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More "Underhand" Quotes from Famous Books



... Day to sollicit my Favour: These are Inconsistencies, such as discover thy Reason depraved. To be brief, I never desire to see your Face; and, Sirrah, if you go to the Work-house, it is no Disgrace to me for you to be supported there; and if you Starve in the Streets, I'll never give any thing underhand in your Behalf. If I have any more of your scribling Nonsense I'll break your Head the first Time I set Sight on you. You are a stubborn Beast; is this your Gratitude for my giving you Mony? You Rogue, I'll better your Judgment, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... contract, assents to it? There can be none until that nation amends its Constitution. Massachusetts when she accepted that Constitution, bound herself to send only such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an errand is a partner in the perjury. Massachusetts has no right to assent to my protest—she has no right to send ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... say, there is no explanation, but just the one I had made out for myself. Mr. Falkirk, did I ever practise any underhand dealings with you?' ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... But he still has much leisure, which is chiefly devoted to playing with his fellows. Among the principal boys' games the following deserve mention: — Spinning of peg-tops of hard wood, usually thrown overhand, but sometimes underhand, in a manner very similar to that of English boys, each boy in turn striving to strike the tops of the others with his own; this game is played about the time of PADI harvest. Simple kites are flown. A roughly made bow ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange is the Professor, can never say. If our ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... a relation of his own, and a Deboro Mishmee. It is obvious that there is no chance of getting further at present, nor would it be fair even if one could bribe them. He says no reliance whatever is to be placed on Rooling, the Mizhoo who deceived Wilcox, and whom he represents to be an underhand person. I tried to overcome his scruples by assuring him that I only wanted to go as far as Rooling, but he declines taking me. He says I may go any where to the west of this, but to the north he dare not conduct me. I shall therefore go to Premsong to-morrow, and if that is not a favourable place, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... departure Aubert had tried to persuade Mme. Gibon to sell up her son-in-law by claiming from him the unpaid purchase-money for her husband's shop. He represented Fenayrou as an idle gambler, and hinted that he would find her a new purchaser. Such an underhand proceeding was likely to provoke resentment if it should come to the ears of Fenayrou. During the two years that elapsed between his departure from Fenayrou's house and his murder, Aubert had prospered in his shop on the Boulevard Malesherbes, whilst the fortunes of the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... French's father says about Mr. Walters!" said Mrs. Phillips firmly. "He's got a spite against him because he was dismissed. Besides, Danny, it's the only right thing to do. You know that. We're poor, but we have never done anything underhand yet." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... lived in amity with my good brother, whom I rejoice to see in possession of the highest office by your father's goodness, and by your friendship at peace and perfect rest. The offices which I have myself obtained I never strove for by any underhand means. I have cultivated my mind rather than my body; the pursuit of learning I have preferred to increasing my wealth. I preferred to be poor rather than bound by any' man's obligation, even to want rather than to beg. I have never been extravagant ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... learn is that a strange man had been noticed hanging suspiciously about the grounds; that the housemaid was so ugly a woman as to render it next to a certainty that he had some underhand purpose to serve in making himself agreeable to her; and that he has not as yet been seen again in the neighborhood since the day of her dismissal. So much for the one servant who has been turned out at Thorpe Ambrose. I can only hope ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... some of the physicians of the town with him, to visit the two sisters, who were again tormented by evil spirits. Mannouri, however, had gone to the wrong man, for Joubert had a frank and loyal character, and hated everything that was underhand. Being determined to take no part in the business, except in a public and judicial manner, he applied at once to the bailiff to know if it was by his orders that he was called in. The bailiff said ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... was obedience in such a matter possible? What would you yourself think of a man who in such a position would be obedient? I did not seek her secretly. I did nothing underhand. Before I had once directly asked her for her love, I came ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... faces showed them pallid and scared-looking, as if pursued by threatening fiends. Clasping each other's hands, and panting with excitement, they fled across the road to the gates of Ellsworth, without perceiving that they were detected in something underhand by the lynx eyes of ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... peace with Spain; which is very good, if true. Sir H. Cholmly was with me this morning, and told me of my Lord Bellasses' base dealings with him by getting him to give him great gratuities to near 2000l. for his friendship in the business of the Molle, and hath been lately underhand endeavouring to bring another man into his place as Governor, so as to receive his money of Sir H. Cholmly for nothing. To the King's house to see "The Chances." [A comedy, by the Duke of Buckingham.], ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... was a wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited. But if she didn't always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand. Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while before she'd consent—and all because she didn't want to part with Miss Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy would ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... underhand work. Fruen knew well I should not be long on the place; why not make me the scapegoat? She was determined to upset her husband's calculations, that ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... altogether inclined to take Stephen Webb at his own valuation. His new acquaintance did not impress him as a reliable man of business, but he had no suspicion of anything underhand. ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... wholly abandoned it, and when there was no reason whatever why the correspondence should not be public. This private correspondence of Mr. Markham's, now produced for the first time, is full of the bitterest complaints against Durbege Sing. These clandestine complaints, these underhand means of accomplishing the ruin of a man, without the knowledge of his true and proper judges, we produce to your Lordships as a heavy aggravation of our charge, and as a proof of a wicked conspiracy to destroy the man. For if there was any danger of his falling into arrears when ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... sex, I mean those gentlemen who give themselves unnecessary airs, and cannot go to see a friend, but they must kiss and slop the maid; and all this is done with an air of gallantry, and must not be resented. Nay, some gentlemen are so silly, that they shall carry on an underhand affair with their friend's servant-maid, to their own disgrace, and the ruin of many a young creature. Nothing is more base and ungenerous, yet nothing more common, and withal so little taken notice of. D-n me, Jack, says one friend ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... said, his voice smooth and soft, "but you deceive yourself. You have taken a fancy to bother me, to revile me behind my back, even to make false statements concerning me, for you have said that I sought your position on the crew and obtained it by underhand means. In the presence of these witnesses you have stated that I am a most bungling wrestler. That ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... to speak. Looking grave and clearing his throat, he first of all announced that he had not the gift of eloquence and that he was not prepared to make a speech. Further he said that during the fourteen years that he had been schoolmaster there had been many intrigues, many underhand attacks, and even secret reports on him to the authorities, and that he knew his enemies and those who had informed against him, and he would not mention their names, "for fear of spoiling somebody's appetite"; that in ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Simon as he rose to take his departure, "really very odd that you should have mentioned that chap just now—what's his name—Ulysses; as far as I remember he was a very cunning person, uncannily cunning, and I'm afraid really quite underhand, so to speak, and sometimes deceitful in his methods; and do you know, my boy, you rather remind me of him, now I come to ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recover the bone. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... had worn thin; but hoped to pick up from her some information about her husband's subtle schemes. I knew his hopes were vain. In the first place the Aschers do not talk business to each other and she knows nothing of what he is doing. In the next place Ascher had no underhand plot with regard to the cash register. He was acting in a perfectly open and straightforward way. But Gorman cannot believe that any one is straightforward. That is one of the drawbacks to the profession of politics. The practice of it destroys a ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... magnifying, the secret cabals of the army; and the parliament thought that his fidelity to them might on that account be entirely depended on. But the same levity of mind still attended him, and the same disregard to engagements and professions. He took underhand his measures with the court, and declared against the parliament. But though he had been sufficiently supplied with money, and long before knew his danger, so small was his foresight, that he had left the place entirely destitute of provisions, and in a few ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... On the contrary, she does, and that as often as she likes. Among the upper classes, especially those about the Court, half the trouble in the kingdom is caused by the women, not openly, indeed, but in a clever underhand way through their enerve husbands, whom, instead of being the governors, they rule and lead by the nose. Promotions, punishments, and beheadings are generally the consequence of the work of some female fiend. There is probably no place in the world ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... I published Annas Tenebrosus, which book I did not so entitle, because of the great obscurity of the solar eclipse, by so many prattled of to no purpose, but because of those underhand and clandestine counsels held in England by the soldiery, of which I would never, but in generals, give any knowledge unto any Parliament man. I had wrote publickly in 1650, that the Parliament should not continue, but a new government should ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... prebend for Mr. William Hilliard. He was inducing Cecil to be 'bound for me for the L500, which I stand in danger to the Widow Smith for.' At last the wind became more accommodating. Ralegh, whom carping gouty Anthony Bacon pretended to suspect of having contributed to the delay from underhand motives, collected the truant ships and seamen. On June 1, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... whether I have not cautiously avoided offending Gen. Gates in any way. I am sorry his conduct to me has not been equally generous, and that he is continually giving me fresh proofs of malevolence and opposition. It will not be doing him injustice to say, that, besides the little underhand intrigues which he is frequently practising, there has hardly been any great military question, in which his advice has been asked, that it has not been given in an equivocal and designing manner, apparently calculated to afford him an opportunity ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... though it is, it is strictly applicable!—that all unknown to him the police hold him suspect, and are endeavouring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion——" ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... note, and Tony to deliver it, but their father's remark, and his look, touched their consciences. Dan, too, for some reason or another, was against it; he said he thought that after all it was a bit sneaky and underhand, and he wasn't going to have any more of it. Betty felt the foundations of her world shake, and life bristled with new difficulties; but Dan had said it, so no one questioned. After Dan had put things in that light, Kitty suddenly realized that their conduct ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... slave for you, and you shall keep up your head and be a gentleman still, as you are, every inch of you. Don't mind what I've said at the beginning, dear: don't you know I'm hasty; and I was hurt. But you could not mean to be sly and underhand: 'twas only your high spirit, and it was my fault; I should not have shown you the letters. I hope you are well, and have quite lost that nasty cough, and that Mr. Vance treats you with proper respect. I think him rather too pushing and familiar, though ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... opposition. She would rather have faced a thunderstorm than her husband in his wrath, so she concealed Evadne's letter from him, and wrote to her again surreptitiously in order to reproach her for seeming to insinuate that she, her mother, would stoop to do anything underhand. Evadne sighed when she received this letter, and thought of letting the matter drop. Why should she dislike to see her father in the position unreasonable husbands and fathers usually occupy, that of being ostensibly obeyed while in reality they are carefully kept in the dark as to what is ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... jewel, praps, betwigst him and De l'Orge: but no, it was the WOMAN who did that—a MAN don't deal such fowl blows, igspecially a father to his son: a woman may, poar thing!—she's no other means of reventch, and is used to fight with underhand wepns all her ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... cause by treating with the Spanish national government at Cadiz. He even warned Clarke of the King's supposed intentions, in a letter which by chance fell into Joseph's hands.[314] The hot blood of the Bonapartes boiled at this underhand dealing, and he at once despatched Colonel Desprez to Napoleon to demand Soult's instant recall. The Emperor, who was then at Moscow, temporized. Perhaps he was not sorry to have in Spain so vigilant an informer; and he made the guarded reply that Soult's suspicions did not much surprise him, that ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... money by allying himself with crooked, sneaking, unscrupulous politicians. He had all sorts of opportunities for political graft. But crookedness never had any attraction for him. He refused to be a party to any political jobbery, any underhand business. He preferred to lose any position he was seeking, to let somebody else have it, if he must get smirched in the getting it. He would not touch a dollar, place, or preferment unless it came to him clean, with ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... difficulties were that he was in. Look, Max. You must remember how worried he has been lately. I have heard him make excuses for people who did rash things, and I have always agreed with him. You see, I knew how good-hearted he was, and I know that he would never have done anything mean or underhand or unworthy." ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... depend. The parents, however, do not conclude any thing without their consent, but this is only a formality. The first advances must be made by the matrons. Not but that, if any girl were to continue too long without being sued for, her family would act underhand to procure ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... unscrupulous governor had been trying to stir up the Maoris of the Bay of Islands to claim the restitution of their lands. Nothing but their strong affection and loyalty towards "Te Wiremu" could have enabled them to resist this appeal to their cupidity. But underhand dealing was the one thing that Williams could not bear, and he would hold no more communication with Governor Grey on the subject. His sons were of age: let them carry on ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... steps—no coups de main," exclaimed Frederick William, gravely and imperiously, standing in front of Hardenberg, and looking him full in the face. "I am opposed to any sort of underhand games; when you are not strong enough to attack your enemy openly and honestly, you ought to be too proud to shoot at him from an ambuscade, like a coward and bandit. The bullet may miss him, and he who fired it dies as a traitor, overwhelmed ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... guilty, I'd like to have them court-martialed!" muttered the commander of Company A. "Such underhand work is a disgrace to ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... be unfair and underhand," said Mr. Swift. "I think it would have been better, Tom, to have accepted their offer. Twenty thousand a year, clear money, is ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton

... long enough in organized baseball to know that there are many twists and turns to it, and that many "deals" are carried on in what might be considered an underhand manner. Often, when rival organizations in the baseball world are at war, the various managers, and scouts, go to great lengths, and secretly, to get some player they ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... the game the rules required a straight arm delivery, and the old-time pitchers found it a difficult matter to obtain speed save by means of an underhand throw or jerk of the ball. Creighton, of the Excelsiors of Brooklyn, however, with his unusually swift pitching puzzled nearly all of the opposing teams as early as 1860. Sprague developed great speed, according to the ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... a slight cut, which will usually make the ball grab the wall and hug closer. A semi-overhand, side-spin service is best employed from the right court, and a sliced underhand shot is used from the left side (see fig. 6 ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires

... could quite afford the amount of ground he has bought, and the house he is building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in obligations. It may take him two or three years to come even on it; but it is a prepossession with him. Now can't you see that if we go to him and tell him this sordid, underhand, unmanly tale, how his fine nature is going to be hurt, how his big heart is going to be wrung, how his home-house that he is building with such eager watchfulness will be a weighty Old Man of the Sea clinging to his back? Do you think, Mr. Eugene ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... don't know that there is anything more I need say. I came here to have it out with you. That is my way, perhaps an American way, of doing things. We don't care for underhand dealings. We like ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... rank show genuine care for those nearest to them in blood, the people rise to the duty of neighborliness and sociability. And when old friendships among them are not allowed to fall off, there will be a cessation of underhand practices ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... name which amused them, merely because it vexed the owner; so even now, although when they met the great man they always addressed him with due respect as Mr. Bickel, yet behind his back he was still Tailorkin-Fekli. He suspected this underhand familiarity, and was not ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... said Learoyd, who had been listening intently. 'Look a-here!' He picked up a rifle an inch below the foresight with an underhand action, and used it exactly as a man ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... wretched bird, with half its feathers out and one leg lamed by a cat, had been rescued under protest; but what his family most resented, he reflected, was his wish for privacy. To dine alone, or to sit alone after dinner, was flat rebellion, to be fought with every weapon of underhand stealth or of open appeal. Which did he dislike most—deception or tears? But, at any rate, they could not rob him of his thoughts; they could not make him say where he had been or whom he had seen. That was ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... him with vague regrets. After all, the insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's brother, nor Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the Republic and would never do any good for himself. Then ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... united, and strengthened so many great houses, moderately attached to the Queen and her minister, terrified Richelieu's successor. He therefore sought to foil them by every means in his power, and succeeded in prevailing upon the Queen to frustrate them in an underhand way; having found that the union of Mademoiselle de Vendome with the brilliant but restless Duke de Nemours had caused him more than ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... the bounds of it, to avoid dependence upon their betters, and obliged to no man living! My expectations still so much more considerable! My person, my talents—not to be despised, surely—yet rejected by them with scorn. Obliged to carry on an underhand address to their daughter, when two of the most considerable families in the kingdom have made overtures, which I have declined, partly for her sake, and partly because I never will marry; if she be not the person. To be forced to steal her away, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... he had come quite close to her. She shuddered, for, out of the corner of her eye, only a few moments before, she remembered him in the same position when Flint had handed her the address, and she knew that Balcom had surreptitiously read it. Why had he taken that underhand method when, if he had only asked frankly to see the paper, she would have handed it to ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... time," and was gone before I could do anything. I did not know what to do with the paper, so I had to slip it up my sleeve, as with these skirts one hasn't a pocket, and I did feel so mad at having done a thing in that underhand way. ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... but did not join her in the garden. She was not happy about this latest development of affairs. It was one thing to watch Miss Norton by legitimate methods, and quite another to try underhand ways. She wondered whether the service of her country really demanded such a sacrifice of honour. For a moment she felt desperately tempted to run to Winifrede's study, explain the whole situation, and ask her opinion, but she remembered ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... and ideals, the history, the fundamental thought and theory upon which this country was founded and has prospered and developed so marvellously up to the present time. Those officials, no matter where placed as regards power and responsibility, who by underhand means would throw us into this entirely new method of life without due thought and consideration, are politically dishonest, no matter how sincere they may be, and are as traitorous to American life and thought as are ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers

... of Germany is a curious mixture of underhand diplomacy and boastful threats. If she desires to impress the neutral States, she vaunts the great conquests that she has been able to accomplish. She points out, especially to Roumania and to Greece, how terrible is her vengeance on States which defy her, such ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... sighed Ulyth. "Lizzie, I loathe eavesdropping and anything that savours of underhand work, but what are we to do? Something is going wrong among the juniors, and for the sake of the school we've got to put it right if we possibly can. It's no use asking them their sweet secret, for they wouldn't tell us; and I'm ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the influence of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the privilege, underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well to keep up communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he was free; he was too marked a man for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the burglary, and then spring to his feet with a dramatic wave of the hand towards him, and say, 'There, Mrs MacArthur, is the criminal! There lies the viper on whom you have lavished your hospitality, the snaky and systematic serpent you have been induced by underhand means to pity. Look upon him, and loathe him. He ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... and Blake tried the cut once more. This time Cooper was ready for it and sent it back with a swift underhand drive, and a rally began right at the start. The game promised to be a good one and it drew many interested watchers, though most of the boys had followed Rawson and the two patrol leaders over ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I took their part; and, when I wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak out, and I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and underhand ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... action, but pulled all the strings notwithstanding. The friend was a Mr Hickson, a lawyer—a briefless barrister, some people called him; but he himself professed a great disgust to the law, as a "great sham," which involved an immensity of underhand action, and truckling, and time-serving, and was perfectly encumbered by useless forms and ceremonies, and dead obsolete words. So, instead of putting his shoulder to the wheel to reform the law, he talked ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... thoroughly. Hayoue was known to be very outspoken in matters of sympathy and antipathy, and if he were not fond of Tyope, the latter certainly had come to feel it in some way or other. Then, for she knew Tyope well, he doubtless hated Hayoue cordially, and would have shown his enmity in the dark, underhand way peculiar to himself. If Hayoue, on the other hand, was not favourably inclined toward Tyope, it was quite certain that he, being Cuirana, nursed feelings of dislike toward the Koshare in general. Any accusation, therefore, which the Delight Makers would bring against Say Koitza was sure to meet ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... to Nashville with any hope of meeting Aleck Webster that day, and consequently he was most agreeably surprised when he saw him standing on the steps of the post-office. He did not look or act like a man who had been engaged in any underhand business, and neither did Colonel Shelby, who hastened down the steps and came across the road to the hitching-rack to help Marcy ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... Humble Representation of the dissatisfaction of the Army, the Declaration of the Army, and the Charge made against eleven members of the House of Commons. That the City had done its part in stopping enlistments they readily acknowledged, but information had reached them of underhand workings still going on to enlist men, as a "foundation for a new armie and a new warre." The letter concluded with a reiteration of the writers' intention to do nothing prejudicial to the parliament or the city, for which they ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... to meet and grasp a trouble which for fifteen years had embittered his life. His son, Alexis, had ever been a thorn in his father's side. He was not only indolent and dissipated, but he was utterly opposed to all his father's measures for reform, and was continually engaged in underhand measures to head a party against him. Upon the death of the unhappy princess of Wolfenbuttle, wife of this worthless prince, the grieved and indignant father wrote to him ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN sits down and writes a letter. His wife takes it up and reads it.] ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde

