His athletic figure, silhouetted against the shimmering green of the water, was instinct with graceful strength. He looked a born leader of men, and, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... hard facts soon restored the equilibrium of his naturally prudent soul. The worst feature of the army was not that it had been beaten, but that it had not been commanded. The reins of discipline had been so slack that licence and indulgence had sapped its fighting strength. The tyranny of circumstances demanded a peaceful sojourn in the province, and Albinus resigned himself to ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... serve incorporate some cream and fine butter, garnishing with some chopped oysters and mushrooms, mixed with breadcrumbs and herbs. Add a little seasoning of salt, pepper and nutmeg, some raw egg yolks, and roll this mixture into ball-shape pieces, place them on a well-buttered baking sheet in a slack oven and poach them, ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... time occurred one of the periodic anti-Semitic movements whereby government officials were wont to clear the forbidden cities of Jews, whom, in the intervals of slack administration of the law, they allowed to maintain an illegal residence in places outside the Pale, on payment of enormous bribes and at the cost of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... abruptly short-pointed, four-angled; shell thick, brittle, 1.4 mm.; partitions thick, corky; cracking quality good; kernel bright light yellow, sutures broad, open, shallow, secondary ones almost lacking, sometimes slack at bottom end; texture rather open; ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... already uplifted, riding crop in hand. "Let me go!" Her voice was so low that he hardly heard it, but full of a thousand threats. Then, swerving her horse quickly to one side, she jerked the bridle from his slack fingers and was off ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... month with Smith, but as it was the slack time of the year there was little routine work on the station, and much of our time ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, Dennet, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... use hydrated lime I would suggest that you buy fresh burned lump lime and do the hydrating yourself, which only requires that you add eighteen pounds of water to each fifty-six pounds of quick lime; in other words, that you slack the lime by adding water in the proper proportion. Both quick lime and hydrated lime are known as caustic lime. Webster says that the word caustic means 'capable of destroying the texture of anything or eating away its substance ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... heaven has sent me N., who has come to see me with E. and Z., two young duffers who never miss a single word but induce in the whole household a desperate boredom. N. looks flabby and physically slack; he has gone off, but has become warmer and more good-natured; he must be going to die. When my mother was ordering meat from the butcher, she said he must let us have better meat, as N. was staying with us ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... mystery of it vanished. It was the commotion, subdued by the distance of three-quarters of a mile, of thousands of nutmeg pigeons—a blending of thousands of simultaneous "coo-hoos" with the rustling and beating of wings upon the thin, slack strings of casuarinas. The swaying and switching of the slender-branched and ever-sighing trees with the courageous notes of homing birds had created the curious melody with which my reading had ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... it's like walking as the galley-slaves do on the Continent, with a twenty-four pound shot chained to their legs—they may drag it along, but they cannot move with comfort. And, by the way, thou art slack in paying me my well-deserved tribute of compliment on my counterfeiting.—Did I not play Louis Kerneguy ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... wouldn't have fainted as he did if he had. He wanted good keep and rest for a month, and so did I. Now that it was all over I felt different from what I used to do, only half the man I once was. If we stayed in the Hollow for a month the police might think we'd gone straight out of the country and slack off a bit. Anyhow, as long as they didn't hit the trail off to the entrance, we couldn't be in a safer place, and though there didn't seem much to do we thought we'd manage to hang it out somehow. One day we were riding all together in the afternoon, when we ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... connection with the Club and sold his horses. Chiffney invented a bit named after him; a curb with two snaffles, which gave a stronger bearing on the sides of a horse's mouth. His rule in racing was to keep a slack rein and to ride a waiting race, not calling on his horse till near the end. His son Samuel, who followed him, observed the same plan; from its frequent success the term "Chiffney rush" became proverbial. In his ride through the desert (p. 169) Kinglake speaks of his "native bells—the ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... a unique position at the School. It was an absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields' never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so the house is. He was the most inconspicuous ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... preached in the wilderness of Judea. It seems also to have been the first subject on which the Lord preached. Mark 1:15. It is the will of God that men should repent of their sins. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 2 Pet. 3:9. It is here implied if man does not repent ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... are her wares, and her basket is small, She earns her own living by these, when at all. She's there with her baby in wind and in rain, In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain. She trades and she trades, through the good times and slack— No home and no food, and no cloak to her back. She's kithless and kinless—one friend at the most, And that one is silent: the telegraph post! She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still, Altho' she is wretched, forsaken and ill, She ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... engaged in picking oakum, spinning yarns (not such yarns as those amiable gentlemen, the naval novelists, talk so much about, but rope-yarns, by the aid of spinning-winches), platting sinnet, preparing chafing-gear, bowsing slack rigging taut, painting boats and bulwarks, scraping yards and masts, fitting new running-rigging, overhauling the spare sails, and fifty other things—doing, in fact, everything but idling. And, mind, no conversation is allowed among the men—not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... misfortune and fatigue. He went into the waiting-room and after a vain search for the poker—the new stationmaster evidently kept it in a different place—sat down in front of an irritatingly dull fire banked up with slack, and nursed his damaged hand and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... "Let him think it out," as step by step Roper followed, the halter running slack on the water. When almost out of his depth, he paused just a moment, then, obeying the tightening rope, lifted himself to the flood and struck ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... but I saw Slack and Broughton at Marybone Gardens!" says Harry, gravely; and wondered if he had said something witty, as all the company laughed so? "It would require no giant," he added, "to knock over yonder little fellow in the red boots. I, for one, could throw ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... upon the world from beneath their eyelids of bronze, in the time of Abraham. You will find it in the museum at Cairo. Ride a donkey in the Mooskee if you want real sport; and if you feel a little slack, climb the Great Pyramid. Ask for an Arab named Schehati, and tell him you want to do it one minute quicker than any lady ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... gesticulate, the opposite margins approach, or the apex curls towards the base, or towards one of the sides to form a miniature funnel. When the extremities are so close that the intervening space may be spanned, threads of white gossamer are laced across, and the slack being taken up by degrees, in a few days a cosy pocket with closely-fitting seams ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... with a padded bight of the rope about his body, and the two joined ranging-rods in his hand, quite ready to be lowered down the face. Then two peons whom he had specially selected for the task, drew in the slack of the rope, passed a complete turn of it round an iron bar driven deep into a rock crevice, and waited for the command of a third who now laid himself prone on the ground, with his head projecting over the edge of the cliff, to watch and regulate the descent. Then Harry, fully realising, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Stubby grinned. "There aren't going to be any special privileges for British Columbia salmon packers any more. I know, because I'm on the inside. The fishermen have made a noise that disturbs the politicians, I guess. Another thing, there's a slack in the demand for all but the best grades of salmon. But the number one grades, sockeye and blueback and coho, are short. So that a cannery man with an efficient plant can pay big for those fish. If you can hold ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... lassoed and broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall and projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point was threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go with its chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off the nose ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... at once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not arrive for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hindrance had been so utter—no communication with him proved possible. She had made out even from the cage that it was a charming golden day: a patch of hazy autumn sunlight lay across the sanded floor and also, higher up, quickened into brightness a row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was slack and the place in general empty; the town, as they said in the cage, had not waked up, and the feeling of the day likened itself to something than in happier conditions she would have thought of romantically as ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... he finally snarled, "business is slack jes' now. Seein' as you're a lady, you kin have this ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Nellie, turning into one of these narrow alleys that led, as they could see, into a busier and bustling street. "If you don't mind we'll go up and I can help her a bit, and you can see how one sort of sweating is done. I worked at it for a spell once, when dressmaking was slack. In ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... or produce one false step: he flew round the course, every stride like the ricochet of a 32lb. shot; his adversary broke-up again and again, losing both his temper and his place, and barely saved his distance, as the gallant Tacony—his rider with a slack rein, and patting him on the neck—reached the winning-post—time, 2m. 25s. The shouts were long and loud; such time had never been made before by fair trotting, and Tacony evidently could have done it in two, if not three ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... commercial worries, wandered towards the window. The dock was empty and desolate: the rain, which had prevailed with a persistent dreariness since the morning, built morasses at regular intervals along the dock-side, splashed unceasingly into the stagnant green water which collected in slack seasons within the dock-gates. The dockman stood, one disconsolate figure in the general blankness, with his high boots and oilskins, smoking a short clay pipe by the door of the engine-room; and further ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... moral instructions are most beautiful, on prayer, especially that of the morning, meekness, compunction, careful self-examination every evening, fasting, humility, alms, &c. In Pa. 43, p. 146, he thus apostrophizes the rich: "Hear this, you all who are slack in giving alms: hear this, you who, by hoarding up your treasures, lose them yourselves: hear me you, who, by perverting the end of your riches, are no better by them than those who are rich only in a dream; nay, your ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... preferred the erratic habits of their ancestors to the more restricted pursuits which their great law-giver had prepared for them amid cornfields, vineyards, and plantations of olives. "And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... hunchbacked Little Commodore is dead. The other two of her old crew, George Widger and Looby Smith are nowhere to be seen: they must be nearly grown up by now. The fishermen themselves appear less picturesque and salty than they used to do. It is slack time after a bad herring season. They are dispirited and lazy, and ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... son gout! Let us now see what sort