... would have been none the less inclined to welcome the accession of the Duke of Clarence as William the Fourth even although it had been part of authentic history that the new King had lately borne an important, if an underhand, part in the rescue of Greece from Ottoman oppression. But there was little else in the career of the Duke of Clarence to command popular respect or affection. He had lived openly, or almost openly, for many years with the celebrated actress Mrs. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... with being made sport of, exhibiting himself as an instrument to produce laughter. So too the flatterer, who can neither advocate your cause, nor give you useful counsel, nor share in your contention with anybody, but shirks all labour and toil, never makes any excuses in underhand transactions, is sure to lend a helping hand in any love affair, is energetic in setting free some harlot, and not careless in clearing off the account of a drinking score, nor remiss in making preparations ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... moment of Weishaupt's admission into Freemasonry his whole conduct was a violation of the Masonic code. Instead of proceeding after the recognized manner by successive stages of initiation, he set himself to find out further secrets by underhand methods and then to turn them to the advantage of his own system. Thus about a year after his initiation he writes to Cato (alias Zwack): "I have succeeded in obtaining a profound glimpse into the secret of the Freemasons. I know their whole aim and shall ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... Mrs. Claiborne. "I have heard of many sneaky underhand things they have done. Poor Chester Hunt, I don't envy him ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... back from Memphis, and brought a paltry scrap of papyrus on which some wretched scribbler had written in the name of Philometer, that nothing was known of Irene at court, and complaining deeply that Asclepiodorus had not hesitated to play an underhand game with the king. So they have no idea whatever of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 72, with the idea of bringing before a court for punishment, not "by underhand means," as it is ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... one thing more, my dear, I can have no passing of private notes between you and Constance Hacket. You see a good deal of each other openly, and such doings are very silly and missish, and have an underhand appearance such as I am sure ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pursued Madame de Chantonnay, warming to her subject, "that is the explanation of the young man's disappearance. They say the government has taken some underhand way of putting him aside. One does not give credence to such rumours in these orderly times. No: it is simply that he prefers the pale eyes of some Mees to glory and France. Has it not ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... far from depreciating her, I want to convince you that it is an insult to pursue her in this ridiculous underhand way.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to dispirit." Mr. Bartlett quotes Margaret,—"There has been a pretty considerable mullin going on among the doctors." But mullin here means stirring, bustling in an underhand way, and is a metaphor derived from mulling wine. Mull, in this sense, is probably a corruption of mell, from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... thought of setting their vile Verdict right. Well! Your letter has fixed this idea more firmly in my mind than ever. The only chance that I can see of winning you back to me, in the character of a penitent and loving husband, is to change that underhand Scotch Verdict of Not Proven into an honest English Verdict of ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... riddle, and to feel or to fancy for the moment some kind of ease and relief in the sense of that very trouble. A born doubter would have doubted even of Horatio; hardly can all positive and almost palpable evidence of underhand instigation and inspired good intentions induce Hamlet for some time to ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the time he had sold the property to Mrs. Bragley's husband, Pacomb had made five other grants, and, now that the property had proved more valuable than he had hoped for, he was trying underhand means ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... th' crew was goin' t' mutiny an' demand that we put in at some port, an' get better grub, an' more hands, for we was short of sailors. But I didn't pay much attention to th' underhand talk until it was too late. Then, all at once, when we had got away down about off Anegada, th' mutiny broke in full force. The men riz up, an' overpowered th' officers—th' captain was made a prisoner in his cabin, an' I was given my choice of joinin' th' ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... of mercy, and soon had the timid little old maid in the more congenial atmosphere of the parlor, where little by little, though in a very stealthy and underhand way, the talk grew more general, and the restraint slackened more and more, until sewing and reading were both forgotten and the fun became fast and furious, culminating in the sudden appearance of Jake Dexter dressed up as an ancient and altogether unlovely old woman, whom Dick Hardcastle ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... told her, that my departure was close at hand—the same fatality still pursued us. She had once more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had found me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff. In her hearing, the Sergeant, with his own underhand object in view, had appealed to my interest in Rosanna Spearman. Again for the poor creature's own sake, I had met the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared—loudly declared, so that she might hear me too—that I felt "no interest whatever in Rosanna Spearman." At those ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... to Esau that he could not induce his father to annul the blessing bestowed upon Jacob, he tried to force a blessing for himself by an underhand trick. He said: "Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father, else it will be said thou hast but one blessing to bestow. Suppose both Jacob and I had been righteous men, had not then thy God ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... know is this," Trego propounded cunningly: "had Lyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question, had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason to suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not have betrayed him ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... does not believe a word of it, or else to make it a fresh ground for poking and prying, in the way that drives one distracted! It really is quite a satis- faction to have something that she can't find out, and it is not underhand while I write every word of it ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Verner's Pride at all, sir, I go back by right; neither by purchase nor by stratagem," was the reply of Lionel. "Rely upon it, things set about in an underhand manner never prosper." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... which he did claim recognition was the honesty of his motives. He was incapable of doing anything underhand, and he could not bear even the appearance of such conduct towards his friends, or those with whom he had business relations. In such cases he always took the bull by the horns, acknowledged an oversight or explained what was capable of misunderstanding. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... incensed T'an Ch'un more than ever, and twisting her head round, "Even you have grown dull!" she cried. "She does, of course, indulge in expectations, but they are actuated by some underhand and paltry notion! She may go on giving way to these ideas, but I, for my part, will only care for Mr. Chia Cheng and Madame Wang. I won't care a rap for any one else. In fact, I'll be nice with such of my sisters and brothers, as are nice to me; and won't even draw any ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... to hint the uncertainty, to say no worse, of being able to prevent the Court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its power, from applying that influence to Parliament; and perhaps, if the public method were precluded, of doing it in some worse and more dangerous method. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The science of evasion, already tolerably understood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... being your own composition. Do you think it is natural for a dunce (I repeat the word), who has been in the habit of writing the most childish nonsense, to break on the world suddenly as a genius, and startle every one with her wonderful thoughts? It stands to reason that some underhand work has been going on; and such being the case, I prefer to hold myself aloof from one who could be guilty ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... th' nation, But Fisher's-Folly Congregation; Are only tools to our intrigues, 895 And sit like geese to hatch our eggs; Who, by their precedents of wit, T' out-fast, out-loiter, and out-sit, Can order matters underhand, To put all bus'ness to a stand; 900 Lay publick bills aside for private, And make 'em one another drive out; Divert the great and necessary, With trifles to contest and vary; And make the Ration represent, 905 And serve for us, in Parliament Cut out more work than can be done. In PLATO'S year, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... gardens. On her arrival she found her friends already gathered at a large table beneath a tree. It was Bertha's intention to tell her sister-in-law at once about her proposed visit to Vienna on the morrow, but a sense of shyness, as though there was something underhand in the journey, caused her ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... the Greeks lost about 800 men, sixteen of whom were prisoners; two of these subsequently died from ill-treatment. In connection with this last "incident" a circumstance arose which demonstrates more vividly than mere adjectives the underhand methods employed by the Sofia authorities. It was announced that the Bulgarians had captured six Greek guns, and these were duly displayed at Sofia and inspected by King Ferdinand. I myself was at Salonica at the time, and, knowing that this was not true, I protested through the Daily ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... petty way, he was as particular about keeping up an outside appearance of respectability, as any aristocratic member of a rich city church might be to cover up their own glaring deficiencies. It would have ruined him as completely in his little circle, to have been found out in his underhand tricks, as though he had been of the consequence in other people's estimation that he was in his own. He had never, in all his life, been accustomed to mingle with but one class of women, and that the ignorant, ill-bred gossip-mongers ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... of this,' said Rowland calmly. 'If you choose to come and see us as a relation, in a straightforward manner, Howel, we should be glad to see you, but underhand ways are ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... me above others, gained ground amazingly fast. Each boy was on the watch, and the smallest action was noticed and repeated from one to another in an exaggerated form, till I became an object of bitter dislike to more than half the school. Many underhand attempts were made by some of my companions to hurt me in the good opinion of my teacher; but he possessed too much penetration and discernment to be easily misled, and for some time all attempts to injure me came back on themselves; but the feeling of ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell

... the sharp reply, and then, as if relenting, "Well, yes, you may; but be brief, and no underhand dealing, mind, for if you attempt to help him you shall be a dead man the next moment, as sure as I'm a living one. An' you needn't be too soft, Westly," he added, with a cynical smile. "Your chum has—Well, it's no business o' mine. You can ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the dangerous, in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my mental gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds and of Captain Trent mopping his red ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... that I am here talking to you, Monsieur German. I can think well of the Germans, although some day I hope to give them back with interest the thrashing we got from them. But it is not the same thing with our enemies at home: they use underhand weapons, sophistry, and unsound ideas, and a ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... cloth-of-gold settee in her private Cabinet, and cooled her somewhat heated face with a jewelled ostrich-feathered fan, "I had better tell you frankly that I think both you and that designing little adventuress have behaved in a very underhand way in this business—a way that I naturally resent. Mirliflor, as you very well know, came here on darling Edna's account, and you deliberately threw that Miss Heritage in his way—I haven't the least doubt you told her who ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... a shudder, certain looks of Clameran, she guessed the truth, that the object of all this underhand work was to force her ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... Underhand ways were resorted to of cheating despair and getting at the pocket of Hope. Said one gentleman to the Earl—who was keeping his counsel religiously—"He can't read small print." Whereto the Earl replied—"Not yet awhile, but one could ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... is such an honest enemy," Bodine replied. "He makes hard bargains with our people when he can, but have you ever heard of his cheating or doing anything underhand? I learned a good deal about his business character while in Georgia, and his course to-day corresponded with what I had been told. Moreover, his feelings got the better of him, and he revealed in one passionate sentence that his eldest son was killed, and, as he says, lies at the bottom ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... p. 356, the celebrated paper called "Memorandum of a Prussian Statesman, 1822," which at the same time recommends a systematic underhand rivalry with Austria, in preparation for an ultimate breach. Few State-papers exhibit more candid ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... from home. He does not want to marry. He is eager to see the world and to win honour. He has been accustomed to look down on Helena as a poor dependant. He does not like her, and he does not like being ordered. He is suddenly ordered to marry her. He has been trapped by a woman's underhand trick. He sees himself brought into bondage with all the plumes of his youth clipped close. There is no way of escape; he has to marry her; but the King's order cannot quench his rage against the woman who has so snared him. His rage burns ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... Tom, "I don't want to interfere unless I am convinced that Andy is trying an underhand trick. My plans are missing, and I think he took them. If his machine is made after those plans, it is, obviously, a steal, and I want him ruled out of ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton

... where he found a gibbet erected of yore by Magellan for the punishment of some rebellious members of his crew. Drake in his turn, chose this spot to rid himself of one of his captains, named Doughty, who had been long accused of treason and underhand dealing, and who on several occasions had separated himself from the fleet. Some sailors having confessed that he had solicited them to join with him in frustrating the voyage, Doughty was convicted of the crimes of rebellion, and of tampering with the sailors, and according to the laws of England, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... far the most formidable rival, but partly also because Crawford was in fact unable to resist the temptation to use ignoble means for attaining an end which he coveted too keenly for his own honor. It was only by degrees that Adams began to suspect the underhand methods and malicious practices of Crawford; but as conviction was gradually brought home to him his native tendency towards suspicion was enhanced to an extreme degree. He then came to recognize in Crawford a wholly ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... or alleging false laws), than to defend an unjust cause, since the former is a sin against the form, the latter against the matter of justice. Yet it is seemingly lawful for an advocate to make use of such underhand means, even as it is lawful for a soldier to lay ambushes in a battle. Therefore it would seem that an advocate does not sin ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... counterfeit. Do not pass for current coin what is base alloy. Let transparent honor and sincerity regulate all your dealings; despise all meanness; avoid the sinister motive, the underhand dealing; aim at that unswerving love of truth that would scorn to stoop to base compliances and unworthy equivocations; live more under the power of the purifying and ennobling influences of the gospel. Take its golden rule as the matchless directory for the daily ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... writing, and tossed it angrily into the fire. He hated underhand dealings, and scorned himself for the interest the note excited in him, wondering who could find advantage in informing him of the Duchessa's movements. But the note took effect, nevertheless, although he was ashamed ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... and kind-hearted woman, and it now struck him that she must certainly have been in the right when she accused Marcus of designs on her pretty niece. At the time he had refused to believe it, for he had never in his life detected his young master in any underhand or forbidden courses; but, after all, Marcus was his father's son, and, in his younger days, the old man had often and often had to risk his skin in Apelles' love-intrigues. And now it was the Son's turn—and if he were to take his fancy for that pretty chit ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... rubbed his hand over his tonsure in sign of impatience. "One word," he began in the most conciliatory tone, though fuming with irritation, "here we're not dealing with the instruction in Castilian alone. Here there is an underhand fight between the students and the University of Santo Tomas. If the students win this, our prestige will be trampled in the dirt, they will say that they've beaten us and will exult accordingly. Then, good-by to moral strength, good-by ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... "am responsible to God and His Holiness that there shall be no underhand dealing in my diocese. Since you press me in the matter, colonel, I take my stand upon my privilege as Cardinal. I will not allow a secret court-martial in this town in peace-time. I will receive the prisoner here, and alone, at ten ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... and statesman Hume endeavoured to procure an inquiry into these acts of Oriental filibusterism; but the underhand influence of an unprincipled Administration, backed by an interested commercial clamour, was too strong for him; and the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... was his part, as the elder and more experienced, to put a stop to the ill-advised projects of a rash young man. Leonidas, though of himself sufficiently inclined to oppose Agis, durst not openly, for fear of the people, who were manifestly desirous of this change; but underhand he did all he could to discredit and thwart the project, and to prejudice the chief magistrates against him, and on all occasions craftily insinuated, that it was as the price of letting him usurp arbitrary power, that Agis thus proposed to divide the property of the rich among the poor, and that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... denouncing the race for riches which turned men into "pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;" denouncing the cruel selfishness of rich and poor as the vilest kind of civil war, being "underhand, not openly bearing the sword." We had made the blessings of peace a curse, he told us, in those days, "when only the ledger lived, and when only not all men lied; when the poor were hovelled and hustled together, each sex, like swine; when chalk and alum ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... Flanders, Bavaria, Alsace, part of Poland, Venice and Dalmatia, Salzburg, the Papal Legations, the Republic of Genoa, Piedmont, and Bosnia; and to this list Tuscany and Savoy ought probably to be added. But the charges brought against Thugut of underhand dealings with France, and of the willing abandonment of German interests in return for compensation to Austria in Italy, rest on insufficient ground. Though, like every other politician at Vienna and Berlin, he viewed German affairs not as a matter of nationality but in ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... so far as to admit the priest, but no argument could persuade him to leave him alone with the invalid. He was the agent of the family, and it was his duty to see everything that went on. He would have nothing underhand in the matter! ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... which adventures were rather tellable. He even knew a lot about China, too, which is more than most people do who have lived in China many years. Had he been of that sort, he might have written rather valuable books, containing his shrewd observations and intimate, underhand knowledge of political and economic conditions. But he was emphatically not of that sort, so continued to lead his disreputable, roving life for a period of ten years. At the end of which time he met a plaintive little Englishwoman, just out from Home, and she, knowing nothing whatever of ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

... having bread, because they have no other trade. All these persons go on Friday to the police lieutenant of Paris to ask permission to sell their rubbish. They have audience immediately after the strumpets who do not look at them because they know that these are underhand dealings.[5] ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... of flour and transportation. I speak to you in the language of frankness, and as a friend. I do not mean to make any insinuations unfavourable to the state. I am aware of the embarrassment the government labours under from the open opposition of one party and the underhand intrigues of another. I know that with the best dispositions to promote the public service, you have been obliged to move with circumspection. But this is a time to hazard, and to take a tone of energy and decision. All parties but the disaffected will acquiesce in the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... matter; and that he had never heard a single word of it till on this occasion. This surprise of Dr. Young, together with what Steele has said against Tickell in relation to this affair, make it highly probable that there was some underhand dealing in that business; and indeed Tickell himself, who is a very fair worthy man, has since, in a manner, as good as owned it to me. When it was introduced into a conversation between Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope by a third person, Tickell did not deny it, which, considering his honour ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... could not bear the presence of Maitland in a room, and yet she asked the American to take her portrait.... Is she guileless?.... Is she a hypocrite? Or is she tormented by doubt-divining, not divining-believing, not believing in-her mother? Is she underhand in any case, with her eyes the color of the sea? Has she the ambiguous mind at once of a Russian and an Italian?.... This would be a solution of the problem, that she was a girl of extraordinary inward energy, who, both aware of her mother's intrigues and detesting them with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... I do not like playing this underhand game—it almost makes me despise myself. Yet it is with a good intent; and I would do anything from ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... "Somethin' mean an' underhand, for certain," said the colonel, "and the boy must be purtected. And I hereby app'int this whole crowd to keep an eye on Grump, an' see he don't make a slave of the boy, an' don't rob him of dust. An' I reckon I'll take one of yer with me, an' keep watch of the old rascal to-night. I don't ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... low relations! You have made mischief enough with them for Archie, poor fellow! Don't tell me that you make no complaints. The shameful behaviour of those vulgar fishermen, refusing to sail a yacht for Braelands, is proof positive of your underhand ways." ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... notwithstanding all his little Arts of base Brewings, abridging his Bottles, and connecting his Guests together, does not always reap the Fruits of his own Care and Industry. Few People being aware of the underhand Understandings and Petty-Partnerships these Sons of Benecarlo and Cyder have topp'd upon them; and the many other private Inconveniences that they, in the course of their Business, are subjected to. Now, to let my Readers into this great Arcanum ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... Little men like the one before him wasted his time and irritated him. It was always this way—some underhand business. Then the better ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... approbation, the particular reason of his going into Norfolk at all, at this unusual time of year, was given. It had been real business, relative to the renewal of a lease in which the welfare of a large and—he believed—industrious family was at stake. He had suspected his agent of some underhand dealing; of meaning to bias him against the deserving; and he had determined to go himself, and thoroughly investigate the merits of the case. He had gone, had done even more good than he had foreseen, had been useful ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... summary a way. Of course Nell had said, Take it and go, but Nell could have had no idea of the use to which the wagon was to be put. If Waring left the garrison with the intention of using the equipage to take Madame Lascelles driving, it was the most underhand and abominable thing he had ever heard of his doing. It was unlike him. It couldn't be true. Yet had not Braxton shown him the letter which said he was seen on the levee with her by his side? Had not Dryden further informed every man ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... that the first man who shall lay hands upon it will die. His choice falls upon Corentin, a country lout, whom he persuades to accompany him to the gorge where the treasure lies hidden. Corentin is not so stupid as he seems, and, suspecting something underhand, he persuades the mad Dinorah to go down into the ravine in his place. Dinorah consents, but while she is crossing a rustic bridge, preparatory to the descent, it is struck by lightning, and she tumbles into the abyss. She is saved by Hoel in some inexplicable way, and, still ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... possibilities. There is also the Twentieth Century System, which we New Republicans have to discover and discuss and bring to the test of experience. And for the sake of the education of our children, which is the cardinal business of our lives, we must refuse all convenient legal fictions and underhand ways, and see to it that the system is as true to the reality of life and to right and justice as we can, in our light and generation, make it. The child must learn not only from preacher and parent and book, but from the whole frame and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... once, right in the middle of the public street—thirty-six rounds or so they had of it—and licked him, as John Bull says, in true British style; and that is always Thomas's way, and the only thing that he understands properly; none of your underhand dodges like hiding behind places and throwing brickbats when one isn't looking. So that the Hooligan ways of fighting were quite too much for him at first. And although Mr. Bull spent a lot of money in buying him a new watchman's rattle and a very expensive second-hand truncheon, ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... effected, nor did the cities meet by their deputies, as was desired; the Lacedaemonians, as it is said, crossing the design underhand, and the attempt being disappointed and baffled first in Peloponnesus. I thought fit, however, to introduce the mention of it, to show the spirit of the man and the greatness of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... coming out of his room, but did not like to speak to him; he got into his cabriolet, and nodded as he passed, but he looked very grave. The King seems to have behaved perfectly throughout the whole business, no intriguing or underhand communication with anybody, with great kindness to his Ministers, anxious to support them while it was possible, and submitting at once to the necessity of parting with them. The fact is he turns out ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... obvious that there is no chance of getting further at present, nor would it be fair even if one could bribe them. He says no reliance whatever is to be placed on Rooling, the Mizhoo who deceived Wilcox, and whom he represents to be an underhand person. I tried to overcome his scruples by assuring him that I only wanted to go as far as Rooling, but he declines taking me. He says I may go any where to the west of this, but to the north he dare not conduct me. I shall therefore go to Premsong to-morrow, and if that is not a favourable ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... said a gentleman opposite. "He is some strolling player. He got, it would seem, access to Lady Gambit's ear in some underhand way; and he has done now what our young friend Walter suggested a little while ago that he might as well have done sooner. Having taken other people off, he has taken himself off also, and has contrived to carry ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... or told him to meet her, but she would not. For one thing she did not dare to trust herself on such an errand in his dear company, for another she was too proud, thinking if her father came to hear of it he might consider that it had a clandestine and underhand appearance. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... my protest, what evidence is there that the nation, the other party to the contract, assents to it? There can be none until that nation amends its Constitution. Massachusetts when she accepted that Constitution, bound herself to send only such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an errand is a partner in the perjury. Massachusetts has no right to assent to my protest—she has no right to send representatives, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... indiscretion of Lady "Pat" Rourke might lead to trouble with her husband, was conceivable enough; but this was rather a matter for underhand private inquiry than for the attention of the Criminal Investigation ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... unwonted asperity; "and, indeed, if I had ever believed any thing serious could come out of what seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have requested you not to interfere in such matters. Good heavens!" continued the Parson, changing color, "if we should have assisted, underhand as it were, to introduce into the family of a man to whom we owe so much, a connection that he would dislike! how ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... Shirts, three Tye-Periwigs, and a Piece of Broad-Cloth. Considering these are only the Fruits of his leisure Hours, I don't know a prettier Fellow, for no Man alive hath a more engaging Presence of Mind upon the Road. Wat Dreary, alias Brown Will, an irregular Dog, who hath an underhand way of disposing of his Goods. I'll try him only for a Sessions or two longer upon his Good-behaviour. Harry Paddington, a poor petty-larceny Rascal, without the least Genius; that Fellow, though ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay

... Grace 38,000 less than Hancock. In the presence of such a showing the Brooklyn Eagle, a Democratic journal friendly to Tilden, thus philosophised: "Bosses and thorough organisation are incompatible. The success of organisation depends upon reason. The success of the boss is due to underhand arts. No young man can hope for the favour of a boss who does not begin by cultivating the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... deliberated with bent brow and protruded under lip. His consent he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry. Helstone glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious expression, as if he apprehended that female craft was at work, and that something in petticoats was somehow trying underhand to acquire too much influence, and make itself of too much importance. Shirley caught and comprehended the expression. "This scheme is nothing," said she carelessly. "It is only an outline—a mere suggestion. You, gentlemen, are requested to draw ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... had finished her letter, she addressed it plainly, in her own somewhat bold handwriting, to Francis N. Gresham, Jun., Esq., and then took it herself to the little village post-office. There should be nothing underhand about her correspondence: all the Greshamsbury world should know of it—that world of which she had spoken in her letter—if that world so pleased. Having put her penny label on it, she handed it, with an open brow and an unembarrassed face, to the baker's wife, who ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... a gibbet erected of yore by Magellan for the punishment of some rebellious members of his crew. Drake in his turn, chose this spot to rid himself of one of his captains, named Doughty, who had been long accused of treason and underhand dealing, and who on several occasions had separated himself from the fleet. Some sailors having confessed that he had solicited them to join with him in frustrating the voyage, Doughty was convicted of the crimes of rebellion, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... magnanimity. Back of all this self-laudation there was an ulterior motive hardly confessed to myself. By springing the mine prematurely I would either cement their union or drive them permanently apart, thus clearing my path of a dangerous rival while removing any imputation of underhand dealing upon my part. I dared the risk for I was nearing that point of desperation where uncertainty is worse than the knowledge ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... pathetic verses upon the unhappy fate of those who had fallen at Beder, excited the Meccans to take up arms. Upon his return to Medina he rehearsed the same verses among the lower sort of people and the women. Mahomet, being told of these underhand practices, said, one day, "Who will rid me of the son of Ashraf?" when Mahomet, son of Mosalama, one of the helpers, answered, "I am the man, O apostle of God, that will do it," and immediately took ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... their prohibition, the mails ceased to carry books, journals, letters, which excited their suspicion. They had seized upon the policy of the Union, and they ruled it according to their liking. No one has forgotten those enterprises, favored underhand, then disavowed after failure, those filibustering expeditions in Central America and in the islands of Cuba. They were the policy of the South, executed by Mr. Buchanan with his accustomed docility. The point in question was to make conquests, and conquests ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... on their faces showed them pallid and scared-looking, as if pursued by threatening fiends. Clasping each other's hands, and panting with excitement, they fled across the road to the gates of Ellsworth, without perceiving that they were detected in something underhand by the lynx eyes of a ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... when he found that the unscrupulous governor had been trying to stir up the Maoris of the Bay of Islands to claim the restitution of their lands. Nothing but their strong affection and loyalty towards "Te Wiremu" could have enabled them to resist this appeal to their cupidity. But underhand dealing was the one thing that Williams could not bear, and he would hold no more communication with Governor Grey on the subject. His sons were of age: let them ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... (and take my word, misters, There's no bowling like it for underhand twisters); And what with the pace and the screw and the aim, It was pretty hard work, was that Blunderby game; With Nat in the field to look after the ball, 'Twas a terrible struggle to get runs at all; Though they ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... were threatned to be burned by the french; but God be thanked, wee escaped from their hands by avoiding a surprize. And in that place my Brother told me of his designe to come and see new England, which our servants heard, and grumbled and laboured underhand against us, for which our lives were in very great danger. Wee sent some of them away, and at last with much labour & danger wee came to Port Royall, which is inhabited by the french under the English Government, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm as possible; and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion: and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... resourcefulness and acumen in business matters failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity—and the less so since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet, in general, he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand dealings, and, had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by causing Lienitsin's wife to enter the room at that moment, things might have turned out very differently from what they did. Madame was a pale, thin, insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a lady who wore her clothes ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... her vision by the keenness of her observation. She saw enough to cause her considerable annoyance, though it suggested nothing inconsistent with rectitude on the part of the boy, further than that there was something underhand going on. One supposition after another arose in the old lady's brain, and one after another was dismissed as improbable. First, she tried to persuade herself that he wanted to take the provisions to school with him, and eat them there—a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... was no reason why she should be expected, off-hand like that, to talk Italian anywhere else. She should have been told what was expected of her, so as to give her the chance of having a previous engagement. Lucia hated underhand ways, and they were particularly odious in one whom she had been willing to educate and refine up to the highest standards of Riseholme. Indeed it looked as if Olga's nature was actually incapable of receiving cultivation. She went on her ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... at Maraquito's. Certainly, only the aristocracy of crime came here, and never a woman. Maraquito did not appear to love her own sex. She received only gentlemen, and as she was an invalid and attended constantly by a duenna in the form of a nurse, no one could say anything. The police knew in an underhand way that the Soho house was a gambling saloon, but the knowledge had not come officially, therefore no notice was taken. But Maraquito's servants suspected nothing, neither did the gossips of the neighborhood. Senora Gredos ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... disciples who stood nearest to Jesus, and of the group of three whom He kept specially at His side. Their present place might well lead them to expect pre-eminence in the kingdom, but their trick was mean, as being an underhand attempt to forestall Peter, the remaining one of the three, as putting forward their mother as spokeswoman, and as endeavouring to entrap Jesus into promising before the disclosure of what was desired. Matthew tells that the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... he would prepare a bill for that purpose; but while he was preparing it, Lord North himself brought in a bill on the 2nd of March, which proposed gentlemen who had no seat in parliament as commissioners of accounts. Barre complained of the underhand dealing of the minister, but said that he would concur in the measure, though he had been thus robbed of the honour of introducing it himself. Other members of the opposition were not so liberal. Although they were prepared to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... head was just below her. Should she call? Should she run half-way down stairs, and just exchange one greeting unrestrainedly? But no; her heart beat so fast as to take away her breath, and that gave her time for recollection: Mrs. Lyddell might not think it proper, it would be meeting him in an underhand way, and that ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... down the more established planets. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand their methods. ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse

... untraced[obs3], undiscovered &c. 480a, untracked, unexplored, uninvented[obs3]. indirect, crooked, inferential; by inference, by implication; implicit; constructive; allusive, covert, muffled; steganographic[obs3]; understood, underhand, underground; delitescent[obs3], concealed &c. 528. Adv. by a side wind; sub silentio[Lat]; in the background; behind the scenes, behind one's back; on the tip of one's tongue; secretly &c. 528; between ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... bit about Stephen. Happen I was less than kind to him the other day. But I gave you good reasons, Charlotte; and I have such confidence in you, that I said to mother, 'You can send Charlotte. There is nothing underhand about her. She knows my will, and ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... with the idea of having bread, because they have no other trade. All these persons go on Friday to the police lieutenant of Paris to ask permission to sell their rubbish. They have audience immediately after the strumpets who do not look at them because they know that these are underhand dealings.[5] ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... looked at me with approval, and he said: Thou art a man at last. And yet they tell me, thou dost nothing all day long but sit playing thy lute. Canst thou really be my son, or art thou some musician's brat, foisted into my son's place by some dark underhand intrigue, when I was looking the other way? For who ever heard of a Yuwaraja,[10] destined to sit upon the throne when I have entered the fire, neglecting all his duties for the sake of a lute's strings? Come now, throw thy lute away, and leave music to the professionals who ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain

... uncertainty, to say no worse, of being able to prevent the court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its power, of applying that influence to Parliament; and perhaps, if the public method were precluded, of doing it in some worse and more dangerous method. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The science of evasion, already tolerably understood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the zeal with which the indefatigable Trumeau sought to injure him. But he regarded the manoeuvres of his rival with supreme unconcern, for he knew that he could at any time sweep away the network of cunning machinations, underhand insinuations, and malicious hints, which was spread around him, by allowing the widow to confer on him the advantages she was so anxious to bestow. The goal, he knew, was within his reach, but the problem he had to solve was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... nothing but truth," replied Valentine, "and I think you have done wrong. Do not be angry. Honor is everything; it ranks before life or love. In some degree you have tarnished yours by an underhand proceeding, a private marriage, one forbidden by your parents ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... Beaumont felt was mixed with a strange and rapid confusion of other sentiments, regret for having wasted such a quantity of contrivance and manoeuvring against an imaginary difficulty. All this arose from her too easy belief of secret underhand information. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... But I cannot have such underhand work at this school. Now I want you cadets to do me a favor. I want you to act exactly as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I want you to tell all of the others to keep quiet about this. I want to set a trap, and if ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... various underhand attempts to remove the champion of orthodoxy. She endeavoured to raise the people against him. Failing in this object, next, by scattering promises of place and promotion, she set on foot various projects to seize him in church, and carry him off into banishment. One man went ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... the execution. These zig zag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with public affairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having attempted to save the King by underhand means. Their own consciences told them, with equal justice, that their hands had been dipped in the blood of the most inoffensive and most unfortunate of men. The direct path was here, as usual, the path not only of honor but of safety. The principle ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... even before the rupture of the peace of Amiens, certain intriguing speculators, whose extravagant zeal was not less fatal to the cause of the Bourbons than was the blind subserviency of his unprincipled adherents to the First Consul, had taken part in some underhand manoeuvres which could have no favourable result. Amongst these great contrivers of petty machinations the well-known Fauche Borel, the bookseller of Neufchatel, had long been conspicuous. Fauche Borel, whose object was to create a stir, and who wished nothing better than to be noticed and paid, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... he was not long in discovering that the French were tampering with his Indian allies; tempting them, by the gayest of presents, the fairest of promises, and the hottest of firewater, to break faith with the English, and join their cause. These underhand dealings gave Washington much uneasiness of mind; and he complained to the French general, yet in a firm and dignified manner, of the unfair advantage thus taken of the besetting weakness of these ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... say; I have misunderstood them. Their emancipation is like those horrid white lizards that grow in the Kentucky caves out of the sunlight. They tell you they don't see why they shouldn't do this or that—mean things, underhand things, cheap, vicious, sensual things.... Are there, I wonder, the same dreadful little caverns in men? I doubt it. And then comes a situation that really tries their quality.... Think of the quandary I got into with you, Stephen. ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... often told by Persons of Experience, that no Man had so just an Idea of the World, as he that had been well hamper'd and sower'd by a Love Intrigue; for though Women appear to be only Spectators, and to bear no Sway in the Politicks of the World, yet underhand, the Fate of Kingdoms often hung at their Girdles, and the wisest of Princes often hazarded the Repose of his People for an Hours Dalliance with some Coquet and diverting Creature of the fair Sex. I cannot tell well how it happen'd, but ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... constant intrigues, her underhand dealings with France and Spain, her grasping policy in the Netherlands, her meanness and parsimony, and the fact that she was ready at any moment to sacrifice the Netherlands to her own policy, had wholly alienated the people of the Low Country; ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... said the attorney, "I understand all that; but what I want to make you, Mr. Oakly, understand, is, that this Grant and his son only want to make up matters with you, and prevent the thing's coming to a fair trial, by sending on, in this underhand sort of way, a bribe of a ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... begun by "loops" or rings commonly known to mariners as "Cuckolds' Necks" (Fig. 5). These may be either overhand or underhand, and when a seizing or fastening of twine is placed around the two parts where they cross a useful rope ring known as a "clinch" is formed (Fig. 6). If the loose end of the rope is passed over the standing ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill

... world could induce me to become concerned in any business venture with Mr. Jerome as a partner, for I would be in constant expectation that in some underhand method he would ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... is successful in combating the underhand business methods of the unscrupulous real-estate men is very difficult to say. The fact is this, that the association favors public registry and regulation of the real-estate trade and at present is working ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... the scrap of writing, and tossed it angrily into the fire. He hated underhand dealings, and scorned himself for the interest the note excited in him, wondering who could find advantage in informing him of the Duchessa's movements. But the note took effect, nevertheless, although he was ashamed of it, and all night he pondered upon ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... up a rig first. Thinks she can't walk these few blocks alone, I suppose, and didn't suspect I could have escorted her. But 'Lovey' didn't tell her his plans till he knows if he can carry them out. But I'm glad to see you. I didn't want to do anything sort of underhand with you, you know. Say, Judge, does your invitation to go camping still hold good? After my looking such a ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... lurked somewhere, he was unable to think the matter out clearly into its composing elements, and gave up trying. Nevertheless, as he obeyed her, and began to "hurry," there remained with him an impression that by some foggy and underhand process he had been committed to acquiescence in an ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... so. Wonder how he found out—some of his underhand, colloguing, Methodist ways, I'll warrant. I seed him preaching to that 'ere Crawy, three or four times when he ought to have hauled him up. He consorts with them poachers, sir, uncommon. I hope he ben't ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... to be by far the most formidable rival, but partly also because Crawford was in fact unable to resist the temptation to use ignoble means for attaining an end which he coveted too keenly for his own honor. It was only by degrees that Adams began to suspect the underhand methods and malicious practices of Crawford; but as conviction was gradually brought home to him his native tendency towards suspicion was enhanced to an extreme degree. He then came to recognize in Crawford a wholly selfish (p. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... now, and was not likely soon to forget me. Would he seek revenge? Beyond doubt he would, but I fancied it would be by some base underhand means. I had no fear that he would again attack me openly, at least by himself. I felt quite sure that I had conquered, and encowardiced him. I had encountered his like before. I know that his courage was not of that character to outlive defeat. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... thought in Rivervale, Mr. Burnett, that you were a gentleman. You presume upon my invitation to this house, in an underhand way, to—What right ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... himself in amicable communication with Lyndhurst and Ellenborough; that the concurrence of the Tories was indispensable to him and his friends to effect the alterations they contemplated, and he could not do anything which might have to them the appearance of underhand dealing; that he could tell Lyndhurst and Ellenborough, and if they made no objection he would see Lord Grey. Ellenborough was gone out of town, but he went to Lyndhurst, who immediately advised him to see Lord Grey, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... language used by our nomad classes and by our human predatory animals. A London thief can talk a dialect which no outsider can possibly understand; for, by common agreement, arbitrary names are applied to every object which the robbers at any time handle, and to every sort of underhand business which they transact. But this gibberish is not exactly an outcome of any moral obliquity; it is employed as a means of securing safety. The gipsy cant is the remnant of a pure and ancient language; we all occasionally use terms taken from this remarkable tongue, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... the elders, and waited eagerly for the newcomer's advance. It proved to be a woman; and, as she passed within half a rod of my ambush, I was able to recognize the features. The deaf and silent old dame, who had nursed Northmour in his childhood, was his associate in this underhand affair. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... seriousness, let no man say that Calonne had not genius: genius for Persuading; before all things, for Borrowing. With the skilfulest judicious appliances of underhand money, he keeps the Stock-Exchanges flourishing; so that Loan after Loan is filled up as soon as opened. 'Calculators likely to know' (Besenval, iii. 216.) have calculated that he spent, in extraordinaries, 'at the rate of one million daily;' which indeed is some fifty thousand pounds sterling: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... over the poor girl. It was, 'Where have you been, child?' 'Who did you see?' 'Who was that letter from?' 'Why were you so long out when you had only to go to so-and-so?' just as if Molly had really been detected in carrying on some underhand intercourse. She answered every question asked of her with the simple truthfulness of perfect innocence; but the inquiries (although she read their motive, and knew that they arose from no especial suspicion of her conduct, but only that Mrs Gibson might be able to say that she looked well after ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... a great hue and cry about the marriage itself. First, it never happened. Secondly, how could there be a marriage between a princess of the Warrior Caste and a boy of the priestly Brahman Caste? Her readers would have imagined at once that the writer was preaching against our social customs in an underhand way. And they would write letters to ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... based upon the power of the State that maintains them, mankind shows itself as a huge menagerie, in which the captive beasts seek to tear the morsels from each other's greedy jaws. The sharpest teeth, the strongest claws and paws vanquish the weaker competitors. Malice and underhand dealing are victorious over frankness and confidence. The struggle for the means of existence and for the maintenance of achieved power fill the entire space of the menagerie with an infernal noise. Among the methods which are used to secure this organized bestiality the most prominent ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... time she comes back she's more and more miserable; and that's not cheerful for Ian either, is it? Now, through that underhand trick of rudimentary Me—you see I don't try to hide my horrid ways—she knows Ian adores me and, comparatively speaking, doesn't care two straws about her. That will make her more miserable than she has ever been before. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... will go into the great corporations that are now ceaselessly paraded before you as wolves and as public enemies—you will find there the same kind of human nature that you find here in college, the same estimation of probity and of fair dealing. If you do mean or underhand things, you will find that they are branded in the same way there as here. You will find that manliness and integrity are the rule and not the exception, and I will venture upon the prediction that when the time comes for ...
— Morals in Trade and Commerce • Frank B. Anderson

... remote ages, when our country was emerging from a state of semi-barbarism, such things were in common practice. Political chicanery was a name given to various underhand and dishonest maneuvers to gain office and public power. It was frequently the case that the most responsible positions in the Government would be occupied by the basest characters, who used their power only for fraud to enrich themselves ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... this world: this cheating and screening Of cheats! this conscience for candle-wicks, Not beacon-fires! this overweening Of underhand diplomatical tricks, Dared for the country while scorned ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... about to the others. "Didn't I tell you?" he cried excitedly. "I heard her calling him. There's underhand work here. He's hid the guns ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde

... not, however, until these attacks were repeated from more than one quarter—until the Achaeans Philesius and Lykon had loudly accused Xenophon of underhand manoeuvring to cheat the army into remaining against their will—that the latter rose to repel the imputation; saying that all he had done was, to consult the gods whether it would be better to lay his project before the army or keep it in his own bosom. The encouraging answer ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... however, do not conclude any thing without their consent, but this is only a formality. The first advances must be made by the matrons. Not but that, if any girl were to continue too long without being sued for, her family would act underhand to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... came out of confinement the Rover boys thought he might try to play some underhand trick on Tom, and consequently kept their eyes open. But nothing developed for some days, and then it came in a most ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)

... fearful vulgar girl named Lydia Estabrooks, a Yankee lass, is about to become his bride. She covers herself with chains and ribbons, and her fingers blaze with stones. He has given it out in an underhand way that he ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... part of her character, as a ship, just as you take account of a man's peculiarities of temper when you deal with him. But with her you couldn't. She was unaccountable. If she wasn't mad, then she was the most evil-minded, underhand, savage brute that ever went afloat. I've seen her run in a heavy gale beautifully for two days, and on the third broach to twice in the same afternoon. The first time she flung the helmsman clean over the wheel, but as she didn't quite manage to kill him she had another try about three ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... don't want to interfere unless I am convinced that Andy is trying an underhand trick. My plans are missing, and I think he took them. If his machine is made after those plans, it is, obviously, a steal, and I want him ruled out ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton

... all, are a man's real interests? what line of conduct will best advance the main end of his life? Generally, men make the fatal mistake of assuming that honour must always clash with their interests, while in reality, says Cicero, "they would obtain their ends best, not by knavery and underhand dealing, but by justice and integrity". The right is identical with the expedient. "The way to secure the favour of the gods is by upright dealing; and next to the gods, nothing contributes so much to men's happiness as men themselves". It ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... to do was to take what we wanted off his run and from his store, in broad daylight, and pay him fair prices and blow the heads off anybody who went to stop us. For we'd a better right to the grass than he had. Only, you see, Nellie, it was easier to get even with him underhand and we seem ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... long whistle of astonishment. "Of all the underhand tricks!" he exclaimed when the full significance of Joe's act was borne in on him. He was stupefied to think that Joe was a traitor to the school. "That'll fix his chances of getting into the Thessalonians," he said ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... the Assize Court. The threat was quite sufficient. Nauendorff withdrew to a quiet abode in the Rue Guillaume, and granted his interviews in a more secret manner. Indeed, from open clamour he turned to underhand plotting, and so mysterious was his conduct that his landlord requested him to betake himself elsewhere. He found a yet more retired asylum, and still more suspicious-looking friends, until the police began to suspect that a conspiracy was on foot, and favoured ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... having it pursued!" returned Alice. "I've had just all I can stand of your insinuations and innuendoes, and it's high time we had some plain talk. Ever since the revival, you have been dropping sly, underhand hints about Mr. Gorringe and—and me. Now I ask you what you mean ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... the letter that lay before him, and in the interval a fresh vicissitude of mind had befallen him. He, Westray, had been singled out as the instrument of vengeance; the clue was in his hands; his was the mouth that must condemn. Yet he would do nothing underhand, he would take no man unawares; he would tell Lord Blandamer of his discovery, and give him warning before he took any further steps. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... melancholy is not of the sort which softens and refines the nature. There is no suggestion of saintliness about it. In fact, I am convinced that this long-tailed thrush has a constitutional taint of vulgarity. His stealthy, underhand manner is one mark of this, and the same thing comes out again in his music. Full of passion as his singing is (and we have hardly anything to compare with it in this regard), yet the listener cannot help smiling now ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... out; it is something dreadfully bad, something mean and underhand, and not redeemed by audacity, as his mother's misdemeanors may have been. If he has never committed murder, he has at least turned his back and looked the other way while some one else ...
— The American • Henry James

... familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, I hope in the course of this paper to disabuse her ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... Maria Theresa and sister to Marie Antoinette, was much more of a man than the King. The intimacy became the talk of Naples, and the report spread, easily believed, because in the nature of things very likely, that the personal relations between the two women cloaked a great deal of underhand work, such as often accompanies diplomatic difficulties. Nor did Lady Hamilton lack natural qualifications for the position into which she undoubtedly wished to thrust herself. She was a brave, capable, full-blooded, efficient woman, not to be ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... have been worse for young Latisan if they hadn't got rid of him by this underhand way. Now that he has quit and has gone larruping off on his own hook, you may as well get what comfort out of it you can," he said, trying to ameliorate her distress. "There's no telling what they might have been savage enough to ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... my notions On sartin pints thet rile the land; There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns Es bein' mum or underhand; I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur Thet blurts right out wut's in his head, An' ef I've one pecooler feetur, It is a nose thet ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... with equal inquiry, but experienced a certain attraction toward the man who led the scrutiny. He might be an enemy, but he looked as though he would prove an honest and open one, incapable of anything mean or underhand. Presently he made some remark to his companions, who nodded acquiescence, and then they separated, and were lost in the crowd crossing the vestibule, just as De ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... was exposed at every ford and cross road were such as are inseparable from a campaign, and breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there was nothing secret or underhand ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... executive and administrative duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not at all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, Mr. Grish Chunder De, Esq., M. A., will uphold the prestige of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue and peshbundi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians, some of which will now have to serve under a despised native and take orders too. How will you like that, Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to substantiate ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... truth, did Lord Braithwaite seem to decline his lead; although it was observable that very speedily the conversation would be found turned upon some other subject, to which it had swerved aside by subtle underhand movements. Yet Redclyffe was not the less determined, and at no distant period, to bring up the subject on which his mind dwelt so much, and have ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... miss: it will be all right. Theres nothing underhand, I assure you. It's a model agreement, ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... consequently, just how these rebates came to be granted. It was, apparently, contrary to the interest of the railroad companies to cut their rates for the benefit of any one class of customers; and it was, also, an illegal practice, which had to be carried on by secret and underhand methods. Almost all the state laws under which corporations engaged in transportation had been organized, had defined railways, like highways, as public necessities. Such corporations had usually been granted by the states the power to condemn land,—and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... It was possible, of course (anything was possible), that it had occurred to her independently, but Diva was loath to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's invention by some odious, underhand piece of spying. What that might be must be investigated (and probably determined) later, but at present the business of Janet's roses eclipsed every ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... had tried to persuade Mme. Gibon to sell up her son-in-law by claiming from him the unpaid purchase-money for her husband's shop. He represented Fenayrou as an idle gambler, and hinted that he would find her a new purchaser. Such an underhand proceeding was likely to provoke resentment if it should come to the ears of Fenayrou. During the two years that elapsed between his departure from Fenayrou's house and his murder, Aubert had prospered in his shop on the Boulevard Malesherbes, whilst the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... Atlantic, they returned to the Cape Verd islands, laughing at the undertaking as ridiculous and impracticable, and declaring that there could not possibly be any land in that direction or in those seas. When this scandalous underhand dealing came to my fathers ears, he took a great aversion to Lisbon and the Portuguese nation; and, his wife being dead, he resolved to repair into Castile, with his son Don James Columbus, then a little boy, who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... seem that most of them have secret, underhand agreements to play false to their best friends, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 18, March 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... Vintner, notwithstanding all his little Arts of base Brewings, abridging his Bottles, and connecting his Guests together, does not always reap the Fruits of his own Care and Industry. Few People being aware of the underhand Understandings and Petty-Partnerships these Sons of Benecarlo and Cyder have topp'd upon them; and the many other private Inconveniences that they, in the course of their Business, are subjected to. Now, to ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... 1558-88. Policy of Elizabeth. Respective numbers of Catholics and Protestants. Conversion of the masses. The Thirty-nine Articles. The Church of England. Underhand war with Spain. Rebellion of the Northern Earls. Execution of Mary Stuart. The Armada. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... well," snapped Mary. "But there's something secret and underhand about her. She claims to have nobody related to her in this country; but if the truth were known, I guess, she has reason to be ashamed of her family and ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... wrong. I was brought up at a private school, and no one can say I ever dirtied my hands with a trick in my life. Good old Mr. Thompson would have flogged the life out of a boy who did anything mean or underhand." ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... to Booneville, fearing an attack upon Jefferson City, which was immediately occupied by Gen. Lyon, who was received with acclamation by the citizens. Unwilling to grant by delay what he had refused to an underhand diplomacy,—opportunity to the enemy to possess the government property, or entrench themselves strongly in their new quarters,—the general, with characteristic promptness, ordered an advance upon Booneville. The rebel force was stationed above Rockport, but retreated, after a skirmish which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... harm, dunnot lead her to underhand ways o' deceivin' them as means her well. If yo' dunnot mean her harm, tak' yore belongings and leave ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... enough charitableness, mind you. They blame all these poor devils that drink and they think themselves clever! And they're envious, too; if they wasn't that, tell me, would they stand there in stony peterified silence before the underhand goings-on of bigger folks? That's what it is, at bottom of us. Let me tell you now. I'll say nothing against Termite, though he's a poacher, and for the castle folks that's worse than all, but if yon bandit of a Brisbille ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... with the air of one who was well acquainted with the subject, "it's not the most cautious that are least suspected o' breakin' the law. Now, I ken a man that not one here would suspect, an' he has been carryin' on the business underhand this many a day. But tak' my word for it, the fox has his eye on him for all that, and it isna long before he'll be dropped on the ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... for renegades, because most of them have been sailors in their time. As if the infirmities of old age—the gray hair, the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and the knotted veins of the hands—were the symptoms of moral poison, they prowl about the quays with an underhand air of gloating over the broken spirit of noble captives. They want more fenders, more breasting- ropes; they want more springs, more shackles, more fetters; they want to make ships with volatile souls as motionless as square blocks of stone. They stand ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... AMT (Government District) set apart for his support; the "Amt of Ruppin," where his business lies. What the exact revenues of Ruppin are, is not communicated; but we can justly fear they were far too frugal,—and excused the underhand borrowing, which is evident enough as a painful shadow in the Prince's life henceforth. He does not seem to have been wasteful; but he borrows all round, under sevenfold secrecy, from benevolent Courts, from Austria, Russia, England: and the only ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... I see no other means of saving Oaklands' life—for this Wilford is a noted duellist, and no doubt thirsts to wash out the insult he has received in blood—I suppose we must do it; but it is an underhand proceeding which I do ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... over his tonsure in sign of impatience. "One word," he began in the most conciliatory tone, though fuming with irritation, "here we're not dealing with the instruction in Castilian alone. Here there is an underhand fight between the students and the University of Santo Tomas. If the students win this, our prestige will be trampled in the dirt, they will say that they've beaten us and will exult accordingly. Then, good-by to moral strength, good-by to everything! ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... "There is some underhand work in progress," cried Tellier, growing more and more excited; "some trap, some piece of trickery—I know not what—but I am ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... him to retire now," continues Wilhelmina; "but he would not by any means. He led out the Queen, and did the other ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad night, as we learned underhand;" but persisted stoically nevertheless, being a crowned Majesty, and bound to it. He stoically underwent four or three other days, of festival, sight-seeing, "pleasure" so called;—among other sights, saw little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;—and on the fourth day ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Reginald rose to go. It seemed impossible to accuse this splendid impersonation of vigorous manhood of cunning and underhand methods, of plagiarisms and of theft. As he stood there he resembled more than anything a beautiful tiger-cat, a wonderful thing of strength and will-power, indomitable and insatiate. Yet who could tell whether this strength was not, after all, parasitic. If Ethel's suspicions were justified, ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck

... aroused there is no better neighbor than the Turk, he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover, he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor is he at all underhand—he never ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... would, if you'd only confess. I can't understand you, Ray. You were always a madcap, but you never did anything underhand or sneaky before; even when you were naughtiest you were quite ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... Representation of the dissatisfaction of the Army, the Declaration of the Army, and the Charge made against eleven members of the House of Commons. That the City had done its part in stopping enlistments they readily acknowledged, but information had reached them of underhand workings still going on to enlist men, as a "foundation for a new armie and a new warre." The letter concluded with a reiteration of the writers' intention to do nothing prejudicial to the parliament or the city, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... mine, Coralie. I have no secrets. Thank God, my life is clear and open—a book any one may read. Supposing I had a secret, I should not purchase the keeping of it by any such compromise as you suggest. I detest all mysteries, Coralie—all underhand doings, all deceit. Speak out and tell me, Coralie, ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme

... Samson discovered, Delilah lies, The stigma's stuck on by the cynical wise, And nothing can ever remove it. We'll cast out Delilah and spit on her dead, (That revenge is remarkably human), And pity the victim of underhand tricks So be that it's moral (the sexes don't mix); But, oh, think what the cynical wise would have said If ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... advantage, long-suffering, sly, nursing his revenge in silence like a vindictive slave, until at last the moment of retribution should be his; sufficiently truthful and brave to have grown noble in another atmosphere, but with a ready bent to underhand and brooding vengeance. Insensible, it seemed, to gratitude. Proud with the unreasoning pride of an Oriental; cruel, and violently passionate. One soft and tender speck there was in this dark and sullen heart; it was an exceedingly ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... family moved to town, and now he would have felt it a derogation to return to his real nature, which was too much atrophied, even if he had wished it. Not having found his true place in society, he blamed the social order, serving it, as do millions of functionaries, like a bad servant, an underhand enemy. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... is solely built for Germany's needs in relation with that country's rapidly growing trade. The German naval bill was sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament and published ten years ago, and may be had at any large bookseller's. There is nothing surprising, secret, or underhand in it, and every reader may study the whole course mapped out for the development of the German Navy with the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... did not join her in the garden. She was not happy about this latest development of affairs. It was one thing to watch Miss Norton by legitimate methods, and quite another to try underhand ways. She wondered whether the service of her country really demanded such a sacrifice of honour. For a moment she felt desperately tempted to run to Winifrede's study, explain the whole situation, and ask her opinion, but she remembered that Winifrede would be ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... the Vivian girls were coming to Haddo Court, she recalled the incident of what she was pleased to regard as the stolen packet. It had haunted her while she was at Craigie Muir; it had even horrified her. Her whole nature recoiled against what she considered clandestine and underhand dealings. Nevertheless she could not, she would not, tell. But she had very nearly made up her mind to say something to the girls themselves—to ask Betty why she had taken the packet, and what she had done with it. But even on this course she was ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... anything but pleasing to them; if they preferred not to risk everything by entering into a great struggle with the invaders, they could, without compromising themselves too much, harass them with sudden attacks, and intrigue in an underhand way against them to their own profit. Pharaoh's generals were accustomed to punish, one after the other, these bands of invading tribes, and the sculptors duly recorded their names on a pylon at Thebes among those of the conquered ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... I don't know. Perhaps, when I come back, I'll look around for a car. I don't want him driven to doing underhand things." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... well-set eyes, black hair, now showing thin at the temples and somewhat bald; he had a short black beard and moustache and his carriage was upright and dignified. He could be stern, even severe, when things aroused his anger, and nothing could touch his temper quicker than underhand dealings or a mean act. But his whole being was steeped with love of his kind and sympathy ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern

... place to place. Arden is a miser in business, and a weak, gullible fool at home, alternately raging with jealous suspicion, and fawning with fatuous trustfulness upon the man who is wronging him. Mosbie is a cold-blooded, underhand villain whose pious resolutions and protestations of love could only deceive those blinded by fate, and whose preference for crooked, left-handed methods is in tune with his vile intention of murdering the woman who loves him. Alice, the representative of ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... should never be able to look Mankind in the Face: But we have laid our Measures so that by prompting the King to run upon us in all sorts of bare-fac'd Extreams and Violences, we shall bring him to exasperate the whole Nation; then we may underhand foment the breach on this side, raise the Mob upon him, and by acting on both sides seem to suffer a Force in falling in with the People, and preserve ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... on a lesser count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the influence of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the privilege, underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well to keep up communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he was free; he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to some small circle, and lived, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hid the papers before he died, and she knows where; and she's on her way to get them and carry the business through. I don't say she hasn't plenty of courage. Why, she's gone up against the whole of France; but I guess you're not very anxious to be mixed up in this underhand, spying ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... a report to Secretary Smith.[645] Then, yet in advance of congressional authorization, began a systematic course of Indian negotiation, all having in view the relieving of Kansas from her aboriginal encumbrance. No means were too underhand, too far-fetched, too villainous to be resorted to. Every advantage was taken of the Indian's predicament, of his pitiful weakness, political and moral. The reputed treason of the southern tribes was made the most ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... was to write the note, and Tony to deliver it, but their father's remark, and his look, touched their consciences. Dan, too, for some reason or another, was against it; he said he thought that after all it was a bit sneaky and underhand, and he wasn't going to have any more of it. Betty felt the foundations of her world shake, and life bristled with new difficulties; but Dan had said it, so no one questioned. After Dan had put things in that light, Kitty suddenly realized ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... months, as the reader has already seen; and a large number of people appeared to have fixed upon him as a type of the respectable and hypocritical sinner, prosperous, refined, moving in good society and enjoying a fair reputation, yet secretly hardened and corrupt. It was not often that the underhand crimes of such men were plainly exposed to view, and, when they were, an example ought to be made of the offender as a warning to his class. Ever since Cora had gained a hearing in the police-court at Hammersmith, Alan was set down as a heartless libertine, who had grown tired of his wife, or, at ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... girls, especially with those antecedents, and Maura did not know to the contrary. You will believe me, Rotherwood, I never had any desire that she should succeed. I would have sent her away if I could; but you can't wonder that Mr. White is vexed, and feels as if there had been underhand dealing." ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... great national game, he has got to play it on the level right from the start. If he doesn't do that, he may, for a certain length of time, hoodwink the public. But, as I said before, sooner or later he'll be exposed; and you know as well as I do that the public will not stand for any underhand work in any line of sports. I've talked, not alone to baseball men, but also to football men, runners, skaters, and even prize fighters, and they have all said exactly the same thing—that the great majority of men want their ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... and that little shrimp, Eden, ought not to be allowed to play. There is no guarding against their sneaking, underhand ways," he observed. I believe, indeed, he made use of still more opprobrious epithets, with which I do not wish to defile my pages. Even some of his own side laughed at his anger, but still no one thought of ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... and to give weight to these insinuations, I availed myself of the letters, which the Marquis de Lafayette has done me the honor to address me from Cadiz. I know these hints have been conveyed to the Ministry, and am assured underhand, that I shall have soon reason to be satisfied. To these assurances I replied, that with all the desire I had to contribute to a lasting harmony between the two countries, it would be impossible for me, consistent with propriety and the idea I had of the dignity of my constituents, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... you. It was the work of foreign spies working with foreign gold amongst the outcasts and scum of Theos. It was not the choice of the people. It was the word of sedition, of cunning bribery, the vile underhand efforts of foreign politicians seeking to weaken by treachery a country they dared not, small though it is, ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... another became the scapegoat for the popular indignation. Then the General Staff was freely censured, and whispers went round that the Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of the Czar, was not only incompetent to conduct a great war, but guilty of underhand dealings with the contractors who defrauded the troops and battened on the public funds. Letters from the rank and file showed that the bread was bad, the shoes were rotten, the rifles outclassed by those of the Turks, and that trenching-tools were lacking for many precious weeks[222]. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... been gone long?" Stephen persisted, feeling perplexed and irritated, as if something underhand were going on. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... death by poison, and death or banishment the penalty of the manufacturer of poisons. The same quality of disapproval is expressed in early law of sorcery, and it is unnecessary to give details of this also. But, stated in emotional terms, both poison and sorcery, and other underhand practices arouse one of the most distressing of the emotions—the emotion of dread, if we understand by this term that form of fear which has no tangible or visible embodiment, which is apprehended but not located, and which in consequence cannot be resisted; the distress, in ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... who say that," he said. "One naturally suspects them of having got what they want by some underhand means—and of having abandoned the rest of their sex. This is an age of amalgamation; is not that ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... comes by this privilege. I can only tell you, that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer's clerk; and he looks, to my mind, rather a mean, underhand sample of that sort of man. According to his own account,—by the bye, I forgot to say that he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand to look at,—according to his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... lad began, with a bright flush that gave a certain tenderness to his eyes, which were dewy sweet,—"Joe, listen a minute. I am engaged to Delia Whitney,—just to-night. But I hate mean, underhand things. I wanted some one to know it. And—shall I tell mother? Of course she won't like it; though I don't ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... a directors' meeting. He should not be severely blamed for neglecting a detail of this sort when he was so well aware of its purely formal if not farcical character. Still, it was one of those little slips that even the most careful of us will sometimes make, and the district-attorney took an underhand advantage of our friend and indicted him for forging the names of the officers of the company to an unauthorized issue of bonds. Gottlieb and I had, perforce, to defend him; but, unfortunately, his real defence would have been even worse than the charge. He could not say that there was no real company ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... fill him with vague regrets. After all, the insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's brother, nor Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the Republic and would never do any good for himself. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... Aunt Marian that I've told you all this," he went on. "I shouldn't want her to think that I was asking you to do something underhand." ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... Jane. She fought the weakness, as she fought to be above suspicious thoughts, and it passed, leaving her conscious of her utter impotence. That, too, passed as her spirit rebounded. But she had again caught a glimpse of dark underhand domination, running its secret lines this time into her own household. Like a spider in the blackness of night an unseen hand had begun to run these dark lines, to turn and twist them about her life, to plait and weave a web. Jane Withersteen ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... there is no explanation, but just the one I had made out for myself. Mr. Falkirk, did I ever practise any underhand dealings with ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... it pursued!" returned Alice. "I've had just all I can stand of your insinuations and innuendoes, and it's high time we had some plain talk. Ever since the revival, you have been dropping sly, underhand hints about Mr. Gorringe and—and me. Now I ask you what you mean ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... and the house he is building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in obligations. It may take him two or three years to come even on it; but it is a prepossession with him. Now can't you see that if we go to him and tell him this sordid, underhand, unmanly tale, how his fine nature is going to be hurt, how his big heart is going to be wrung, how his home-house that he is building with such eager watchfulness will be a weighty Old Man of the Sea clinging to his back? Do you think, Mr. Eugene Snow, that ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... for not wishing my sisters to hear of my engagement for a fortnight or so. I—I," hesitating and floundering in his sentence, "meant to tell them myself, and to introduce Leah to them. It is a confounded shame," lashing himself up to great wrath, "that it should have leaked out in this underhand fashion. May I ask ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... paid services had been absolutely employed on behalf of his Lordship, he almost regretted the encouragement he had given to Nickem. In the first place he might want Nickem. And then he felt that in his present position he ought not to be a party to anything underhand. But Nickem was gone, and he was obliged to console himself by thinking that Nickem was at any rate employing his intellect on the right side. When he left his house with Larry Twentyman he had told his wife nothing about ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... plain to Esau that he could not induce his father to annul the blessing bestowed upon Jacob, he tried to force a blessing for himself by an underhand trick. He said: "Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father, else it will be said thou hast but one blessing to bestow. Suppose both Jacob and I had been righteous men, had not then thy God had two blessings, one ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... minute, as soon as I was a free man on English terra firma. My brother Greg and I were brought up in close association with Riversley. One of the Beauties of Riversley we lost! One was left, and we both tried our luck with her; honourably, in turn, each of us, nothing underhand; above-board, on the quarter-deck, before all the company. I 'll say it of my brother, I can say it of myself. Greg's chances, I need not remark, are superior to mine; he is always in port. If he wins, then I tell him—"God bless you, my boy; you've won the finest woman, the handsomest, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... frowned, and gave vent to a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door? he wondered. Why was it open? How came it to shut so easily and so effectually after him? There was something obscure and underhand about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It looked like a snare, and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior? And yet—snare or no snare, intentionally or unintentionally—here he ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... the massive Frederick the Great type. It called for a man erect and proud, keen of speech, with absolute self-confidence, who in a pinch was master at underhand dealing, and who could deliberately ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... safety deposit box. In case of my death, it will be left to responsible parties. When you die, it will be destroyed. I am not a rich man, Mr. Brown, but I shall devote a part of my income to having you watched; watched lest indirectly and by the underhand methods you know so well you again attempt to influence public opinion. After ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... expected to keep a strict watch on his expenditure; and they had no scruple to send home complaints against him behind his back, as they did against one another. A secretary in Dublin like Geoffrey Fenton is described as a moth in the garment of every Deputy. Grey himself complains of the underhand work; he cannot prevent "backbiters' report:" he has found of late "very suspicious dealing amongst all his best esteemed associates;" he "dislikes not to be informed of the charges against him." In fact, they were accusing him of one of the gravest ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... hearty, lie for fun, but never in earnest, an' drink to a reasonable degree of hilarity. My word is good with every man, woman, an' child in the cow country. I never yet went back on a friend, nor let up on an enemy. I never took underhand advantage of man or woman, an' I know the cow business. For the rest of it, I'll go to the old man an' offer to take the Eagle Creek ranch off his hands an' turn nester. It's a good ranch, an' one that rightly handled would make a man rich—provided he was a married man ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... Greene is a revengeful sleuth-hound, tracking his victim down relentlessly from place to place. Arden is a miser in business, and a weak, gullible fool at home, alternately raging with jealous suspicion, and fawning with fatuous trustfulness upon the man who is wronging him. Mosbie is a cold-blooded, underhand villain whose pious resolutions and protestations of love could only deceive those blinded by fate, and whose preference for crooked, left-handed methods is in tune with his vile intention of murdering the woman who loves him. Alice, the representative of womankind among these beast-men, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... you are," commanded Fogg. "I'll give no chance for any underhand work." He scowled when the prisoner winked at him. "This looks to me like a put-up ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... a wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited. But if she didn't always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand. Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while before she'd consent—and all because she didn't want ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... affected importance to which he has made himself an accessory. He is quite an altered man. 'Really the society were under considerable obligations to him in that last business'; that is to say, in some paltry job or underhand attempt to encroach upon the rights or dictate to the understandings of the neighbourhood. In the meantime they eat, drink, and carouse together. They wash down all minor animosities and unavoidable differences of opinion in pint bumpers; and the complaints of the multitude are lost ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... Sobber came out of confinement the Rover boys thought he might try to play some underhand trick on Tom, and consequently kept their eyes open. But nothing developed for some days, and then it came in ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)

... time he had sold the property to Mrs. Bragley's husband, Pacomb had made five other grants, and, now that the property had proved more valuable than he had hoped for, he was trying underhand means ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... with mathematical exactitude how many angles the human form would describe in the process of bowing and scraping. In his department, everybody asked for something or got someone else to ask. Promotion, that insatiable hunger, was the greedy dream of all that little world of intriguing, underhand, begging employes, who opened up around the new minister so many approaches, like military lines ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... political men, instead of the very conservative Catholics we had invited to meet them. "I know what these gentlemen think; I would like to talk to some of the others, those who think 'le clericalism c'est l'ennemi,' and who are firmly convinced that the soutane serves as a cloak for all sorts of underhand and unpatriotic dealings; I can only see them abroad, never in Rome." He would have talked to them quite easily. Italians have so much natural tact, in discussing difficult questions, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... quick eye caught the dark, shooting gleam of the ball. Involuntarily he ducked. "Strike," called the umpire. Then Dale had not tried to hit him. Ken stepped up again. The pitcher whirled slowly this time, turning with long, easy motion, and threw underhand. The ball sailed, floated, soared. Long before it reached Ken it had fooled him completely. He chopped at it vainly. The next ball pitched came up swifter, but just before it crossed the plate it seemed to stop, as if pulled back by a string, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... discover Beauties and Excellencies in the Writers of my own Time, than to publish any of their Faults and Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from some of my underhand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me so far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor shall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, so long as I keep ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... a most underhand piece of business all around; but the king yielded and sent out a ship, which presently came back again with the report that there was no Cathay there, and they hadn't found any Cipango; it was all nonsense! And what they ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... If I weren't such a pitiful coward, I should say to him, "Marry her, or make what arrangement you please, only let us have nothing underhand about it." ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen

... for politics," Hamilton continued. "Statesmanship goes begging. I shall be entirely frank about it, for that matter. There will be no underhand scheming, Adams is welcome to know every step I take. The correspondence must begin at once. I'll make out a list for you. I ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... her say she does not believe a word of it, or else to make it a fresh ground for poking and prying, in the way that drives one distracted! It really is quite a satis- faction to have something that she can't find out, and it is not underhand while I write every word ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... (much as I longed to know a good deal more about them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand information. In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any thing about me. Like all other girls—and perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys—I had strong though hazy ideas of caste. The noble sense of equality, fraternity, and so on, seems to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... admitted into a series, fixes upon the managers of the series, who permitted its introduction, a strong presumption of that underhand intent with which they were charged. At the same time it is honorable to our liberty that this series could be published: though its promoters were greatly shocked when the Essayists and Bishop Colenso[74] took a swing on the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... fatality still pursued us. She had once more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had found me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff. In her hearing, the Sergeant, with his own underhand object in view, had appealed to my interest in Rosanna Spearman. Again for the poor creature's own sake, I had met the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared—loudly declared, so that she might hear me too—that I felt "no interest whatever in Rosanna Spearman." ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... earnestly against the danger of being swayed in religious inquiry by our sympathy rather than by our reason. I was in great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness and underhand dealing from the majority. But I have never had any ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... learned the lesson of obedience to higher powers, and it was not difficult to convince herself that she was justified. It did seem a little underhand, this was all ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... this cheating and screening Of cheats! this conscience for candle-wicks, Not beacon-fires! this overweening Of underhand diplomatical tricks, Dared for the country while ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... all unknown to him the police hold him suspect, and are endeavouring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion——" ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... the thread of his discourse. "The reason I mentioned it, Professor, was to ask you to be so kind as to preside at the Election. You see it would make the thing respectable—no suspicion of anything, underhand—" ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... half-convinced laugh. The man was so open and honest that his arguments had nothing underhand or crafty ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... for its success, and yet without any tendency to that cold-blooded way of stating it, to which Croft had objected. He had, indeed, picked up his adversary's sword, and while he did not wish, in handing it to him, to prick him with it, or do him some such underhand injury, he did not think it at all necessary to sharpen the ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... working underhand to force his halfpence upon us, and if he can by help of his friends in England prevail so far as to get an order that the commissioners and collectors of the King's money shall receive them, and that the army ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... right arm, another by the left, 'Off, off; to the Garden!' Having got me thither, they looked out for the King. He was among the gardeners, examining some rare plant; stooping over it, and had his back to us. Here I had to halt; and the Officers began, in underhand tone [the dogs!], to put me through my drill: 'Hat under left arm!—Right foot foremost!—Breast well forward!—Head up!—Papers from pouch!—Papers aloft in right hand!—Steady! Steady!'—And went their ways, looking always round, to see if I kept my posture. I perceived ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... nominis Latini, et socios Italicos. "The right of voting was not extended to all the Latin people till A.U.C. 664, and the Italian allies did not obtain it till some years afterward." Kritzius. So that at this period, which was twenty years earlier, their influence could only be employed in an underhand way. ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... the ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile.' Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdroeckh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange is the Professor, can never say. If our suspicion ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... it. Just now the messenger came back from Memphis, and brought a paltry scrap of papyrus on which some wretched scribbler had written in the name of Philometer, that nothing was known of Irene at court, and complaining deeply that Asclepiodorus had not hesitated to play an underhand game with the king. So they have no idea whatever ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... favoured me above others, gained ground amazingly fast. Each boy was on the watch, and the smallest action was noticed and repeated from one to another in an exaggerated form, till I became an object of bitter dislike to more than half the school. Many underhand attempts were made by some of my companions to hurt me in the good opinion of my teacher; but he possessed too much penetration and discernment to be easily misled, and for some time all attempts to injure me came back on themselves; ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell

... Finally she had married Jacques Sennier. She was low-born, but had been very well educated, and was naturally clever. Her cleverness had throughout her life instinctively sought an outlet in intrigue. Some women intrigue when circumstances drive them to subterfuge, trickery and underhand dealing. Henriette Sennier needed no incentive of that kind. She liked intrigue for its own sake. In Marseilles she had lived in the midst of a network of double dealing connected with so-called love. When she married Jacques Sennier she ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... discover and discuss and bring to the test of experience. And for the sake of the education of our children, which is the cardinal business of our lives, we must refuse all convenient legal fictions and underhand ways, and see to it that the system is as true to the reality of life and to right and justice as we can, in our light and generation, make it. The child must learn not only from preacher and parent and book, but from the whole frame and order of life about it, that truth and sound living ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... came and sat on the step beside her. She looked at him and was surprised at his size and apparent strength. Someway he gave her hope. He was a good boy, he had never done a mean, sneaking thing that she knew of. He was natural, normal, mischievous; but he had not an underhand inclination that she could discover. He would make a fine-looking, big man, quite as fine as any of the Bates men; even Adam, 3d, was no handsomer than the fourth Adam would be. Hope arose in her with the cool air of spring on her cheek and its wine in her nostrils. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... that John and Susan Meadows walk out of church man and wife I put a thousand pounds into your hand and set you up in any business you like; in any honest business, for from that day our underhand dealings must end. The husband of that angel must never grind the poor or wrong a living creature. If Heaven consents to my being happy in this way, the least I can do is to walk straight and straightforward the rest of my days, and I will, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... of them have secret, underhand agreements to play false to their best friends, whenever it suits ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 18, March 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... the ship. Some said she would certainly be wanted to carry out the stream-anchor, if for nothing else; others observed that half a dozen boats would not be enough to find all the channel we wanted; while Marble kept his eye, though always in an underhand way, on his main object. The breakers we got in and stowed, filled with fresh water, by way of ballast. The masts were stepped, the oars were put on board, and a spare compass was passed dawn, lest the ship might ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... such things; who delighted in proving that they had a superior power of attraction, and who would not scruple to use all sorts of mean little underhand ways to lessen a man's admiration for some other girl, and appropriate it for themselves. She had even heard some of the girls at school ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Jolson, who form a part of it, are down here to make reputations for themselves. They are handicapped and vexed by constant interference, constant jealousy. It is a survival of the fittest, and I suppose they feel that they must protect themselves even if they use underhand means to do so. It is so in all big work of this character, where the individual is made small. You would find the same condition in ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... evening she has to join us at the Red Horse. Twilight is favourable to evasions, abductions, stealthy movements and underhand actions. We have to trust to the cunning of that girl. As to you, be sure to attend at the Circus of the Bergeres in the dusk. You know M. d'Anquetil is not patient, and it quite the man to ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... I don't think that more than one word came out. And even for that one, judging by the temperature of my face, I had blushed as if for a bad action. Assuming a detached tone, I wondered how on earth he had managed to spot the little underhand game that had been ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... the court, and Blake tried the cut once more. This time Cooper was ready for it and sent it back with a swift underhand drive, and a rally began right at the start. The game promised to be a good one and it drew many interested watchers, though most of the boys had followed Rawson and the two patrol ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... I wanted it. But he knew I should not have sold it for building on; that is why he got Bowden, the farmer, to buy it. It was like him: only such a man can be capable of such an underhand act. And now I suppose he will be welcomed by his neighbours, and the Vaynes and the Bannerdales, and made much of. They'll eat his dinners, and their women will go to his balls and concerts—they whose fathers would have refused to sit at the same table with ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... that she neither careth though the whole surname of the Bacons travelled, nor of the Cecils neither." He was very angry with Robert Cecil; affecting not to believe them, he tells him stories he has heard of his corrupt and underhand dealing. He writes almost a farewell letter of ceremonious but ambiguous thanks to Lord Burghley, hoping that he would impute any offence that Bacon might have given to the "complexion of a suitor, and a tired sea-sick suitor," and speaking ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... exactly know how the Muscovites had been able to regain their freedom but, remembering what Keith had told him about Miss Wilberforce, her periodical imprisonments and his periodical bribes, he shrewdly suspected some underhand practices on the part of that gentleman at the instigation, very possibly, of the charming Madame Steynlin. Signor Malipizzo's cruel travesty of justice—how unfavourably it compared with his cousin's altogether ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... the unhappy fate of those who had fallen at Beder, excited the Meccans to take up arms. Upon his return to Medina he rehearsed the same verses among the lower sort of people and the women. Mahomet, being told of these underhand practices, said, one day, "Who will rid me of the son of Ashraf?" when Mahomet, son of Mosalama, one of the helpers, answered, "I am the man, O apostle of God, that will do it," and immediately took with him Salcan son of Salama, and some ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... had the impromptu vivacity of her sister, but was lively in games that engaged her mind. Her music was very correct, but entirely cultivated by practice and perseverance. Anything underhand was detestable to both Mary and Martha; they had no mean pride towards others, but accepted the incidents of life with imperturbable good-sense and insight. They were not dressed as well as other pupils, for economy at ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... Please understand this. When you have anything to say to me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... he ever pardon her? Then her mind would fly away to the injustice of his condemnation. He had spoken to her darkly, as though he had intended to accuse her of some secret understanding with Sir Francis. He had believed her to be guilty of some underhand plot against his happiness, carried on with the man to whom she had been engaged! Of what was it that he had imagined her to be guilty? What was the plot of which in his heart he accused her? Then ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... who had been listening intently, "Look a-here!" He picked up a rifle an inch below the foresight with an underhand action, and used it exactly as a man would use ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... is, where?—if it is to be kept a secret between us, only?" she asked wistfully, compunction already pulling at her conscience. Secrecy savoured of intrigue, and all things underhand were ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... agreed George. "What would he be sneaking around here in the night for, if he wasn't engaged in some underhand game? You just wait until we get into the mine," the boy continued, "and we'll give him a ghost scare that'll hold him for ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... since their departure from the castle, received a letter, the contents of which he hastened to communicate to Ravenswood. A foot-post had arrived with a packet to the Lord Keeper from that friend whom we have already mentioned, who was labouring hard underhand to consolidate a band of patriots, at the head of whom stood Sir William's greatest terror, the active and ambitious Marquis of A——. The success of this convenient friend had been such, that he had obtained ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... other things, and will, as my story proceeds, make many more specific charges of as serious a nature; but the above suffice for my present argument, which is, that up to and including the April number I have made these accusations and that the only way they have been met is by underhand mud-slinging and by alleging that the incentive for my attack was that I could not secure insurance from any of the American companies; and I have met this with absolute proof, which must stand until it is disproved, that I ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... who delivers the ball to the batsman, is the most important member of the side. In the act of pitching, which is throwing either over or underhand, he must keep one foot in contact with a white plate, called the pitcher's plate, 24 in. long and 6 in. wide, placed 60.5 ft. from the back of the home-base. Before 1875 the pitcher was obliged to deliver the ball with a full toss only, but about that time a disguised underhand ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... we won't! I'm not doing anything underhand. I've told Francis, straight. He's no fool. He knows when I mean a thing. And I'm my ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... look like a mere meaningless and disorderly work of chance; but, rightly understood, are preparations for a given result, like the most subtle moves of a game of chess, of which no bystander can for a long time see the intention, but which are, in dim, underhand, wonderful way, bringing out their foreseen and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... Britain hoped to make of our resentment; and to give weight to these insinuations, I availed myself of the letters, which the Marquis de Lafayette has done me the honor to address me from Cadiz. I know these hints have been conveyed to the Ministry, and am assured underhand, that I shall have soon reason to be satisfied. To these assurances I replied, that with all the desire I had to contribute to a lasting harmony between the two countries, it would be impossible for me, consistent with propriety and the idea I had ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... thence to Camseau where every day wee were threatned to be burned by the french; but God be thanked, wee escaped from their hands by avoiding a surprize. And in that place my Brother told me of his designe to come and see new England, which our servants heard, and grumbled and laboured underhand against us, for which our lives were in very great danger. Wee sent some of them away, and at last with much labour & danger wee came to Port Royall, which is inhabited by the french under the English Government, where some few dayes after came some English shipps ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... hammer-and-tongs battle with the Dubois' watchman once, right in the middle of the public street—thirty-six rounds or so they had of it—and licked him, as John Bull says, in true British style; and that is always Thomas's way, and the only thing that he understands properly; none of your underhand dodges like hiding behind places and throwing brickbats when one isn't looking. So that the Hooligan ways of fighting were quite too much for him at first. And although Mr. Bull spent a lot of money in buying him a new watchman's rattle and a very expensive second-hand truncheon, ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... there is no better neighbor than the Turk, he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover, he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor is he at all underhand—he never makes ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... her mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly great—perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he thought: 'I'm not a villain. I don't want to hurt her; and I don't want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a son! There's nothing for it but divorce—somehow—anyhow—divorce!' Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed slowly along the railings of the Green Park. Mist clung there among the bluish tree ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... sake, do not state the passages. I do not love compliments, and will never give my consent to receive any. I have no doubt of your kind intentions to me, but beg they may rest there. I am much more diverted with the philosopher D'Alembert's underhand dealings, than I should have been pleased with panegyric ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... neputrigita. Uncorrupted (moral) neacxetita. Uncouth malgxentila. Uncover malkovri. Unction sxmirajxo. Uncious grasa. Uncultivated senkultura. Undaunted neintimigita. Under (prep.) sub. Under (adv.) sube. Underbred (rude) vulgara. Undergo suferi. Underground subtera. Underhand sekreta, kasxema. Underlie subtavoli, subteni. Underline substreki. Undermaster submajstro. Undermine (to dig) subfosi. Undermost (adv.) la plej sube. Underneath (prep.) sub. Underneath (adv.) sube. Underrate malestimi. Underscore ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... frontier was certain, moreover, to be anything but pleasing to them; if they preferred not to risk everything by entering into a great struggle with the invaders, they could, without compromising themselves too much, harass them with sudden attacks, and intrigue in an underhand way against them to their own profit. Pharaoh's generals were accustomed to punish, one after the other, these bands of invading tribes, and the sculptors duly recorded their names on a pylon at Thebes among those of the conquered nations, but these disasters had little effect in restraining ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... all, the insurgents were abandoning him, and allowing themselves to be beaten like idiots. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the Republic was mere dupery. Those Rougons were lucky! And he recalled his own bootless wickedness and underhand intrigues. Not one member of the family had ever been on his side; neither Aristide, nor Silvere's brother, nor Silvere himself, who was a fool to grow so enthusiastic about the Republic and would never do any ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... He answered her simply, forgetful of the fact that she could only have obtained her information on this point in an underhand manner. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... latter, and that a French frigate which lately sailed hence for Buenos Ayres, has a commission on that subject. Whether these intrigues extend from Mendoza over the Cordilleras, or not, I have no means to ascertain, but I know that the French Charge d'Affaires here has been endeavouring underhand to induce this Government to give up the fortifications of Monte Video to the State of Buenos Ayres, which can only be with the view of extending the influence of ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... empire, within reach. For weeks the chances of the parties have been discussed and betted upon; even the schoolboys have talked chariots, chariot-drivers, and horses. The fortune-tellers have been consulted about them; dreamers have dreamed the winners; and many an underhand attempt, sometimes including the hocussing of men or horses, has been made to corrupt the sport. The struggle is in reality not between chariot and chariot, but between what we should call stable and stable. There are four parties—the white, red, green, and blue—whose ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... didn't help him to ketch the man that deserted from HIM, but the skunk that took MY clothes. For when the Leftenant found the man's old uniform in the bush, he nat'rally kalkilated he must hev got some other duds near by in some underhand way. Don't you see? eh? Why, look, Mag. Darned if you ain't skeered after all! Who'd hev thought it? There now—sit down, dear. Why, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... said, "and wait. Put the window in back of you down so I can talk. I'll tell you where to go presently. Now, Walter, sit back as far as you can. This may seem like an underhand thing to do, but we've got to get what that woman won't tell us or give up ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... able to give us more information than Sir Philip," remarked Merrington in a friendly tone to Captain Stanhill, as the door closed behind the subordinate officials. "A woman is generally more observant than a man—particularly if anything underhand has been ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... bellies of ships and came up full. As the two watermen gingerly manoeuvred the boat on the ebbing tide, Hazell explained to the millionaire that the 'Squirm' was one of the most notorious craft on the river. It appeared that when anyone had a nefarious or underhand scheme afoot which necessitated river work Everett's launch was always available for a suitable monetary consideration. The 'Squirm' had got itself into a thousand scrapes, and out of those scrapes again with safety, if not precisely with ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... least not now—if you don't try any more of your underhand work," promised Dave. "But I'm going to converse with you right here and now. Why did you cut the posts of our special corral? ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... the attorney, "I understand all that; but what I want to make you, Mr. Oakly, understand, is, that this Grant and his son only want to make up matters with you, and prevent the thing's coming to a fair trial, by sending on, in this underhand sort of way, a bribe of a ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... to it? There can be none until that nation amends its Constitution. Massachusetts when she accepted that Constitution, bound herself to send only such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an errand is a partner in the perjury. Massachusetts has no right to assent to my ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... he was compelled to meet and grasp a trouble which for fifteen years had embittered his life. His son, Alexis, had ever been a thorn in his father's side. He was not only indolent and dissipated, but he was utterly opposed to all his father's measures for reform, and was continually engaged in underhand measures to head a party against him. Upon the death of the unhappy princess of Wolfenbuttle, wife of this worthless prince, the grieved and indignant father wrote to him ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... prematurely marital. I am trying to protect you, and you are the first to accuse me of underhand dealing! I will prove to you how unjust are your notions." She entered the postern, closed and bolted it, and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... has declared that the first man who shall lay hands upon it will die. His choice falls upon Corentin, a country lout, whom he persuades to accompany him to the gorge where the treasure lies hidden. Corentin is not so stupid as he seems, and, suspecting something underhand, he persuades the mad Dinorah to go down into the ravine in his place. Dinorah consents, but while she is crossing a rustic bridge, preparatory to the descent, it is struck by lightning, and she tumbles into the ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... two kinds of dark language used by our nomad classes and by our human predatory animals. A London thief can talk a dialect which no outsider can possibly understand; for, by common agreement, arbitrary names are applied to every object which the robbers at any time handle, and to every sort of underhand business which they transact. But this gibberish is not exactly an outcome of any moral obliquity; it is employed as a means of securing safety. The gipsy cant is the remnant of a pure and ancient ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... your Aunt Marian that I've told you all this," he went on. "I shouldn't want her to think that I was asking you to do something underhand." ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... country, while it robs the other of national self-respect and of all the strongest motives and best opportunities of self-help. The status quo is drawing very near to its inevitable end. The two courses then open will be Home Rule on the one hand, and some shy bungling underhand imitation of a Crown Colony on the other. We shall have either to listen to the Irish representatives or to suppress them. Unless we have lost all nerve and all political faculty we shall, before many months are over, face these alternatives. Liberals are for the first; Tories at present incline ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... men had been good friends previously. Broderick had stood by Terry on one occasion when everybody else had been against him and his situation had been critical. In his anger over his defeat, Terry accused Broderick of disgraceful and underhand practices. Broderick was provoked into the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... side the revolutionary party assembled that evening at the Jacobins, deplored their defeat, accused every one, and mutually recriminated on each other. "See," said their orators, "what underhand work has been accomplished in one night; what a triumph of corruption and fraud! The members of the former Assembly have mixed with the new members in the chamber, and have infused into the ears of their successors those concessions that have ruined them. After ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... had occurred to her independently, but Diva was loath to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's invention by some odious, underhand piece of spying. What that might be must be investigated (and probably determined) later, but at present the business of Janet's ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourn bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. 'Tis true, I should be glad, if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... word Sam French's father says about Mr. Walters!" said Mrs. Phillips firmly. "He's got a spite against him because he was dismissed. Besides, Danny, it's the only right thing to do. You know that. We're poor, but we have never done anything underhand yet." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... neighbourhood have left us severely alone, whirling past our gates to pay assiduous calls on General Underwood. He is the local hero, and we are the hard-hearted strangers who did Something—nobody knows precisely what—but Something mean, and underhand, and altogether unwomanly about a lease, and so forced the poor dear General to endure draughts and cold rooms, and seriously retarded his progress towards health! It's no use pretending that I am not sorry about it, for I ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... time, desolation and confusion reign all over France. They are almost bankrupts, and quite famished. The Parliament of Paris has quitted its functions, and the other tribunals threaten to follow the example. Some people say, that Maupeou,[2] the Chancellor, told the King that they were supported underhand by Choiseul, and must submit if he were removed. The suggestion is specious at least, as the object of their antipathy is the Duke d'Aiguillon. If the latter should think a war a good diversion to their ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... want to know is this," Trego propounded cunningly: "had Lyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question, had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason to suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not have betrayed him to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... that these lines shall not be read by you till after my decease. Had I adopted the ordinary mode of communicating with you, it seemed to me not impossible that some other eye than the one for which it was intended might peruse this statement before it reached you, and that through some foul play or underhand deed the Diamond might never come into ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... white article. He is straight goods. I've found that out. I used to think different, just as you do, but I've found out I was mistaken. He is a square man. And when he sent that invitation I knew there was no underhand business about it whatever. That's the reason I accepted it; that and because it would have made me feel meaner than a Digger Indian if I had refused it. I'm going to pitch for him Saturday forenoon, and I'll ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... might have been worse for young Latisan if they hadn't got rid of him by this underhand way. Now that he has quit and has gone larruping off on his own hook, you may as well get what comfort out of it you can," he said, trying to ameliorate her distress. "There's no telling what they might have been savage ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... has told you everything. It was a reckless thing to do, no doubt: perhaps you will say it was wrong and underhand. Some people will, I dare say, but I hope you won't, for I should like to start with your good wishes. May I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... titles to their property by having it enacted that sixty years' possession should be regarded as a sufficient proof of ownership. As such an enactment would have upset all Wentworth's plans for a wholesale plantation, he succeeded in resisting such a measure, and partly by threats, partly by underhand dealings with particular individuals he obtained a grant of generous subsidies without any confirmation of the "Graces." In April 1635 Parliament was dissolved, and almost immediately the Lord Deputy made preparations ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... the workmen who work for me, and who earn their living worthily; but I do not shake hands with these ambiguous personages in yellow kids, who have no title but their impudence, and no means of living but their underhand intrigues." ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... I have not cautiously avoided offending Gen. Gates in any way. I am sorry his conduct to me has not been equally generous, and that he is continually giving me fresh proofs of malevolence and opposition. It will not be doing him injustice to say, that, besides the little underhand intrigues which he is frequently practising, there has hardly been any great military question, in which his advice has been asked, that it has not been given in an equivocal and designing manner, apparently calculated to afford him an opportunity of censuring me, on the failure ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... take such a step when she was free to go without her, and it proved two things: first, that she was much interested in Mr. Henry Burrage, and second, that her nature was extraordinarily beautiful. Could anything, in effect, be less underhand than such an indifference to what she supposed to be the best opportunities for carrying on a flirtation? Verena wanted to know the truth, and it was clear that by this time she believed Olive Chancellor to have it, for the most part, in her keeping. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... and when to leave the money to lay out upon the land; and, according as they would want it, can give a tenant a help or a check properly. Then no duty-work called for, no presents, nor GLOVE-MONEY, nor SEALING-MONEY even, taken or offered; no underhand hints about proposals, when land would be out of lease, but a considerable preference, if desArved, to the old tenant, and if not, a fair advertisement, and the best offer and tenant accepted; no screwing of the land to the highest penny, just to please the head ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... discovery would be Normanthorpe House and its new mistress! Langholm felt enraged; after his own promise to write to Rachel, a promise already fulfilled, the unhappy youth might have had the decency to refrain from underhand tricks like this. Langholm felt inclined to take a cab at once to Severino's lodgings, there to relieve his mind by a very plain expression of his opinion. But it was late; and perhaps allowances should be made for a sick man with a passion as ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... nor did the cities meet by their deputies, as was desired; the Lacedaemonians, as it is said, crossing the design underhand, and the attempt being disappointed and baffled first in Peloponnesus. I thought fit, however, to introduce the mention of it, to show the spirit of the man and the greatness ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... just as many kinds of people in Kokomo as there is in Pekin, and I didn't serve a term in the legislature without learning to pick underhand men at sight. Now that Earl, let alone his havin' a bad eye—his ways are altogether too much on the stripe of T. Cuthbert Bentley's to ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson

... walls of the fortress. It was not difficult for me to guess that this bold exploit was the work of Colonel Clive, who had thus placed himself between his treacherous allies and the enemy, effectually putting a stop to all underhand communications between them. And I learned afterwards that but for this determined action on his part, the fortress would have been delivered up to Ramagee Punt that very morning, and the English excluded from all ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... to tell me she thought it would be better for us thoroughly to understand each other. I said I thought we had done so from the first. She told me she hoped so, but that we were going to speak out plainly now. She despised the underhand methods of other women, she said, and when she wanted to know a thing she went to the person capable of giving an answer and asked a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... it in so many words, because I see and know that you are too honest to deny it. I don't even blame you—I pity you for opening your heart to a hopeless affection. You have not attempted to take any underhand advantage—you have not spoken to my sister in secret. You are guilty of weakness and want of attention to your own best interests, but of nothing worse. If you had acted, in any single respect, less delicately and less modestly, I should have told ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... weakness the most fatal of all others to a mind naturally exalted and ingenuous. Perhaps it was one of the main causes of all which he suffered. Indeed, he himself attributed his misfortunes to irresolution. What I mean in the present instance was, that he did not disdain to adopt underhand measures. He skewed a face of satisfaction with Alfonso, at the moment that he was taking steps to exchange his court for another. He wrote for that purpose to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, now a prelate at the court of Rome, earnestly begging him, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... how was obedience in such a matter possible? What would you yourself think of a man who in such a position would be obedient? I did not seek her secretly. I did nothing underhand. Before I had once directly asked her for her love, I ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... speedily develop themselves; and that its people are too wise to throw away the advantages they possess, of being an integral portion of the greatest empire the world ever had, for the very uncertain prospects of a union with their unsettled neighbours, although incessant underhand attempts to persuade them to join the Union are ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... and I shall win in the end. Mallow should have some respect for one that beat him at Phoenix Park with the sword; that beat him when he would have me imprisoned here; that beat him in the matter of the ship for Haiti, and that will beat him on every hazard he sets, unless he stoops to underhand acts, which he will not do. That much must be said for him. He plays his part in no small way, and he is more a bigot and a fanatic loyalist than a rogue. Suppose—but no, I will not suppose. I will lay my plans, I will keep faith with people here who trust me, and who know that if ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the family topics, nor, in truth, did Lord Braithwaite seem to decline his lead; although it was observable that very speedily the conversation would be found turned upon some other subject, to which it had swerved aside by subtle underhand movements. Yet Redclyffe was not the less determined, and at no distant period, to bring up the subject on which his mind dwelt so much, and have it ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... their alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm as possible; and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion: and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand up, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... from Philip himself, or what adverse influence might be brought to bear by the new ties he had formed. Mrs. O'Connett had the same remarkable and lovely hair that her sister had had, whom she very much resembled; she had also a talent for underhand ways. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... them so diligently that my readers should by now be tolerably familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, I hope in the course of this paper to disabuse her ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... dear Miss Rothesay, I do not like playing this underhand game—it almost makes me despise myself. Yet it is with a good intent; and I would do anything from my friendship ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... him permission to hunt deserters, but THIEVES. I didn't help him to ketch the man that deserted from HIM, but the skunk that took MY clothes. For when the Leftenant found the man's old uniform in the bush, he nat'rally kalkilated he must hev got some other duds near by in some underhand way. Don't you see? eh? Why, look, Mag. Darned if you ain't skeered after all! Who'd hev thought it? There now—sit down, dear. Why, you're white ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the best a man can have, and nothing else will ever be worth much to me. But since I haven't the ability to provide you with what you want, I recognize that I've no right to stand in your way. We must owe no more Venetian palaces to underhand services. I see by the newspapers that Streff can now give you as many palaces as you want. Let him have the chance—I fancy he'll jump at it, and he's the best man in sight. I wish I were ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... is still working underhand to force his halfpence upon us, and if he can by help of his friends in England prevail so far as to get an order that the commissioners and collectors of the King's money shall receive them, and that the army is to be paid with them, then he thinks his work shall ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... in you, Holbrook," he said. "And I want you to know that I sympathize with you as I would with any one else against whose honesty a cowardly assault has been made. One has to defend himself sturdily against such underhand attacks. Have you any enemies who might try to injure ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... &c. 480a, untracked, unexplored, uninvented[obs3]. indirect, crooked, inferential; by inference, by implication; implicit; constructive; allusive, covert, muffled; steganographic[obs3]; understood, underhand, underground; delitescent[obs3], concealed &c. 528. Adv. by a side wind; sub silentio[Lat]; in the background; behind the scenes, behind one's back; on the tip of one's tongue; secretly &c. 528; between the lines. Phr. "thereby hangs a tale" [As You Like It]; tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus [Lat][Vergil]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of the group of original disciples who stood nearest to Jesus, and of the group of three whom He kept specially at His side. Their present place might well lead them to expect pre-eminence in the kingdom, but their trick was mean, as being an underhand attempt to forestall Peter, the remaining one of the three, as putting forward their mother as spokeswoman, and as endeavouring to entrap Jesus into promising before the disclosure of what was desired. Matthew tells that the mother was brought ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... against, that," said Stuart, the big, hefty Stuart, shuddering in spite of himself. "I expect many a poor devil has been killed by that method. And what a method! Just the sort of thing a German would do. Now isn't it a mean, underhand way of killing people? But never mind, here are three of us who mean to get even with them; and in the meanwhile what about getting forward? What about something to eat? What about something to smoke? What about joining people who ain't afraid of ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... obliged to play the hypocrite, take him always into account, conceal my real feelings, deceive and circumvent him. Can there be anything meaner than pursuing such a course of action, instead of taking him by the throat? I abuse him in my diary. Such underhand satisfaction even a slave may permit himself towards his master. Kromitzki never could have felt so small as I did in my own eyes when I committed a multitude of littlenesses, devised cunning plans to make him take separate lodgings and not stop in the same house with Aniela. And after all, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... a child named Rav... (see Fig. 12) a native of the Romagna, who was brought to my father at the age of eight, because his parents were convinced that his conduct was due to a morbid condition. Unlike the above-mentioned case, his evil acts were always carried out in an underhand way. He showed great spite towards his brothers and sisters, especially the smaller ones, whom he attempted to strangle on several occasions, and was expelled from school on account of the bad influence he exercised over his ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... "You're playin' some underhand game on me, David, an' I won't stand it," was the unhesitating reply. "You're lyin' about Iris. You've bin lyin' ever since she disappeared from Bootle. Show me 'er letters an' their envelopes, an' I'll find the money. But, of course, you can't. They don't exist. Now, own up as man to man, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... been trying to stir up the Maoris of the Bay of Islands to claim the restitution of their lands. Nothing but their strong affection and loyalty towards "Te Wiremu" could have enabled them to resist this appeal to their cupidity. But underhand dealing was the one thing that Williams could not bear, and he would hold no more communication with Governor Grey on the subject. His sons were of age: let them carry ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... evidence is there that the nation, the other party to the contract, assents to it? There can be none until that nation amends its Constitution. Massachusetts when she accepted that Constitution, bound herself to send only such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an errand is a partner in the perjury. Massachusetts has no right to assent to my protest—she has no right to send representatives, except on certain conditions. She cannot ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... you ought to have written and informed me as soon as you had any suspicion of what was likely to happen. Not to do so was underhand. I do not wish to employ strong language, but I do consider it underhand. Shotover tells me he would have written if he had only known. But, of course, in the present state of feeling, he was shut out from it all. Ludovic did know, I presume. And, I ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... career, he was essentially an honest, straightforward man who was compelled by the promptings of sheer self-preservation to fight back at unscrupulous competitors or antagonists, and who innately was opposed to underhand work or fraud in any form. Vanderbilt is in every case portrayed as an eminently high-minded man who never stooped to dissimulation, deceit or treachery, and whose first millions, at any rate, were made in the legitimate ways of trade as they were ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... for him in securing the partners' surrender of their claims and straighten out everything with the Territory and get a bonafide concession. That is as I understand it, for the whole business has been done in an underhand way. Prather represented to the Doge that he was acting entirely in the interests of the community and his only charge would be the costs. The Doge quite believed in Prather's single-mindedness and public spirit. Well, with the use of money and all the ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... seeking counsel in this questionable matter. To Jisuke the matter was a jest; thus to involve all three victims in a common treachery to one another. The temptation was great, and he was a match for any underhand design on the part of Nishioka. No safer place for him than Yoshiwara, in which his enemy might be still more involved. Samurai were particularly marked in the place. Meanwhile the chamberlain would be his butt for the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... in organized baseball to know that there are many twists and turns to it, and that many "deals" are carried on in what might be considered an underhand manner. Often, when rival organizations in the baseball world are at war, the various managers, and scouts, go to great lengths, and secretly, to get ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... without ceremony that Mr. Marmozet was the sole occasion of my disappointment; that he acted from first to last with the most perfidious dissimulation, cajoling me with insinuating civilities, while he underhand employed all his art and influence to prejudice the ignorant manager against my performance; that nothing could equal his hypocrisy but his avarice, which engrossed the faculties of his soul so much, that he scrupled not to be guilty of ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... me, and the more I thought of him and his underhand behaviour, the more I seemed to hate him, till at last I felt in quite a frenzy against him. I vowed to myself that in the morning I would see him, and if I could force him to confess his dastardly behaviour in not posting the letters to me, and in making love ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... open indiscretion of Lady "Pat" Rourke might lead to trouble with her husband, was conceivable enough; but this was rather a matter for underhand private inquiry than for the attention of the Criminal Investigation Department of New ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... here to make reputations for themselves. They are handicapped and vexed by constant interference, constant jealousy. It is a survival of the fittest, and I suppose they feel that they must protect themselves even if they use underhand means to do so. It is so in all big work of this character, where the individual is made small. You would find the same condition in ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... more arrant villains than you are. I know it well enough; halt not before the lame. I have practised wickedness with you. By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abuses that are forged here and carried underhand by you, and let me be a leper, if he do not burn you alive like sodomites, traitors, heretics and seducers, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... enough to lose a car without being slandered about it into the bargain?" he asked heatedly, then adding in disgust, "And to do it in such an underhand way, writing to a girl like Violet, and never giving me a chance to square myself. If I could get my hands on that fellow," he added viciously, "I'd qualify him for ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... and Drawing has made very creditable progress, and the subscribers will be gratified in learning, that one of the pupils sent in a design for the Nelson Testamonial, which would in all probability have been accepted, had not the decision been made in the usual preconcerted underhand manner. Following the columnar idea of Mr. Railton, our talented pupil had put forth a peculiarly appropriate idea: the shaft would have been formed by a sea-telescope of gigantic proportions, pulled out to its utmost extent. On the summit of this Nelson ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various

... soon sign a contract with a prophet of Utah. I fear the fierce, passionate temper of George; but my woman's wit will be brought to play to keep him quiet; Trevalyon will necessarily have a surer footing at Haughton than he, as in this case I shall see; in an underhand way the Colonel has his wish, and the pith of all my musings is that if George will not aid me in reviving the Fanny Clarmont, hidden wife scandal, I shall do it without him. One thing in my favour is, that as he swears against matrimony, people will say the secret reason is out of—Why! ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... that she and Peppino often talked Italian at home? That was no reason why she should be expected, off-hand like that, to talk Italian anywhere else. She should have been told what was expected of her, so as to give her the chance of having a previous engagement. Lucia hated underhand ways, and they were particularly odious in one whom she had been willing to educate and refine up to the highest standards of Riseholme. Indeed it looked as if Olga's nature was actually incapable of receiving cultivation. She went on her ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... way, he was as particular about keeping up an outside appearance of respectability, as any aristocratic member of a rich city church might be to cover up their own glaring deficiencies. It would have ruined him as completely in his little circle, to have been found out in his underhand tricks, as though he had been of the consequence in other people's estimation that he was in his own. He had never, in all his life, been accustomed to mingle with but one class of women, and that the ignorant, ill-bred gossip-mongers of his own village. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... strictly applicable!—that all unknown to him the police hold him suspect, and are endeavouring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion——" ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won—I almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein' sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have an equal chance with me—else 'tis no game, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... common poisonous reptile." Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange is the ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... house as any one. I believe it's the best house in the school, out and out." (Cheers.) "But it's a long way from what I want to see it. First, there's a deal of bullying going on. I know it well. I don't pry about and interfere; that only makes it more underhand, and encourages the small boys to come to us with their fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so we should be worse off than ever. It's very little kindness for the sixth to meddle generally—you youngsters mind that. You'll be all the better football players for ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... should have come to some understanding with her Ally before invading what was now in effect British territory. She did not do so; and subsequent events proved that her King and statesmen harboured deep resentment against the transfer, and sought to thwart it by underhand means. For the present, however, their inroad into the north-central districts dealt one more blow to the power of the French Jacobins and their black friends. These last were formidable only when the quest ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... often," said Richard; "but I have never been able to detect him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his lessons that I cannot ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... don't know. You are putting it in my mind there might be something underhand. I would like to make sure what did you say about me in the heel. (Turns over.) "He was honest and widely respected." Was honest—are you saying me to be a ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... course I wanted it. But he knew I should not have sold it for building on; that is why he got Bowden, the farmer, to buy it. It was like him: only such a man can be capable of such an underhand act. And now I suppose he will be welcomed by his neighbours, and the Vaynes and the Bannerdales, and made much of. They'll eat his dinners, and their women will go to his balls and concerts—they whose fathers would have ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... see the world and to win honour. He has been accustomed to look down on Helena as a poor dependant. He does not like her, and he does not like being ordered. He is suddenly ordered to marry her. He has been trapped by a woman's underhand trick. He sees himself brought into bondage with all the plumes of his youth clipped close. There is no way of escape; he has to marry her; but the King's order cannot quench his rage against the woman who has so snared him. His rage burns inward ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... cogent precept in the code of the samurai. Nothing is more loathsome to him than underhand dealings and crooked undertakings. The conception of Rectitude may be erroneous—it may be narrow. A well-known bushi defines it as a power of resolution;—"Rectitude is the power of deciding upon ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... me hate you when you talk so slightingly of that so ill-used King. You will make me hate you more if you lead Fareham into danger by underhand work ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... threatned to be burned by the french; but God be thanked, wee escaped from their hands by avoiding a surprize. And in that place my Brother told me of his designe to come and see new England, which our servants heard, and grumbled and laboured underhand against us, for which our lives were in very great danger. Wee sent some of them away, and at last with much labour & danger wee came to Port Royall, which is inhabited by the french under the English Government, where some few dayes after came ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... were moored altogether close in under the walls of the fortress. It was not difficult for me to guess that this bold exploit was the work of Colonel Clive, who had thus placed himself between his treacherous allies and the enemy, effectually putting a stop to all underhand communications between them. And I learned afterwards that but for this determined action on his part, the fortress would have been delivered up to Ramagee Punt that very morning, and the English excluded from all share ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... intimidate, made various underhand attempts to remove the champion of orthodoxy. She endeavoured to raise the people against him. Failing in this object, next, by scattering promises of place and promotion, she set on foot various projects to ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... "To soften, to dispirit." Mr. Bartlett quotes Margaret,—"There has been a pretty considerable mullin going on among the doctors." But mullin here means stirring, bustling in an underhand way, and is a metaphor derived from mulling wine. Mull, in this sense, is probably a corruption of mell, from Old Fr. mesler, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... other women in Athens for you to philander with, without beginning to make love to her, the girl I had entrusted to you, and trying this underhand ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... the leavings sent up by Mademoiselle Seraphine and the other cooks in the house, where they drink stolen wine and stuff themselves, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light of two candles which they put out at the slightest noise in the corridors. Such underhand performances are repugnant to my character. But when I received an invitation on pink paper, written in a very fine hand, as if for a ball given by the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... Batavia, force the merchantmen to a sickly city for the pepper, coffee, rice, &c., raised upon it. Nothing is allowed to be exported from Anger, and when we wished to procure some coffee for use on board ship, found it only could be obtained in an underhand manner. If the English when they took possession of the island, had but made a settlement and retained this point, they would have found it greatly to their advantage, even ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... anything to say to me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... doctor and myself is thinking of getting up a subscription to present him with an illuminated address on account of the way he conducted himself to the satisfaction of the inhabitants of this town while he was in it, and as a protest against the underhand way that Simpkins went about trying to injure him and take the bread out of the mouth ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... girls are girls, especially with those antecedents, and Maura did not know to the contrary. You will believe me, Rotherwood, I never had any desire that she should succeed. I would have sent her away if I could; but you can't wonder that Mr. White is vexed, and feels as if there had been underhand dealing." ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Rouconi, isn't allowed by his wife to sing with any woman but herself, and she is a perfect dose to the poor audience. Lumley, the solicitor, manager of these he and she divinities, declares that if they don't behave better he'll shut the theatre at the end of the week. In the mean time, underhand proposals have been made to Adelaide to stop the gap, and sing for a few nights for them—a sort of proposal which does not suit her, which she has scornfully rejected, and departed with her tail over her shoulder, leaving the behind scenes of Her Majesty's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... Philammon told me all about it. Just now the messenger came back from Memphis, and brought a paltry scrap of papyrus on which some wretched scribbler had written in the name of Philometer, that nothing was known of Irene at court, and complaining deeply that Asclepiodorus had not hesitated to play an underhand game with the king. So they have no idea whatever of voluntarily ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... murder to prove it!) As Samson discovered, Delilah lies, The stigma's stuck on by the cynical wise, And nothing can ever remove it. We'll cast out Delilah and spit on her dead, (That revenge is remarkably human), And pity the victim of underhand tricks So be that it's moral (the sexes don't mix); But, oh, think what the cynical wise would have said If ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... having entered into an alliance with the Khan of the Crimea. He was summoned to Moscow, where he was arrested, but he managed to escape. His dukedom, however, was annexed to Moscow. Two years later, in 1523, (p. 108) the Duke of Novgorod-Severski was put in prison for underhand dealing with Poland, and that dukedom was added to Vassili's territories. This rounded up Vassili's ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... shop windows the words 'Despatch of the British and Foreign Bible Society,' but I intend to do no such thing; those words have tended very much to call attention, which was my grand object. Had I attempted to conduct things in an underhand manner, I should at the present moment scarcely have sold 30 copies instead of nearly 300, which in Madrid are more than equivalent to 3,000 sold on the littoral. People who know me not, nor are acquainted with my situation, may be disposed to call me rash; but I am far from ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... him "Rosebud," he talked at him whenever he had an opportunity; he poisoned the minds of the gang of youngsters against him; he spread malicious reports about him; he diminished his popularity, and embittered his feelings, by every secret and underhand means which lay in ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... pity at first, but my heart hardened when I recognized the savage. He was Gray Moose, a Sioux of much influence, and he and his people were said to be carrying on underhand dealings with the Northwest Company, which was the great and dangerous rival of the Hudson Bay Company. We were known to each other, having met before on several occasions. Whether the above rumor was true or not, I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... she, who by nature was frank and open, accustomed herself more and more to play an underhand part. At times she was startled at the ease with which she could do it. Only in one respect she remained unchanged—she saw everything clearly and glossed nothing. Late one evening she stepped before the mirror in ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... last order, the citizens of Mexico, who had before taken possession of part of this commerce, continued in it, availing themselves of certain underhand work and management—by which the citizens of Manila perceived the damage that they were receiving, in that others were enjoying what had been conceded to them. Accordingly, as soon as they received the decree of 593, which was the first decree that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... shack, the two men, on the ground, bore into Madeira's trickery, deeper, deeper. By the light of that torch from the Rockies, they followed the twisting trail all the way from inception to finish. The tortuous, underhand curve of it now and then looked like the self-deceptive work of lunatic cunning. As they talked about it, they talked too earnestly for the little whisking movements in the growth up the bluff to reach ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... it would be considered unsafe and even dangerous for a catcher to face the swift underhand throwing of the present day unless protected by a reliable mask. The increased demand for these goods has brought manufacturers into the field who, having no reputation to sustain, have vied with each other to see how cheaply they could make a so-called mask, and in consequence have ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