of sport may be had in the Coln. To begin with, it must be described as a "may-fly" stream. This means, of course, that there is a tremendous rise of fly early in June, with the inevitable slack time before and after ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... His nerves had gone slack. He walked in a heavy white dream. The city drew him deeper into its murmurous heart. The walls pressed closer and hid him away. The souks swallowed him under their shadowy arcades. The breath of the bazaar, fetor of offal, stench of raw ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... be absurd to talk of missionary effort among the Chinese in China. The importance of this work cannot be measured by its bulk. Nor is it to be estimated by any census of countable immediate results. It is a kind of work, which, according as it is done, or left undone; or as it is done with slack and nerveless hand or with vim and vigor, will test the very character of our churches; will touch the conscience and well-being of the nation; and will, without a doubt, have vital and decisive connection with the future of that most ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... a kind of silent fall, or a less observable motion; as in slime, slide, slip, slipper, sly, sleight, slit, slow, slack, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... halted on the border of the thicket: then, as the din of the beaters increased, struck boldly across the prairie for the river. Enrique and I were after him without loss of time. Enrique made a successful cast for his horns, and reined in his horse; but when the slack of the rope was taken up the rear cinch broke, the saddle was jerked forward on the horse's withers, and Enrique was compelled to free the rope or have his horse dragged down. I saw the mishap, and, giving my horse the rowel, rode at the bull ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... obscure form. And in the next place, it was assumed in those days to be the most natural and obvious thing in the world to condemn unsound doctrine, and to exclude unsound teachers. The principle was accepted as indisputable, however slack might have been in recent times the application of it. That it was accepted, not on one side only, but on all, was soon to be shown by the subsequent course of events. No one suffered more severely and more persistently ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... do with it? Not but that he enjoyed having her here last time well enough. It is the privilege of the mistress of the house to choose her guests. I hope you will not be slack in claiming your privileges. They are much harder to obtain than one's rights. My dear sister was careless. She allowed Benis's father to do just as he pleased. Be warned ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... my way lately, George," the hunchback continued, looking sharply sideways up at his companion. "Sly business has been slack, my dear, eh?" ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "here, Margherita; here's a brave cloak for thee, my girl: silver enow on it to fill thy purse, if it ever grow empty; which it may, if ever the Plague grow slack." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... carrots, a small head of celery, and one onion, and throw them into boiling water for a few minutes in order to preserve the colour. Then drain them off and place them in a saucepan, with a couple of ounces of butter to prevent them sticking and burning, and place the saucepan on a very slack fire and let them stew so that the steam can escape, but take care they don't burn or get brown. Now add a quart or two quarts of stock or water and boil them till they are tender. Then rub the whole through a wire sieve, ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... could prove nothing against the others, yet we laid all three in irons. I immediately sent Mr Towerson to the regent, to give him an account of the matter, and to desire the villains might be sought out and punished. He promised this should be done, but was very slack in performance. The Dutch merchants, hearing we had taken some of the incendiaries, and fearing the Chinese might rise against us, came very kindly to us armed, and swore they would live and die in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... extreme poverty, to labour, instead of sinking into vice and idleness, shows her to possess both virtue and integrity of character, and these we should be willing to encourage, even at some sacrifice. Work is slack now, as you are aware, and there is but little doubt that she had been to many places seeking employment before she came to you. It may be—and this is a very probable suggestion—that she did not come to you ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... so sorry, Mr. Rayne, but the telephone people are, I fear, very slack in these days. It takes so ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... voice. The old man took the wheel; we got the boom amidships, and he jammed her into the wind until she had hardly any way. It was blowing now, and it was all that I and two others could do to get in the slack of the downhaul, while the others lowered away at the peak and throat, and we had our hands full to get a couple of turns round the wet sail. It's all child's play on a fore-and-after compared with reefing topsails in anything like weather, but the gear ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... the past years he had staggered in from a long march where, for hours, he had waged a bitter war with cold and hunger, his limbs clumsy with fatigue, his garments wet and stiff, his mind slack and sullen. At such extreme seasons he had felt a consuming thirst, a thirst which burned and scorched until his very bones cried out feverishly. Not a thirst for water, nor a thirst which eaten snow could quench, but a savage yearning of his whole exhausted system for ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... a fight for it, eh, Luke? You're rather apt to slack when I'm not by." Was there a hint of wistfulness in the ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... made a fearsome noise in the tenuous night. A gigantic man stood there; his head looked over the trees and his wide-stretched arms swung the sickle and a pick-hook; and, stroke by stroke, the foliage and the flowers fell beneath his hands as he passed. The singing gradually ceased, the swings fell slack and the frolic changed into an anxious waiting, as before thunder. One and all stood in terror and dismay staring at that giant approaching. The blue of the sky darkened and the angels vanished, like lamps ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... us, up to our armpits and barely able to keep our footing as we slipped and stumbled among the boulders in the swift current, lifted and shoved while Kermit and his men pulled the rope and fastened the slack to a half-submerged tree. Each canoe in succession was hauled up the little rock island, baled, and then taken down in safety by two paddlers. It was nearly four o'clock before we were again ready to start, having been delayed by a rain- storm so heavy that we could not see across ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... and to be known by the above name. They were further to recite the Ambrosian office. Subsequently the order had a number of independent establishments in Italy which were united into one congregation by Eugenius IV., their headquarters being at Milan. Their discipline afterwards became so slack that an appeal was made to Cardinal Borromeo asking him to reform their houses. By Sixtus V. the order was amalgamated with the congregation of St Barnabas, but Innocent X. dissolved it in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... pondered, barely dipping his oars. It was slack tide now and the pea-pod just held her own. Down on the breeze floated a distant, melancholy note, the voice of the whistling buoy south of Roaring Bull Ledge, two miles from Isle au Haut. Was it an invitation ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... telegraphic reply. "Nothing definite yet. Shall come to see you late one of these evenings. I have not been to Walham Green." Though he had all but persuaded himself that he cared not at all, one way or the other, this message did Warburton good. Midway in the week, business being slack, he granted himself a half holiday, and went to Ashtead, merely in friendliness to Ralph Pomfret—so he ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... Hoog-Straat. It was Sunday and few shops were open. The Dutch told me that some years ago even those few would have been closed: the observance of the Sabbath, which used to be very strict, is becoming slack. I saw the signs of holiday chiefly in the people's clothes, in the dress of the men particularly. The men, especially those of the lower classes (and this I observed in other towns also), have a decided taste for black clothes, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... young girls have begun street solicitation through sheer imitation. A young Polish woman found herself in dire straits after the death of her mother. Her only friends in America had moved to New York, she was in debt for her mother's funeral, and as it was the slack season of the miserable sweat-shop sewing she had been doing, she was unable to find work. One evening when she was quite desperate with hunger, she stopped several men upon the street, as she had seen other girls do, and in her broken English asked them ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... all, they've just got turnips stuck on top of their shoulders. I fair pity the young officers sometimes when they are trying to knock these chaps into shape. But they are doing it fine; and fellows who came a few weeks ago, slack and shuffling, are now straight and smart. It's wonderful what ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... remembered that these figures apply only to the well-organised trades unions, which, as a rule, comprise the best and most highly-skilled workers in the several trades, who are less likely than others to be thrown out in a "slack time," that the building and season trades are not included in the estimate, and that women's industries, notoriously more irregular than men's, are altogether ignored, it will be evident that these statistics very inadequately represent ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... assaulted Bernstein since the Baron's death, but has drawn a tight line around it and so has cut off all supplies, daily summoning the maiden to surrender. What they now need in Bernstein is not iron, but food. Through long waiting they keep slack watch about the castle, and it is possible that, with care taken at midnight, you might reprovision Bernstein so that she could hold out until her brother comes, whom it is said she has summoned from the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the long lengths of heavy rope unloaded from the waggon, then deft hands tied a bowline at one end of the hawser and quickly passed it round the lock-up, which was thus securely noosed, and two or three hundred diggers took hold of the slack of the rope. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the other snatching the brand Ere it had time to fall, and holding it steady and high. Strong was the fisher, brave, and swift of mind and of eye - Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahero resisted the strain, And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in twain, And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must take his holiday now, in the slack of the London year, and the heat was great! He need not be all day with his father, and the thought of Lufa would be entrancing in the wide solitudes of the moor! Molly he scarce thought of, and his aunt was to be forgotten. ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... drop away in front of them so sharply that Tod had no work to do. A little further, and the slow trot, which gentle use of the foot-break had made possible, was reduced to a reluctant, pastern-racking walk, with slack traces and strained collar-chains for the wheelers; while the leader, too much at leisure, ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... and nodded his approbation with a smile, but again receded into the bushes, suffering the slack of the twine to fall down in an easy curve into the ravine: so that the double communication would scarce have been perceived, even by one looking for it, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... rank of senator, was deprived of all his property, and imprisoned by Theodora in an underground dungeon, where she kept him fastened to a kind of manger by a rope round his neck, which was so short that it was always quite tense and never slack. The wretched man was always forced to stand upright at this manger, and there to eat and sleep, and do all his other needs; there was no difference between him and an ass, save that he did not bray. No less ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... be light for running away (if that should be advisable), or, if you are in pursuit, the strides they lend themselves to will make your enemy's escape impossible. Seriously now, are not these refinements of yours all child's play—something for your idle, slack youngsters to do? If you really want to be free and happy, you must have other exercises than these; your training must be a genuine martial one; no toy contests with friends, but real ones with enemies; danger must ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... were slack, and the little breeze, hardly strong enough to be felt, had yet been strong enough to drift her stern against the bank. Bobbie was first—then came Peter, and it was Peter who slipped and fell. He went into the canal up to his neck, ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... people and their cattle, the former into slavery. Recently the Sarkee has complained of this, and the Sheikh, to do him justice, has ordered the Sarkee to seize any Bornouese committing these misdemeanours, and execute what justice he pleases upon them. The Sarkee, now, will not be slack to obey his master's commands. Still it is not surprising the people ran away from a ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... lunge, and was out of the doorway before the old man could utter another word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as he felt the reins stiffen in his hands, and saw the traces swing slack beside the thills. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... thing was alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international politics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... his own line as soon as he sees it; and getting to know this in his own line, he gets a faint sense of what good work may mean anyhow, that may, if circumstances favor, spread into his judgments elsewhere. Sound work, clean work, finished work; feeble work, slack work, sham work—these words express an identical contrast in many different departments of activity. In so far, then, even the humblest manual trade may beget in one a certain small degree of power to ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... will be indulgent if I write less regularly now: and by indulgent I mean that you will go on writing to me, as I do enjoy your letters so much. I expect I shall have slack times when there will be plenty of leisure to write: but at others we are likely to be busy, and you never can be sure of having the necessary facilities. And personally I find my epistolary faculties collapse at about 100 deg. in the shade. I wrote quite happily this morning till ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... with its might, shrieked for help; down tumbled the nearest hands, and hauled on the tackle in vain. Destruction was rushing on the ship, and on them first. But meantime the captain, with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see, had roared out, "Slack the main sheet!" The ship righted, and the port came flying to, and terror-stricken men breathed hard, up to their waists in water and floating boxes. Grey barred the unlucky port, and went aft, drenched in body, and wrecked in mind, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... certain wild romance aboard these cars—and in the sturdy bosom of Annie herself. The time for soft romance is in the morning, between ten o'clock and one, when things are rather slack: that is, except market-day and Saturday. Thus Annie has time to look about her. Then she often hops off her car and into a shop where she has spied something, while the driver chats in the main road. There is very good feeling between the girls and ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... prevent you from going, and I would if it were not for the fact that I think it more dangerous to leave you behind than to take you with me. You would be hinting this to this man, and that to the other, and I should have a noose about my neck through that slack tongue of yours before I had been away a fortnight. You shall go, but I warn you of ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Let them not cool o'er the liquor, or their calls will grow slack. Keep feeding the fire while it blazes, and the blaze will continue. Look to ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... and leaped up on his lap with the rabbit. The man gave a great shout and start of terror, and sprang, and the Cat slid clawing to the floor, and the rabbit fell inertly, and the man leaned, gasping with fright, and ghastly, against the wall. The Cat grabbed the rabbit by the slack of its neck and dragged it to the man's feet. Then he raised his shrill, insistent cry, he arched his back high, his tail was a splendid waving plume. He rubbed against the man's feet, which were bursting ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... priest's hand, and kissed that of the girl; and then, swinging himself off the battlement, disappeared at once in the darkness. Not a sound was heard for some time, then the listening pair above heard a faint splash in the water. The priest laid his hands on the rope and found that it swung slack in the air; he hauled it up and twisted it again round his waist. As he passed the door of the cell he pushed it to and replaced the bars and bolts, and then with his charge regained the portion of the castle inhabited ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... they call vulgarisms think they may safely go on to accuse Dickens of bad grammar. The truth is that his grammar is not only good but strong; it is far better in construction than Thackeray's, the ease of whose phrase sometimes exceeds and is slack. Lately, during the recent centenary time, a writer averred that Dickens "might not always be parsed," but that we loved him for his, etc., etc. Dickens's page is to be parsed as strictly as any man's. It is, apart from ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... to see some of their comrades dropping with moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... again—former visit resulted only in a protracted interview with a polite native clerk, so the toil had to be done twice! Then to the post office at the docks; borrowed a rusty pen there from another native clerk and did a home letter. What a fine building it is, and what a motley slack lot of people you see there! Near me a group of half-naked natives were concocting and scratching off a wire between them, others squatted on the floor and beat up their friends black hair for small game. One man made netting attached to the rail round the ticket office, seated ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... who was afraid of work, and now, putting on his everyday rig, he applied himself with a light heart to the duties of the ship, lying stoutly back upon the slack of the tackle, while the sailors hoisted the heavy articles of the cargo, or running aloft to loose the sails for drying after the drenching night dews, and assisting to ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... happened, then, some months before, that Bashley being away for a day's holiday, Antoine took his place at the scale; for it was a slack time, and few workpeople were there to be served. He believed he had given out the last skein of silk, and had weighed the last bobbin, so shutting the slide, and putting up the bar, he unlocked an inner door, and went ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... little too; it was not so bad there. And then and for long the place was a pretty place, the little grey cottage among the trees, if the cupboard hadn't been so bare; one can't live on flowers and nightingale's songs. Then the children came brisk, and the wages came slack; and the farmer got the new reaping-machine, and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... like a book,' he would say, 'one of these 'ere big fat novels or a book of sermons, to get a nice red gledy fire. A book at the front and a bit of slack behind, and there ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... rounded beautiful back was towards him, and her face was hidden. She was warming her body at the fire for consolation. The glow was rosy on one side, the shadow was dark and warm on the other. Her arms hung slack. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... walks behind. Sometimes 'long comes another Yank on a horse an he arsk, 'Boy ain you tired?' 'Yessir Boss.' 'Well den you git up here behind me and ride some.' Den he wrop de rope all 'round de saddle horn. Wrops and wrops, but leaves some slack. But he keeps you tied, so's you wont jump down and run away. An many's de time a prayin' negro got took off like dat, and want ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Irish Rifles says: "Taken singly they are afraid to face public opposition, anxious to avoid bother and exertion, slack, and easily overcome by temptations. There is a fairly general chaotic unrest, but little or no serious thought. There is a greater tolerance towards vice. Many more men practice sexual vice than before and most refuse to condemn it. It might be said that the men are ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... provides a rendezvous for all the outcasts of society. "Boot-legging" is a common subsidiary occupation for the pander, the thief and the cracksman. Where it flourishes, it serves to bridge over many a period of slack trade. Franchises whose validity is subject to political attack, bring to the aid of the underworld some of the most powerful interests in the community. The police are almost helpless when confronted by a coalition of ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... filled, and a song is the cry, and a song is sung well suited to the place; it finds an echo in every heart—fists are clenched, arms are waved, and the portraits of the mighty fighting men of yore, Broughton and Slack and Ben, which adorn the walls, appear to smile grim approbation, whilst many a manly voice joins in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... her in his arms and kissed her it was not as he had dreamed it would be. Her body was slack, her lips not merely passive but cold against his own. His heart heavy for reasons which he could not name, he set her ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... you knowed they was a reg'lar revival meeting there, and that preacher was preaching a reg'lar revival sermon. I been to more'n one camp meeting, but fur jest natcherally taking holt of the hull human race by the slack of its pants and dangling of it over hell-fire, I never hearn nothing could come up to that there sermon. Two or three old backsliders in the crowd come right up and repented all over agin on the spot. The hull kit and biling of 'em got the power good and hard, like they ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... "at least have the prudence if not the intelligence or courtesy to be silent while your betters are speaking. Gootes was a bloody knave, a lazy, slipshod, slack, tasteless, absurd, fawning, thieving, conniving sloven, but even if he had the energy to make the attempt and a mind to put to it, he could not, in ten lifetimes, become the perfect, immaculate and ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was to have ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Zelie, the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in your eye, and learn to walk upon it; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poise you, till you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk well upon that line, than upon the slack-rope; and, therefore, a good performer shines so much ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... are equidistant from the centre of the ellipse, which is formed as follows: Two pins are driven in on the major axis to represent the foci A and B, Figure 75, and around these pins a loop of fine twine is passed; a pencil point, C, is then placed in the loop and pulled outwards, to take up the slack of the twine. The pencil is held vertical and moved around, tracing ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... porridge, dashed a handful of salt into it with an instinctive sense that it was his duty as a father to prevent his son enjoying himself. Ruskin's mother gratified the sensual side of her maternal passion, not by cuddling her son, but by whipping him when he fell downstairs or was slack in learning the Bible off by heart; and this grotesque safety-valve for voluptuousness, mischievous as it was in many ways, had at least the advantage that the child did not enjoy it and was not debauched by it, as he would have been by transports ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... man to collect the drift, and there were often logs cast ashore there which he brought home for fuel. The brothers had no need to work beyond going to the cliffs, which they did whenever they chose. The thrall began to get very slack at his work; he grumbled much and was less careful than before. It was his duty to mind the fire every night, and Grettir bade him be very careful of it as they had no boat with them. One night it came to pass that the fire went out. Grettir ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... Afiola in the settlement—five or six of them, at least, not to speak of the king—but none of them seemed able to do a thing to stop him. They were all a slack lot at any time, and thought excommunicating him enough, and taking away his communion ticket. I guess he had been out of the church for a matter of six years, and, as I said before, he was the scandal of the place and a terror. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... interest on his capital, he has to keep his mill in repair, he now and then has to meet the demands of the times and purchase improved appliances, and he has to keep a certain number of employes, whether business is brisk or slack. He might, therefore, if he saw fit to employ the logic of railroad managers, earn revenue enough to meet his fixed charges from the business which his regular customers give him, and then do any business coming from beyond this circle ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... floundered right into the centre of a group of young ladies, and one or two lapdogs, by whom it was conjointly occupied. Trying to recover myself, I slipped on the glasslike floor, and came down stern foremost; and being now regularly at the slack end, for I could not well get lower, I sat still, scratching my caput in the midst of a gay company of morning visitors, enjoying the gratifying consciousness that I was distinctly visible to them, although my dazzled optics could as yet distinguish nothing. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... later, for my soul was out in the dancing weir, praying for him to turn ere he took my tackle away. And the prayer was heard. As I bowed back, the butt of the rod on my left hip-bone and the top joint dipping like unto a weeping willow, he turned and accepted each inch of slack that I could by any means get in as a favor from on high. There lie several sorts of success in this world that taste well in the moment of enjoyment, but I question whether the stealthy theft of line from an able-bodied salmon who knows exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it is not ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... three months on the voyage, and this is certain, and on his return he saw two islands[423-3] but would not land, so as not to lose time, as he was short of provisions. The King is much pleased with this. He says that the tides are slack and do not flow as ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... born, wrap a fold of towel around his ankles to prevent slipping and hold him up by the heels with one hand, taking care that the cord is slack. To get a good safe grip, insert one finger between the baby's ankles. Do not swing or spank the baby. Hold him over the bed so that he cannot fall far if he should slip from your grasp. The baby's body will be very slippery. Place your other hand under the baby's forehead ...
— Emergency Childbirth - A Reference Guide for Students of the Medical Self-help - Training Course, Lesson No. 11 • U. S. Department of Defense
... as the amphibious animal that we now alternately coaxed and bullied. He sprang out of the water, gnashed his huge jaws, snorted with tremendous rage, and lashed the river into foam; he then dived, and foolishly approached us beneath the water. We quickly gathered in the slack line, and took a round turn upon a large rock, within a few feet of the river. The hippo now rose to the surface, about ten yards from the hunters, and, jumping half out of the water, he snapped his great jaws together, endeavoring to catch the rope, but at the same instant two harpoons ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... poop; he gave me the bight of the halyards. I crept out of the port into the chains and passed it round the lugger's mainmast, as he told me, handing in the bight to him, which he belayed slack to the mainsheet kevel. At the time I perceived a man lying wounded or dead in the main chains, but I paid no attention to him until, as I was about to get on board, he attracted my attention by ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... disdain for the credulity which he now exposes and laughs at. Neither excessive caution nor timidity are implied by his editing of the Carlyle papers; and he may have failed - who that has done so much has not? - in keeping his balance on the swaying slack-rope between the judicious and the injudicious. In his own line, however, he is, to my taste, the most scholarly, the most refined, and the most suggestive, of our recent essayists. The man himself in manner and in appearance was in perfect keeping ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... you hunt up a lost kid, there's something in you that don't work right! Why didn't you take care of him while you had him? Now you've got just four minutes by the watch; either hustle around and hunt, or drop off the train and hunt—what's that? Now don't you give me any slack, you black-muzzled tarrier, or I'll have the fear of God thrown into you too quick. Get out of here now! Get out of ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... comercio, bank holiday fijar, to fix fijo, fixed, firm filosofia, philosophy firma, signature firmar, to sign firmeza, firmness (el) fin, the end fino, shrewd fletar, to charter, to freight flete, freight flojedad, slackness flojo, slack flor, flower floreciente, flourishing folleto, leaflet fomento, development, encouragement fonda, hotel, hotel fondo, bottom, ground (colour) fondos, funds, capital forma, shape ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... there was a new maturity in his eyes and the set of his jaw that Lydia liked without really observing it. Old Lizzie watched the two as they climbed the slope to the woods. Billy strode along with the slack, irregular gait of the farmer. Lydia sprang over the ground with quick, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the condemnation of His holy law. Shall the traitor arraign the Judge? And unto the repenting traitor, God's hand falleth not in punishment, but only in loving discipline and fatherly training. You slack not, I count, to give Honor her physic, though she cry that it is bitter and loathsome; nor will God set aside His physic for your Ladyship's crying. Yet, dear my Lady, this is not because He loveth to see you weep, but only because He would heal you of the deadly plague of your sins. Our ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... without reason that Napoleon on that night received his Marshals rather coolly at his modest quarters in the village of Reudnitz. Leaning against the stove, he ran over several names of those who were now slack in their duty; and when Augereau was announced, he remarked that he was not the Augereau of Castiglione. "Ah! give me back the old soldiers of Italy, and I will show you that I am," retorted the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... are too fat," explained Miss Hemingway. "Most owners are so slack and good-natured that, though they know they are their own dogs' worst enemies, they weakly go on pampering them in spite of their better judgment. I am going to reduce dogs for ten dollars a dog—not brutally, like a vet, who kicks them into a cellar and leaves them there—but giving ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... his arms, but the woman shook herself free. "I sha'n't faint—no—I sha'n't faint," she gasped, "the cellar—look—look—" She ran forward and raised the head of the dead man. When the officers saw the dangling slack wire disappearing through a hole in the floor they grasped the situation. "The passage outside!" cried Deborah, directing operations; "the trap-door," she ran to it, "fast bolted below, and them ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... a hot Iowa morning. Business was so slack that if Mr. Gubb had not taken out his set of eight varieties of false whiskers daily and brushed them carefully, the moths would have been able to devour ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... understood the necessity of abiding a particular moment of the tide to undertake the crossing of the fiord, when, the sea having reached its greatest height, it should be slack water. Then the ebb and flow have no sensible effect, and the boat does not risk being carried either to the bottom or ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... could just see the coil of rope unwind as it left his hand; but I could not see where it fell; I knew that there would be no time for another throw; and it seemed to me that my heart did not beat again until I heard from the bow of the sloop a cheery shout of "All right! I've got the line! Slack off till I make ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... a man with a face black with soot, in a blouse and filthy frayed trousers hanging very slack, comes to the door of the van. This is the oiler, who had been creeping under the carriages and tapping the wheels ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... I used to sneak out to buckle the horses on; an' w'en Jack Clay, a great chum of me father's, used to be driving the 'Up' coach, me father, w'en he'd be slack of passengers,—which wasn't often, there being more life and people moving in the colony then,—an' w'en I'd be good, would put me up on the box an' take me on to the next stage, an' I'd come back with Jack Clay—that ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... all were those in the final stages of the disease, wandering vaguely about the street, their faces blank and their jaws slack as though they were living in a silent world of their own, cut off from contact with the rest. "One of them almost ran into me," Jack said. "I was right in front of him, and he didn't see me ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... us. While waiting for slack water, in which to lift their heavy nets from the bed of the bay, the Chinese had all gone to sleep below. We were elated, and our plan of ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... past two years, in the slack season, after the gathering of our hay and potato crops, we had hired out during the fine weather remaining to a man whose business it was to cut and haul timbers for the mines in and around the town of Sulphide, which lay in the mountains seven miles southwestward from our ranch. We found it congenial ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... in the midst of fairs, and race-days, and "slack times," have demonstrated that real soldiers of Christ can snatch victory, just when all around seems to ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... After a while the trio went to sleep, the man on the carriage bench, the woman and child on the floor. She was what is euphemistically called a "cook" in Tonking; just another name for an arrangement so often resulting from the lonely life of Europeans among a slack-fibred dependent alien population. It is the same thing that confronts the stray visitor to the isolated tea plantations of the Assam hills, where young English lads are set down by themselves, perhaps a day's journey from the next European. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... noticed him as soon as she entered, and her table was next to the one at which he sat with three others, who watched him while he talked, and said little. He was a fair youth, with a bland, rather vacant face, and a weak, slack mouth. Miss Gregory knew such faces among footmen and hairdressers, creatures fitted by their deficiencies to serve their betters. He had evidently been drinking a good deal; the table before him was sloppy and foul, and there was the glaze ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... first snow falls. I don't like these long campaigns. Men are ready to fight, and to fight again, twenty times if need be, but then they like to be done with it. In a long campaign, with marches, and halts, and delays, discipline gets slack, men begin to grumble; besides, clothes wear out, and however big stores you take with you, they are sure to run short in time. I ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... absence of guests, Celia had fallen into the slack habit of eating in the kitchen of the smoke-begrimed ceiling and the dark bare walls. There was a small deal table against the window. It was covered with an ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... enough of law, Dave? You've given it a good trial, and showed what you could do. It'll be a big help to you to know the law, and it'll allers be sumthin' to fall back on when things get slack, but ain't you pinin' fer somethin' a ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... recognized his own weakness, after a fashion. He knew that he would work violently for a month or two at a time, giving the vigorous hired man a decent test in holding his physical own, and he knew that after that he would become what the people called "slack," and a little listless; and it was in his slack times that the squirrel and grouse most suffered. Between him and the wife of his bosom had grown nothing, so grave as to be described as an armed neutrality; ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Mr. Solomon Pell in court, regaling himself, business being rather slack, with a cold collation of an Abernethy biscuit and a saveloy. The message was no sooner whispered in his ear than he thrust them in his pocket among various professional documents, and hurried over the way with such alacrity that he reached ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... birds, and that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling of relief and satisfaction by the full grown, and of extravagant anticipation by the callow brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold glittering expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He sulked at the bottom for over twenty minutes, coming up suddenly quite near the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... only become 'pucka' instead of 'kucha'—a permanent instead of temporary judge—he would prefer it to anything in the world. He feels less anxious, and declares that he has 'not written a single article this week'; though he manages when work is slack, to find time for a little writing, such as the chapter in Hunter's 'Life of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... motor cars began whizzing by from the country roads back to Chicago. You have to go back that way. Just then the five o'clock whistles blew and the day shift came off. There was a great army of them, clumping down the road the way they do. Their shoulders were slack, and their lunch pails dangled, empty, and they were wet and reeking with sweat. The motor cars were full of wild phlox and daisies ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... good intentions fully—or Bacon or Bungay, if the author, wearied in well-doing. The work is least ill done in the Comedies, and grows worse and worse as the Editor, or Bacon, or Bungay becomes intolerably slack. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... inclination to hinder government by unnecessary interference, or a disposition to clip the President's wings by putting itself altogether at variance with him. I am not quite sure whether some fault may not have lain on the other side; whether the Senate may not have been somewhat slack in exercising the protective privileges given to it by the Constitution. And here I cannot but remark how great is the deference paid to all governors and edicts of government throughout the United States. One would have been disposed ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... dead, grave words were said to me of my future life; although I feel myself truly four-square against the blows of chance. Wherefore my wish would be content by hearing what sort of fortune is drawing near me; for arrow foreseen comes more slack." Thus said I unto that same light which before had spoken to me, and as Beatrice willed ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... with 36,000 men,' to 400 or 500 ships, and 80,000 soldiers and mariners; and yet Drake was not ready with his squadron. "The fault is not in him," said Howard, "but I pray God her Majesty do not repent her slack dealing. We must all lie together, for we shall be stirred very shortly with heave ho! I fear ere long her Majesty will be sorry she hath believed some so much as she ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... its pinkness), that had been left behind by its stouter brethren in the race for existence. The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late into the evening if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack," Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the woodshed adjoining the kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... troubles in a momentary exhilaration, that burns only to chill and to destroy! Evil angels are always active and indefatigable, and there must be good angels enlisted to face them; and here is employment for the slack hand of grief. Ah, we have known mothers bereft of sons in this war, who have seemed at once to open wide their hearts, and to become mothers to every brave soldier in the field. They have lived only to work,—and in place of ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... unfortunately had had too much their own way under the slack though fitful reign of William the Testy; and though upon the accession of Peter Stuyvesant they had felt, with the instinctive perception which mobs as well as cattle possess, that the reins of government had passed into stronger hands, yet could they not help fretting and chafing ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the artery passes over the bone. Bleeding may also be stopped to some extent by elevating the wounded part. A tourniquet may be improvised by using the compress, running a stick or the bayonet through the band, and taking up the slack ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... the steam-crusher of the sale. That's the trouble with this brig racket; any one can make half a dozen theories for sixty or seventy per cent of it; but when they're made, there's always a fathom or two of slack hanging out ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... did the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... the population later on if we were allowed to consume their stocks of flour. H.Q. actually managed to secure a turkey, which was picketed out near the Quartermaster's stores to wait for Christmas. The programme here was "Road Improvement," but all the same we had a slack time for ten days or so, when we were told what was to be the next stunt. We were to assist in a big turning movement in which we were to go along the Zeitun Ridge, the object being the gaining of some elbow room to the north of Jerusalem. The 60th Division were to make ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... leg. When employed in the form of an immovable case, they are open to certain objections—for example, if applied immediately after the accident they are apt to become too tight if swelling occurs; and if applied while swelling is still present, they become slack when this subsides, so that displacement is liable ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... first to last apparently all hand-work. But it is head-work and heart-work too, and the men who wrought at it wrought with such intensity and constancy that they did not once look up or round where we paused to look on. I was made to know that trade was dull and work slack, and these fellows were lucky fellows to have anything to do. Still I did not envy them; and I felt it a distinct relief to pass from their shops into the cool, dim crypt which was filled with tusks of ivory, in all sizes from those of the largest father elephant ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... sharp shrieks of the whistle for switches, a jamming of the whistle lever to set the canyon echoes yelling in the hope of arousing Gallagher, and Graham slammed his engine into the forward motion without pausing to close the throttle. There was a grinding of fire from the wheels, a running jangle of slack-taking down the long line of empties, and the freight train shot ahead, snatching its rear end out of harm's way just as Gallagher, dreaming that his boiler had burst and that all the fiends of the pit were screeching the news of it, came to life ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... than careless," said Chowne, "because life cures a chap of being fussy, if he's got a brain and a sensible outlook; but the careless and slack sort go from bad to worse, and I ain't here to keep my constables in order: they be here to strengthen my hands and keep the rest of the people ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... municipal elections of 1920 they were victorious in most of the towns. In Belgrade they secured 3600 votes, as compared with 3200 for the Radicals, 2800 for the Democrats—both of whom were not only badly organized but very slack—and 605 for the Republicans. However, the Communists refused to swear the requisite oath, and in consequence were not permitted to take office, the Radicals and Democrats forming a union to carry on. It was agreed to have a new election and the other parties, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... with him, a red-skin never goes at a walk, and the horses will keep on at this lope for hours. That is right. Don't sit so stiffly; you want your legs to be stiff and keeping a steady grip, but from your hips you want to be as slack as possible, just giving to the horse's action, the same way you give on board ship when vessels are rolling. That is better. Ah! here comes Pete. I took this way because I knew it was the line he would come back by—and, by gosh, he has got ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... take his holiday now, in the slack of the London year, and the heat was great! He need not be all day with his father, and the thought of Lufa would be entrancing in the wide solitudes of the moor! Molly he scarce thought of, and his aunt was to be forgotten. He would go for a few days, he said, thus keeping the door open ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... the two knapsacks come bumping along until they slid over the eaves above me, and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso's end and braced myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack and help him as best I might. As he came slowly down from crack to crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in the rope until it was taut, and then hurriedly ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack because the saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Petya put his foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but Petya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and, turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... principal of the high school and janitor. He had a pleasant smile, a genius for mathematics, and a West Point idea of obedience and discipline. He carried upon his person a grip that would make the imported malady which mocks that name in these degenerate days, call itself Slack, in very terror at having assumed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... another chapter. In no one of the mind's activities is vividness a more important factor than in memorizing. Matter committed under the stimulus of high interest and keen attention is relatively secure, while matter committed under slack concentration is sure to fade quickly from the memory. Songs can therefore best be committed under the elation of the interesting singing of the words; a verse of poetry, when the mind is alert and the feelings aroused by a story in which the sentiment of the verse fits; ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... her mornings as she shakes her rugs Feebly, with futile reach And fingers without clutch. Her thews are slack And curved the ruined back And flesh empurpled like old meat, Yet each conspires To feed those guttering fires With which her ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... path ends: the gaunt rocks gape: the black Deep hollow tortuous night, a soundless shell, Glares darkness: are the fires of old grown slack? ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it, as far as the slack of the telephone wire of the receiver at my ear would permit. Annenberg had worked with amazing care and neatness on the list, even going so far as to draw at the top, in black, a death's head. The rest of it was elaborately prepared in ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Granite House. After walking for nearly two miles, they had not as yet discovered any explanation of the difficulty. The posts were in good order, the wire regularly expended. However, at that moment the engineer observed that the wire appeared to be slack, and on arriving at post Number 74, Herbert, who was in ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... West Indian islands, was of a stony, sandy soil, very favourable to the growth of cedar-trees. Having arrived at such an island, the men went ashore to cut timber. They were generally good lumbermen, for many buccaneers would go to cut logwood in Campeachy when trade was slack. As soon as a cedar had been felled, the limbs were lopped away, and the outside rudely fashioned to the likeness of a boat. If they were making a periagua, they left the stern "flat"—that is, cut off sharply ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... direct. In this play, nothing is simple and direct. Fate's direct workings are baffled by a mind too complex to be active on the common planes. The baffling of Fate's purpose leads to a condition in life like the "slack water" between tides. Laertes, when his father is killed, raises the town and comes raving to the presence to stab the killer. He is baffled by the King's wisdom. Ophelia, "incapable of her own distress," goes mad and drowns herself. ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... which he had been awaiting the final word, tightened the lines, made an unique sound in his throat, and the horses pressed their shoulders into the collars. Linder glanced back to see each wagon or implement take up the slack with a jerk like the cars of a freight train; the cushioned rumble of wagon wheels on the soft earth, and the noisy chatter of the steel teeth of the hay-rakes came up from the rear. Transley's "outfit" ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... rose in the middle of the day; Coralie was always at his side, he could not forego a single pleasure. Sometimes he saw his real position, and made good resolutions, but they came to nothing in his idle, easy life; and the mainspring of will grew slack, and only responded to the heaviest pressure ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... coarse excess, either of manner or speech. The fierce, defiant look left her face, and when she sat, of an evening, with her pipe in the chimney-corner, both mother and son found her very entertaining company. In Sam she inspired at once admiration and despair. She could take him by the slack of the waist-band and lift him at arm's-length, and he felt that he should never be "a full hand," if he were obliged to equal her performances with ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... demand continues for the home trade, and occasionally a small advance upon the last July rates is paid on such sorts suitable for that branch, but there is almost no demand for export, the consumption of the article in foreign countries being this year unusually slack. The shipments to Russia, since the opening of the season, amount to only 2,209 chests, against 3,439 chests during the same time last year. A public sale was held yesterday, in Liverpool, of about 400 chests of East India, and ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... "to call together, this evening, at this place, for the due consideration of this subject, such of the Assistants as may be here present in Boston, and to advise with them thereupon, when and where I shall hope to be favored with the presence and counsel of my friend, whose zeal is never slack in aught that may redound to ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... thing about camp, having a dirty way of catching and tripping their wearers; but the rodeo outfit felt that it was on dress parade and was trying its best to look the cowboy part. Bill Lightfoot even had a red silk handkerchief draped about his neck, with the slack in front, like a German napkin; and his cartridge belt was slung so low that it threatened every moment to drop his huge Colt's revolver into the dirt—but ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... in the matter of education. "Never mind expense," he had argued in the old days with Parkinson when that slack mariner could see no reason for making the Vega seaworthy; "you sail the schooner, I pay the bills." And so with his sons and daughters. It had been for them to get the education and never mind the expense. Harold, the eldest-born, ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... is not slack concerning His promise."(67) He does not forget or neglect His children; but He permits the wicked to reveal their true character, that none who desire to do His will may be deceived concerning them. Again, the righteous are placed in the furnace of affliction, that ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... well known as we hope to be later on. We have to take what we can get on the small-time circuits, and we know that if we make good there we'll get on the big-time circuit sooner or later. Just now things are slack in the theatrical line as they always are in summer. We've got our lines out for a job in the fall, but nothing definite has come of it yet. So we thought we'd come down to the seashore for a few weeks and get a little of the sea air ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... been the slackest of theatre conductors, the slackest of the slack old school. I may have mentioned that once I had the misfortune to play the piano part in a number of his trios; and though these are the only compositions of his known to me they suffice. A man who had the patience to plod ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... "Anything for me, Slack?" he asked. "Has Mr. Bolt come in? Ah, there you are, Bolt. Come down to my room." He led the way down the green corridor, ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... followed by an unaccountable, sputtering fusillade as of tiny muskets, and then by a formidable silence. While the banqueters listened in the smoky room, there came a sullen, heavy sound, like a single stroke on a large and very slack bass-drum. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... quickly as possible. I believe he told the second mate, who relieved him, that it was a great want of judgment. The other only yawned. That intolerable cub shuffled about so sleepily and lolled against the rails in such a slack, improper fashion that I came down on ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... he shouted, as he fastened the end of a rope firmly to the branch, and gathered in the slack so as to have the running noose handy. "I've got you now. Come, come along; have ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the wind, which lifted up his grey curling locks, and bore them out horizontally from his fur cap, "and it's a devil of a gale, sure enough.—It may last a month of Sundays for all I know.—Up with the helm, Tom.—Ease off the main sheet, handsomely, my lad—not too much. Now, take in the slack, afore she jibes;" and the master ducked under the main boom and took his station on the other side of the deck. "Steady as you go now.—Newton, take the helm.—D'ye see that bluff?—keep her right for it. Tom, you and the boy rouse the cable ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby, Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be, 80 An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions, Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses; Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson! It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar Anglo-Saxon, The Mex'cans don't fight ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... kind of a reaction results. There is a slight twitch of the legs, immediately after which the animal jumps. Now for all these series the thread was slackened by one eighth of an inch, but the reflex time was determined without this slack. Calculation of the lengthening of the reaction time due to the slack indicated it to be between 20 and 30[sigma], so if allowance be made in case of the reactions to the four-cell stimulus, the mean becomes about 70[sigma], or, in other words, nearly the same as the spinal ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... "you size her up at the depot, and, if she don't look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The creams 'll do the rest. If they don't, we'll finish ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... Dr. Staples of Meath, and Dr. Bale of Ossory. The latter writing of the former in 1553, excuses the corruption of his own reformed clergy, by stating that "they would at no hand obey; alleging for their vain and idle excuse, the lewd example of the Archbishop of Dublin, who was always slack in things pertaining to God's glory." He calls him "an epicurious archbishop, a brockish swine, and a dissembling proselyte," and accuses him in plain terms of "drunkenness and gluttony." Dr. Browne accuses Dr. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... he, the said Brayne, at the time he joined with the said James Burbage in the aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this deponent's conscience, he bestowed ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... tripped and fallen. Bettles stopped long enough to grip him by the slack of his furs, then headed for a pile of cordwood already occupied by a number of his comrades. Yellow Fang, doubling after one of the dogs, came leaping back. The fleeing animal, free of the rabies, but crazed with fright, whipped Bettles off his feet ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the Ambrosian office. Subsequently the order had a number of independent establishments in Italy which were united into one congregation by Eugenius IV., their headquarters being at Milan. Their discipline afterwards became so slack that an appeal was made to Cardinal Borromeo asking him to reform their houses. By Sixtus V. the order was amalgamated with the congregation of St Barnabas, but Innocent X. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... midshipman's mess. He hated bloodshed, and was guilty of the 'cotton-spinners' babble,' abhorred of Everard, in alluding to it. Rosamund liked him for his humanity; but she, too, feared he was a slack Romfrey when she heard him speak in precocious contempt of glory. Somewhere, somehow, he had got hold of Manchester sarcasms concerning glory: a weedy word of the newspapers had been sown in his bosom perhaps. He said: 'I don't care to win glory; I know all about ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... praise. Now mark a spot or two That so much beauty would do well to purge; And show this queen of cities, that so fair May yet be foul; so witty, yet not wise. It is not seemly, nor of good report, That she is slack in discipline; more prompt To avenge than to prevent the breach of law: That she is rigid in denouncing death On petty robbers, and indulges life And liberty, and ofttimes honour too, To peculators of the public gold: That thieves at home must hang; but he, that ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... had see the lady dance on the slack-wire in the street at night. They throw a bright light on her and she float through the air something beautiful, like a bird! They have a dancing bear, like in the old country, and two-three merry-go-around, and people in balloons, and what you ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... whose immortal fingers did imprint That heavenly path with many a curious dint That runs along his back, but my rude pen Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men, Much less of powerful gods. Let it suffice That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes, Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his That leaped into the water for a kiss Of his own shadow and, despising many, Died ere he could enjoy the love of any. Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen Enamoured of his beauty had he been. His presence made the ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... tray and lit my candle; and I had breakfasted and read (with indescribable sinkings) the whole of yesterday's work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent stuff misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps upon a camel. But could I, in my present disposition, do much more with it? in my present pressure for time, were I not better employed doing another one ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... parishioners duly resort to their Church upon all Sundays and Holy-days, and there continue the whole time of Divine Service; and none to walk or to stand idle or talking in the Church, or in the Churchyard, or in the Church-porch, during that time. And all such as shall be found slack or negligent in resorting to the Church (having no great or urgent cause of absence) they shall earnestly call upon them; and after due monition (if they amend not) they shall present them to the Ordinary of the place. The choice of which persons, viz., Churchwardens ...
— Churchwardens' Manual - their duties, powers, rights, and privilages • George Henry
... citizenship to try it. It ain't neighborly. Think of the lean years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... spray. Suddenly the watch shouted, "Whale ahead, sir!" Officers and sailors were astir. Just ahead, and lying in the pathway of the steamer lay a whale, fifty feet in length, seemingly asleep, for he was motionless. The officer's first thought was that he would slack speed, but presence of mind prompted him to order full speed, planning no doubt, if the whale was obstinate, to cut him ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... Greystock had been as yet but once at Fawn Court since he had written to Lucy Morris asking her to be his wife. That was three weeks since, and as the barrier against him at Fawn Court had been removed by Lady Fawn herself, the Fawn girls thought that as a lover he was very slack; but Lucy was not in the least annoyed. Lucy knew that it was all right; for Frank, as he took his last walk round the shrubbery with her during that visit, had given her to understand that there was a little difference between him and Lady Fawn in regard to Lizzie Eustace. "I am her only ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... and before he could even look up the master's mate fell forward, shot through the head. His boat took the lead. "Now's your time," cried Dick Rogers; "we'll be the first aboard, lads." The crew were not slack to follow the suggestion. In another moment they were up to the schooner, and, leaping on her deck, led by Pearce, laid on them so fiercely with their cutlasses that the Frenchmen, deserting their guns, sprang ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... go to Mr. Kenyon's—who had a little to forgive in my slack justice to his good dinner, but was for the rest his own kind self—and I went, also, to Moxon's—who said something about my number's going ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... have been more of a miracle had she done it in a balmy August, in the midst of other occupations, instead of in a tempestuous January when business was slack; but, on the whole, I did not believe that either the Madonna or my sins had had anything to do with my cold which I considered to be a natural, or non-miraculous, consequence of the rain and the ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... made by winding the raw silk, putting a large number of ends together, giving them a slack twist, then doubling and twisting in the reverse direction with a ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... time, heavy-eyed and flushed, and Honor saw with a pang, in the stern morning light, that he was middle-aged. Her gay young stepfather! His spirit had put a period at nineteen, but his tired body was settling back into the slack lines of the late fifties. Her mother had changed but little, thanks to the unruffled serenity of her spirit and the skillful hands which cared ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... was fitted with a specially constructed drum (B), which absorbed the crushing strain and then allowed the slack wire to be wound on the reel (A), which was driven as nearly as possible at the same speed; the windlass usually heaving at the rate of four hundred and fifty ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Mr. Jonathan, he ain't the head—for thar's his brother Abner still livin'—but, head or tail, he's the only part that counts, when it comes to that. Until the boy grew up an' took hold of things, the Revercombs warn't nothin' mo' than slack fisted, out-at-heel po' white trash, as the niggers say, though the old man, Abel's grandfather, al'ays lays claim to bein' connected with the real Revercombs, higher up in the State—However that may be, befo' the war thar warn't no place for sech as them, an' 'tis only since ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... I knew CH-RL-S ST-RT, 'Twas in a happier day, The Jaunting Car he drove in Went gaily all the way. But now the Car seems all askew, Lop-wheel'd, and slack of spring; Myself and WILL, in fear of a spill, Feel little disposed to sing, As we sit on the Jaunting Car, The drivers at open war, Seem little to care For a Grand Old Fare, As they fight for the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... sense of the term, what embraced; signif. of do., as now used —in opposition to some grammarians, BROWN confines the term to speech and writing —loose explanations of the word by certain slack thinkers; WEBST. notion of —SHERID. idea of; KIRKH. wild and contradictory teachings concerning —Language, PROPRIETY of, in what consists; IMPROPRIETY of, what embraces —PRECISION of, in what consists; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... more round the tooth, the wretched sailor attached the other end to the handle of the door, and retiring till there was only about eight inches or a foot of "slack" cord left, stood up and drew a long breath. The glaring children also drew long breaths. One very small one, who had been lifted on to the window-sill by an amiable companion, lay there on his ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... his reins hang slack and recklessly dug in his spurs. The pony leaped ahead with still greater speed and burst out of the brush on to a narrow open slope that led down to the brink of a canyon. The hunter saw first the precipice on the far side of the yawning chasm—then the near edge, seemingly, to ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... as cope with those in the field. Besides, one must remember that in a matter like this we cannot fully depend on any force that we may gather. The archers and men-at-arms would be drawn largely from the same class as the better portion of these rioters, and would be slack in fighting against them. Certainly, those of the home counties could not be depended upon, and possibly even in the garrison of the Tower itself there may be many who cannot be trusted. The place, if well held, should stand out for months, but ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... orderly administration of affairs, has been as remarkable as the intervention of the great question which eclipsed every other till it compelled its own solution. Although this transition has given birth to an era of "slack-water politics," it has gradually brought the country face to face with new problems, some of which are quite as vital to the existence and welfare of the Republic as those which have taxed the statesmanship of the past. The tyranny of industrial domination, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... passing through a round hawse-hole forward, and conveyed it aft to the shaft. After winding it four or five times round the shaft, I told the boys to haul it taut; and about twenty of them laid hold of the rope to "take in the slack," if we were fortunate ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... outside; in spite of the drummer-boy from the fort, who broke the silence into slivers at intervals throughout the day; in brief, in spite of his own martial bearing and smart uniform, the sergeant found trade very slack. At Rivermouth the war with Mexico was not a popular undertaking. If there were any heroic blood left in the old town by the sea, it appeared to be in no hurry to come forward and get itself shed. There were hours ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... he had been dismissed, And now was travelling towards his native home. 425 This heard, I said, in pity, "Come with me." He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up An oaken staff by me yet unobserved— A staff which must have dropt from his slack hand And lay till now neglected in the grass. 430 Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared To travel without pain, and I beheld, With an astonishment but ill suppressed, His ghostly figure moving at my side; Nor could ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... inadvisability of having anything to do with Monk, should for that very reason be attracted to him. Nobody ever wants to do anything except what they are not allowed to do. Otherwise there is no explaining the friendship that arose between them. Jack Monk was not an attractive individual. He had a slack mouth and a shifty eye, and his complexion was the sort which friends would have described as olive, enemies (with more truth) as dirty green. These defects would have mattered little, of course, in themselves. There's many a bilious countenance, so to speak, covers ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... circumstance, that all city-people must have noticed, which is often illustrated in our experience of the slack-water gentry. We shall know a certain person by his looks, familiarly, for years, but never have learned his name. About this person we shall have accumulated no little circumstantial knowledge;—thus, his face, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... every one of such shall be reputed by us enemies to God and the covenanted work of reformation, and punished as such, according to our power and the degree of their offence.... Let not any think that (our God assisting us) we will be so slack-handed in time coming to put matters in execution as heretofore we have been, seeing we are bound faithfully and valiantly to maintain our covenants and the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... be sneeringly told to "hit a fellow one's own size," merely because, provoked beyond endurance, one just grabbed him by the slack of his trousers and gently shook him out of them onto the floor, terrified ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... held the best gun of Jimmie Time; in the other—there seemed to be a well-gripped connection with the slack of a buckskin shirt—writhed the alleged real doughnuts of a possibly Peruvian character. The captor looked aloft and remained vocal, waving the gun, waving Jimmie Time, playing them together as cymbals, never loosening them. It was fine. It filled the eye and ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... turned again into a hard and tough artificial limestone, in plain words, into mortar; and the first step is to slack it—that is, to give it back the water which it has lost, and for which it is as it were thirsting. So it is slacked with water, which it drinks in, heating itself and the water till it steams and swells in bulk, because it takes the substance of the water into ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... that is, gone down towards the bottom. A two hundred fathom line was run out, and another fastened on; a third was called for from another boat, and a fourth was about to be added, when the line became slack—the whale was rising. A whale breathes the air like a land animal, and therefore cannot remain under water many minutes at a time. Were it not for this, it could not be caught and used by man. The line was hauled in, and coiled away in the tub. Up ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... upon its foul interior the first thorough washing it ever received, driving the despoilers before it with the force of a battering-ram, yet even then, unsatisfied, following up its victory. With perhaps half a dozen soldiers and as many mill-hands hauling on the slack of the hose behind him, through a north window came the tall, slender, serious-faced person of Mr. Davies, a laughing young lance corporal manning the butt with him, and, aiming low and driving discipline and punishment at the rate of a gallon a second, a posteriori, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... it, that the business was all well over now, and you safe at Concord again. Yet how is it that I do not hear? I will tell you my guess is that those Boston Carlylean Miscellanies are to blame. The Printer is slack and lazy as Printers are; and you do not wish to write till you can send some news of him? I will hope and believe that only this is ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to hardness of sizing answer every ordinary purpose: Moisten with the tongue, and if the paper is slack-sized you can detect it often by the instant drawing or absorption of the moisture. Watch the spot moistened, and the longer it remains wet the better the paper is sized. Look through the spot dampened—the poorer the sizing the more transparent is the paper where ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... debate tendeth also to this end, that the power, as well of ecclesiastical censure as of the civil sword, being in force, the licentiousness of carnal men, who desire that there be too slack ecclesiastical discipline, or none at all, may be bridled, and so men may sin less, and may live more agreeably to the gospel. Another thing here intended is, that errors on both sides being overthrown (as well the error of those who, under a fair pretence of maintaining and defending ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... steering is done at the bow, with a pole; the three-log breadth there furnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs are not larger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of the several sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raft may be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... barge-folk. The boats in which this class of the population live have an awning of bamboo and matting fore and aft, which is removed by day and raised at night. At sundown the boat-people anchor their craft in rows to stakes, thus forming boat-terraces as it were. When business grows slack at one part of the river, the master of the boat moves up or down stream to some other part. From the shape of these boats, resembling somewhat the half of an egg cut lengthwise, they are called in the Chinese language "egg-boats." A large family will ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... (the lieutenant, who was a cousin of his own) called for me, and he and I went before the rest, and discoursed soberly about several things. I was free in telling him what I held to be sin, and what I held to be duty; and when we came to Kilmarnock tolbooth, he caused slack my arms a-little, and inquired if I desired my wounds dressed: and at the desire of some friends in the town, he caused bring in straw and some cloaths for my brother John Gemmel[217] and me to lie upon, but would not suffer ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... "Things are slack here to-day, old fellow. Let's go out to the Country Club and have a few sets of tennis or a game of golf, whichever you prefer," he suggested. "I've done my little ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tall, lithe body slack, grim, serious lines in his lean face. He had thought of his conversation with Judge Graney concerning ambition—his ambition, the picture upon which his mind had dwelt many times. A little frame printing office in the West was not one of its features. He sighed with ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... for your lives!" I shouted; and at the words the slack was taken in like lightning, the strain coming upon the tackles exactly at the right moment, namely, when the ship was pausing an instant at the steepest angle of her lee roll, prior to ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... I to see that thy goodman leaveth the cord as slack as may be, Goody Billington," whispered Lois, late maid to Mistress Carver, but now the promised second wife of Francis Eaton, who stood beside her, and overhearing ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... that I know, and a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you're getting fat and lazy and can't deny yourself anything—and I call that dirty because it leads one straight into the dirt. You've let yourself get so slack that I don't know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. You—a doctor—sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your patients! In another three or four years you won't get up for your patients... But hang it all, that's not the point!... You are going to spend to-night ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... width for the commerce of the world, to a length of 120 miles. The approaches to this level, though expensive, are not different from similar works, and will be singularly sheltered from floods and storms. Of the distance of 169.4 miles from ocean to ocean, 142.6 miles are to be accomplished by slack- water navigation in lake, river, and basins, and only 26.8 miles by excavated canal. The greatest altitude of the ridge which divides Lake Nicaragua from the Pacific Ocean does not exceed, at any point, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... one over the other, the slack seeming endless as I heard a low rushing sound mingled with the splashing of falling stones. Then there was a sharp jerk at my wrists, and the rope began to glide through my hands till I let one leg drop from ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... the dog filled the engineer with a fear that he had not anticipated. Not for an instant did the brute give slack to his tongue as they raced through the night, and Howland knew now that the storm and the darkness were of little avail in his race for life. There was but one chance, and he determined to take it. Gradually he ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life that had been lurking stealthily in the iron. In the hawse-pipe the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... closed, right eye looking through the notch of the rear sight so as to perceive the object aimed at, second joint of the forefinger resting lightly against the front of the trigger and taking up the slack; top of front sight is carefully raised into, and held in, the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... her brain anything he had said, or that she had been able to take in the significance of it. She could think of nothing but a frightening sensation all over her body, as though the life were ebbing out of it. Every nerve and fiber in her seemed to have gone slack, beyond anything she had ever conceived. She could feel herself more and more unstrung and loosened like a violin string let down and down. The throbbing ache in her throat was gone. Everything was gone. She sat ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... normal when he reached it. There was a glass port in the inner door, and he saw eyes looking through it at him. He pulled the outer door shut and felt the whining vibration of admitted air. His vacuum suit went slack about him. The inner door began to open, and Pop reached up and gave his helmet the practiced twisting jerk ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... pedantry of schools. What are their compasses and rules? From me that helm shall conduct learn. And man his ignorance discern.' So saying, with audacious pride, He gains the boat, and climbs the side. 110 The beasts astonished, lined the strand, The anchor's weighed, he drives from land: The slack sail shifts from side to side; The boat untrimmed admits the tide, Borne down, adrift, at random toss'd, His oar breaks short, the rudder's lost. The bear, presuming in his skill, Is here and there officious still; Till striking on the dangerous ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... at Rome. The manner of teaching them to dance on the ground was simple enough (by the association of music and a hot floor); but we are not informed how they were taught to skip the rope, or whether it was the tight or the slack rope, or how high the rope might be. The silence of history on these points is fortunate for the figurantes of the present day; since, but for this, their fame might have been utterly eclipsed. Elephants ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... over the near wheel, raised gracefully up as it were to reward the near side horse; the thong—the thong after three twists, which appears in his hand to have been placed by the maker never to be altered or improved ...... and if the off-side horse becomes slack, to see the turn of his arm to reduce a twist, or to reverse, if necessary, is exquisite: after being placed under the rib, or upon the shoulder point, up comes the arm, and with it the thong returns to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... but she begged me to keep the thing secret, and let ourselves remain the same as before. I agreed out of consideration for her, but had occasion to regret it. My business becoming slack, I decided to go to California in the hope of acquiring a competence. I was not fortunate there, and was barely able, after a year, to get home. I found that my wife had procured a divorce, and appropriated the little money I had left. Where she had gone, or where she had ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... Carillon Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10 feet the Chute a Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4 feet and the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between the Carillon and Chute a Blondeau there is or was a slack water reach of three and a half miles, and between the latter and the foot of the Longue Sault a similar reach of one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her nest consists of few loose sticks. without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from many bruises. We are ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... I don't expect to be compelled to; but then you never know what's going to happen. Suppose we had a breakdown, and lost many hours—it might be up to the Wireless to get busy, and wipe out some of that slack. But I'm going to study that lower river part till I get it by heart, bet your boots ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... passed, not the presentation of human characters in all their fulness and colour; and the consequence is that even now and so soon, in spite of all their rhetorical brilliance, their hold on men has grown slack. Contrast the dim depths into which his essay on Johnson is receding, with the vitality as of a fine dramatic creation which exists in Mr. Carlyle's essay on the same man. Mr. Carlyle knows as well as Macaulay how blind and stupid a creed was English Toryism a century ago, but he seizes and reproduces ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... overflows underfoot now, but the cold had frozen them and the going was getting constantly better. The snow was thin and in places the sleds slewed sidewise and the dogs ran on slack traces across long stretches of bare glare ice. It was while negotiating such a place as this that Rock paid the price of his earlier carelessness. Doret's dry moose-skin soles had a sure grip, hence ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... day they withdrew the money from the bank, and, when business got a little slack, in the afternoon set out in search of a clothing store. Dick knew enough of the city to be able to find a place where a good bargain could be obtained. He was determined that Fosdick should have a good serviceable suit, even if it took ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... protested Norah. "It was only Geoff's illness that made me a bit slack. And we've had a busy summer, haven't we? I think our little war-job hasn't turned out too ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... suddenly slack. A shell might have burst a few paces from him. And then, just as one would in such a case, he made an effort, braced himself, and said in a curious voice, both stiff and heavy: "I can't—one ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... doctrines upon which the throne of your kingdom is based. But we come as cotton planters, to supply your looms with cotton, that British commerce may not be abridged, and England, the great civilizer of the world, may not be forced to slack her pace in the performance of her mission. This is our character and position; and your honor will at once see that it is your duty, and the interest of your Government, to treat us as gentlemen and your most faithful allies." The judge ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... swollen eyes chanced to light on Gavin Brice. who was just following Milo from the launch to the float. And his discolored and unshaven jaw went slack. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... sort, answering for capital. But there are many who would lightly adventure the pestilential perils of a tropic stream, or fever-haunted water-way or canal, who would yet shrink from being caught—owing to want of care, and cautious calculation as to the exact hours of slack and safety—by the hideous, irresistible, all-engulfing, all-wrecking whirl of the terrifying Stroem! Once drawn within the down-draught of that hideous vortex, a whole army might be destroyed more certainly than even by the manifold death-dealing contrivances of modern ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... Chips; you had therefore better make one job of it, and take in the topgallantsails as well. And when that is done, if the men are not better engaged, let them get to work and set up the topgallant and royal rigging fore and aft; it is shockingly slack—hanging fairly in bights, in fact—and is affording practically no ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... they slack on their parents, don't see after them. They can get farm work to do. They waste their money more than they ought. Some folks purty nigh hungry. That is for a fact the way it ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... High rents, slack work, and low wages go hand in hand in the tenements as promoters of overcrowding. The rent is always one-fourth of the family income, often more. The fierce competition for a bare living cuts down wages; and when loss of work is added, the only thing left is to ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... chaps, before another sea comes! I can't slack away these halliards. Bob, out knife, and up in the rings; ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... negligent, unconcerned, indifferent, heedless, inattentive, regardless, lax, incautious, remiss, inconsiderate, nonchalant, neglectful, unwary, imprudent, indiscreet, improvident, reckless, desultory, perfunctory, devil-may-care, slovenly, slack, supine. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... was still waiting, alone, noticing with dismay that his oil was running low. One more circle! How slack the engine sounded to him! One more circle! Now it was impossible to wait any more: he must ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... Tommy,' they cried, the tears running down their cheeks. 'Please don't. We'll be good. Sure, Tommy, sure.' But I knew them well, and I scorched them on every tender spot. Nor did I slack away till they came down on their knees, begging and pleading with me to keep quiet. Then I shot a glance at Chief George; but he did not know whether to have at me or not, and passed it ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... upon swinging seas, splashed to my kilted knees, Ocean or ditch, it was ever the same; In leaguer or sally, tattoo or revally, The message on every pibroch that came, Was "Cruachan, Cruachan, O son remember us, Think o' your fathers and never be slack!" Blade and buckler together, though far off the heather, The Hielan's, the Hielan's were ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... was unabashed by externals. He demanded "tea" of his mother that very moment, "cos 'e 'adn't no time for dinner and 'is bloke 'ad sent 'im round to get a bit o' somethink now," at a slack hour. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... This I must tell you, to show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed that the fastening was a trifle slack, and, though he handed the trinket back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough, and put it on to please the boys, and lost it. Senator Burton is a hard man and—in short, the jewel must be found. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Sir Bingo," said the Squire, "this is the very fellow that we saw down at the Willow-slack on Saturday—he was tog'd gnostically enough, and cast twelve yards of line with one hand—the fly fell like a thistledown ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... stern of the cutter when he re-ascended on the deck, he would have discovered Smallbones hanging on by the rudder chains; for had the fog not been so thick, Mr Vanslyperken would have perceived that at the time that he cut Smallbones adrift it was slack water, and the cutter was lying across the harbour. Smallbones was not, therefore, carried away by the tide, but being a very fair swimmer, had gained the rudder chains without difficulty; but at the time that Smallbones was climbing up again by the rope, he had perceived ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... leading in a rushing gallop up a fine road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice, with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight, a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years, she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... neglected appearance of barns and stables was depressing. It was through a neighboring gap in the fence that Marston's team had brought their lifeless master home; and Edgar had seen enough to realize that the man must have grown slack and nerveless before he had succumbed. The farm had broken down Marston's strength and courage, and now another man, less gifted in many ways, had taken it in charge. Edgar wondered how he would succeed; but in spite of a few misgivings ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
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