... my departure was close at hand—the same fatality still pursued us. She had once more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had found me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff. In her hearing, the Sergeant, with his own underhand object in view, had appealed to my interest in Rosanna Spearman. Again for the poor creature's own sake, I had met the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared—loudly declared, so that she might hear me too—that I felt "no interest whatever in Rosanna Spearman." At those words, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... reality, no counterfeit. Do not pass for current coin what is base alloy. Let transparent honor and sincerity regulate all your dealings; despise all meanness; avoid the sinister motive, the underhand dealing; aim at that unswerving love of truth that would scorn to stoop to base compliances and unworthy equivocations; live more under the power of the purifying and ennobling influences of the gospel. ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... Bacon, or I know not whom, in Shakspeare's grave, and protected there by a curse, as pirates used to bury their gold in the guardianship of a fiend. She took a humble lodging and began to haunt the church like a ghost. But she did not condescend to any stratagem or underhand attempt to violate the grave, which, had she been capable of admitting such an idea, might possibly have been accomplished by the aid of a resurrection-man. As her first step, she made acquaintance with the clerk, and began to sound him as to the feasibility ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Japan, and was now resigned to the provincial Government on a lesser count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the influence of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the privilege, underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well to keep up communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he was free; he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to some small circle, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of French Flanders, Bavaria, Alsace, part of Poland, Venice and Dalmatia, Salzburg, the Papal Legations, the Republic of Genoa, Piedmont, and Bosnia; and to this list Tuscany and Savoy ought probably to be added. But the charges brought against Thugut of underhand dealings with France, and of the willing abandonment of German interests in return for compensation to Austria in Italy, rest on insufficient ground. Though, like every other politician at Vienna and Berlin, he viewed German affairs not as a matter of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... pulled, but the mass was immovable. He shook it, it was as firm as a rock, Denis de Beaulieu frowned, and gave vent to a little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door? he wondered. Why was it open? How came it to shut so easily and so effectually after him? There was something obscure and underhand about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It looked like a snare, and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior? And yet—snare or no snare, intentionally or ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... mansion-house was deserted, and there constantly resided; and their ferocity, with the old woman's reputation of being a witch, contributed a good deal to keep visitors from the glen. With this view, Bailie Macwheeble provided Janet underhand with meal for their maintenance, and also with little articles of luxury for his patron's use, in supplying which much precaution was necessarily used. After some compliments, the Baron occupied his usual couch, and Waverley reclined in an easy chair of tattered velvet, which had once garnished ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... I confess I thought of your doing it, but the idea came all of a sudden and I hated it. I still hate it. It's making you do an underhand thing; it's cheating ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... a very thick one. But if she wants to do underhand things she should change her bonnet and cloak. I ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... his idea and with wrath over his recent ordeal; moreover, he hated secret and underhand parts, and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... mother to him!" said Mrs. Batch, shaking her fist. "'What is life without love?' indeed! Oh, the cowardly, underhand—" ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... in their conducting of souls, seek nothing but God, and those who seek themselves therein. The first came to see me, and rejoiced greatly at the grace of God bestowed on their penitents, without fixing their attention on the instrument. The others, on the contrary, tried underhand to stir up the town against me. I saw that they would be in the right to oppose me, if I had intruded of myself; but I could do nothing but what the Lord made me do. At times there came some to dispute and oppose me. Two friars ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... importance of their position. Then a black umpire said: "Play, gem'men," and our Fourth Officer started with his world-famed, natural leg-break. He bowled three wides in succession as a preliminary. It is not easy to bowl wides underhand, but that Fourth Officer managed it; and I began to understand why, after all, his county had determined to struggle ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... had guarded it faithfully did not make her feel, with a flood of humble contrition, how deeply she had misjudged him, how loyal he had been from first to last; it only aroused in her a sense of fear and anger. How secretive Andrea had been, how underhand! Perhaps part of the doom of a petty, self-centred nature is that it does not know when it has been ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... interview with the Prefect, happened to look up as he passed Simon, and the fellow's expression struck him oddly. It was full of intelligence, and of a queer kind of sympathy. He had noticed it before. Simon had made himself useful to him in several underhand ways. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... to this treacherous knave, your Highness," said Sir Giles, pointing to Lanyere, "for a certain consideration, which was never performed. But, while denying, as I do most energetically, that any underhand means whatever were used by us to obtain possession of those estates, and repeating my declaration that a most artful conspiracy has been formed against us, I assert, as will appear on investigation, that if I fail in sustaining my claim to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... It was his one demand. He had never actually had a criminal friend, but he was quite capable of intimacy with even a criminal, provided only that there was something spacious about his brand of crime and that it did not involve anything mean or underhand. It was the fact that Mr Breitstein whom Claire had wished him to insinuate into his club, though acquitted of actual crime, had been proved guilty of meanness and treachery, that had so prejudiced Bill against him. The worst accusation that he could bring against a man was that he ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... discreet. "Talk!" he shouted. "There's more underhand, sneakin' lies about you goin' around this flat-bottomed, leaky, gurry-and-bilgewater tub of a town than there is fiddlers in Tophet. I've denied 'em and contradicted 'em till I'm hoarse from hollerin'. ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... sickness seized Jane. She fought the weakness, as she fought to be above suspicious thoughts, and it passed, leaving her conscious of her utter impotence. That, too, passed as her spirit rebounded. But she had again caught a glimpse of dark underhand domination, running its secret lines this time into her own household. Like a spider in the blackness of night an unseen hand had begun to run these dark lines, to turn and twist them about her life, to plait ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... Marian that I've told you all this," he went on. "I shouldn't want her to think that I was asking you to do something underhand." ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... are many difficulties in this view, chiefly from the character of the speech itself, which has the stamp upon it of too evident sincerity to have been composed with any underhand intentions. The tone is in harmony throughout, and the beginning leads naturally to the conclusion which Cranmer ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... married Jacques Sennier. She was low-born, but had been very well educated, and was naturally clever. Her cleverness had throughout her life instinctively sought an outlet in intrigue. Some women intrigue when circumstances drive them to subterfuge, trickery and underhand dealing. Henriette Sennier needed no incentive of that kind. She liked intrigue for its own sake. In Marseilles she had lived in the midst of a network of double dealing connected with so-called love. When she married Jacques Sennier she had exchanged it for intrigue connected ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... Miss Greeb, evidently puzzled how to answer this leading question, "no one can find out anything about him. He's full of secrets and underhand goings on. It ain't respectable not to be fair and above board—that ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... Paul says so. Wonder how he found out—some of his underhand, colloguing, Methodist ways, I'll warrant. I seed him preaching to that 'ere Crawy, three or four times when he ought to have hauled him up. He consorts with them poachers, sir, uncommon. I hope he ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... in sheer audacity and blithesome insolence, for the brown head soon appeared again some yards ahead and there was another twist of it and another merry laugh. Then the neat body turned upon its side, and with quick outdriving legstrokes and the overhand and underhand pulling-forward which modern swimmers partly know, the girl shot ahead through the tiny white-capped waves and away from the swimmer so close behind her, as to-day the cutter leaves the scow. From the river bank came a wild yelp, the significance of which, if analyzed, might have ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... had invited to meet them. "I know what these gentlemen think; I would like to talk to some of the others, those who think 'le clericalism c'est l'ennemi,' and who are firmly convinced that the soutane serves as a cloak for all sorts of underhand and unpatriotic dealings; I can only see them abroad, never in Rome." He would have talked to them quite easily. Italians have so much natural tact, in discussing difficult ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... seat,' said Ralph, looking round, 'I'll take one, for I am fatigued with walking. And now, if you please, gentlemen, I wish to know—I demand to know; I have the right—what you have to say to me, which justifies such a tone as you have assumed, and that underhand interference in my affairs which, I have reason to suppose, you have been practising. I tell you plainly, gentlemen, that little as I care for the opinion of the world (as the slang goes), I don't choose ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... she neither careth though the whole surname of the Bacons travelled, nor of the Cecils neither." He was very angry with Robert Cecil; affecting not to believe them, he tells him stories he has heard of his corrupt and underhand dealing. He writes almost a farewell letter of ceremonious but ambiguous thanks to Lord Burghley, hoping that he would impute any offence that Bacon might have given to the "complexion of a suitor, and a tired sea-sick suitor," and speaking despairingly ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... of people, who are incapable of generous confidence in their equals, but who are disposed to yield implicit credit to the underhand information of mean emissaries. Through the medium of Champfort and the stupid maid, Mrs. Freke had learned a confused story of a man's footsteps having been heard in Lady Delacour's boudoir, of his being let in by Marriott secretly, of his having remained locked up there for several hours, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... and was as strong for secession as any man in the South, but I am for open, fair fight with my own enemies or those of my country; no underhand dealings for me; no cowardly attacks in overwhelming numbers upon the weak and defenceless. But if these disguises are not yours, whose are they? and how came ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... the L500, which I stand in danger to the Widow Smith for.' At last the wind became more accommodating. Ralegh, whom carping gouty Anthony Bacon pretended to suspect of having contributed to the delay from underhand motives, collected the truant ships and seamen. On June 1, 1596, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... may elect a few congressmen and half a hundred legislators—if the reactionaries in the party will cease their underhand efforts to disrupt the organization and drive out ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... cognizance of the district officials. Legal technicalities and references to distant tribunals confuse and harass a population which, with comparatively few exceptions, is illiterate, credulous, and suspicious of underhand influence. An almost unlimited right of appeal from one court to another, in matters of even the most trivial importance, not only tends to impair the authority of the local magistrate, but gives an unfair advantage ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... Aubert had tried to persuade Mme. Gibon to sell up her son-in-law by claiming from him the unpaid purchase-money for her husband's shop. He represented Fenayrou as an idle gambler, and hinted that he would find her a new purchaser. Such an underhand proceeding was likely to provoke resentment if it should come to the ears of Fenayrou. During the two years that elapsed between his departure from Fenayrou's house and his murder, Aubert had prospered ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... tolerably familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, I hope ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... know my notions On sartin pints thet rile the land; There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns Es bein' mum or underhand; I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur Thet blurts right out wut's in his head, An' ef I've one pecooler feetur, It is a ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... at the king's exchequer, part had been adjusted according to its settlement, and he remained in durance for the balance. A bordering prince sent him underhand a letter, stating, "The sovereign of that quarter has not appreciated such worth, nay, has dishonored it, and with us it bore a heavy price. If the precious mind of a certain personage, may God facilitate his deliverance, will incline favorably ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... it is natural for a dunce (I repeat the word), who has been in the habit of writing the most childish nonsense, to break on the world suddenly as a genius, and startle every one with her wonderful thoughts? It stands to reason that some underhand work has been going on; and such being the case, I prefer to hold myself aloof from one who could be guilty of any ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... relation with that country's rapidly growing trade. The German naval bill was sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament and published ten years ago, and may be had at any large bookseller's. There is nothing surprising, secret, or underhand in it, and every reader may study the whole course mapped out for the development of the German ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... two other dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Francois, he decided, and the half-breed ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... 150 Appears to me no other than a trick Of Illo's own device. These underhand Traders in great men's interests ever use To urge and hurry all things to the extreme. They see the Duke at variance with the court, 155 And fondly think to serve him, when they widen The breach irreparably. Trust me, father, The Duke knows ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... make a bargain with thee: thou must promise to ride back west with me, and to have no underhand ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... to be made as firm as possible; and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion: and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... vi. 72, with the idea of bringing before a court for punishment, not "by underhand means," as it is understood by Larcher ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... and denounce as a murderer. They looked at one another with the same thoughts in the minds of both. The first step she had already taken. Henceforth he would be watched and dogged, his past life raked up, and his every action recorded. And she it was who had set the underhand machinery at work, she it was whom he, guilty or innocent, would think of as the woman who had hunted him down. If he should be innocent, and the time should come when he discovered all, what would he think of her? If he could have seen her a few days ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... those days differed considerably from the present game; the pitcher was restricted to an underhand delivery; the catch of a foul bound meant an "out"; strikes were not called; and bases on balls were unknown; while owing to the straight-arm pitching, the batting was much heavier and the scores larger. There was ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... need a little watching. Intermingled with his love affairs is a tale of racial prejudice and intrigue which is told with restraint and skill. Holman, a German agent who had dropped an "n" for his better security, is an obnoxious person, in whose underhand work I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... a capital willian!" exclaimed Jack, smelling at a ladle filled with his soup—"a capital willian, I call him. To think, at his time of life, of such a handsome and pleasant young thing as this Rose Budd; and then to try to get her by underhand means, and by making a fool of her silly old aunt. It 's wonderful what fools some old aunts be! Quite wonderful! If I was as great a simpleton as this Mrs. Budd, I'd never cross my threshhold. Yes, Stephen Spike is a prodigious willian, as his best friend must own! Well, I gave him ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... go. It seemed impossible to accuse this splendid impersonation of vigorous manhood of cunning and underhand methods, of plagiarisms and of theft. As he stood there he resembled more than anything a beautiful tiger-cat, a wonderful thing of strength and will-power, indomitable and insatiate. Yet who could tell whether this strength was not, after ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck

... that the man who bowled me out was a direct descendant of Julius Caesar. He delivered the ball underhand at a rapid rate. It came twisting along, now to the right, now to the left; seemed to disappear beneath the surface of the soil, then suddenly came in sight again, shooting past the block. Eventually they told me it removed the left bail, and struck the wicket-keeper a fearful blow on ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... thing serious could come out of what seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have requested you not to interfere in such matters. Good heavens!" continued the Parson, changing color, "if we should have assisted, underhand as it were, to introduce into the family of a man to whom we owe so much, a connection that he would dislike! how base we ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... thou'rt wrong. I was brought up at a private school, and no one can say I ever dirtied my hands with a trick in my life. Good old Mr. Thompson would have flogged the life out of a boy who did anything mean or underhand." ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Johnson, but he loved office too well to resign along with those cabinet members who could not follow the President in his struggle with Congress. He was seldom frank and sincere in his dealings with the President, and kept up an underhand correspondence with the radical leaders, even assisting in framing some of the reconstruction legislation which was designed to render Johnson powerless. In him the radicals had a representative within ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... worse, of being able to prevent the Court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its power, from applying that influence to Parliament; and perhaps, if the public method were precluded, of doing it in some worse and more dangerous method. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The science of evasion, already tolerably understood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a degree of purity impracticable ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... in conference with the Persian general, without sending to us, which increased our suspicions that the Persians meant to deal fraudulently with us; the two English commanders and I went together to the tent of the Persian general, and expressed our dislike of this underhand manner of proceeding. We stated, that we were partakers with them in this war, in which we had hazarded ourselves, our ships, and our goods, besides the hindrance we sustained by losing the monsoon, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... should control the happiness of a man of Montriveau's temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in a furious tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him chafing and pacing to and fro; but when he came back to his place intending to make a scene, a single look from the Duchess was ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... to work. The space suits were inevitably clumsy. It was not easy to throw hard with only magnetism to hold one to his feet. It was actually more practical to throw straight up with an underhand gesture. But even that would send the tin cans an enormous distance, in time. There was no ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... though he had before suspected it, and tried to shut his eyes to the doubt. Dan, being a really clever workman, far brighter-witted than George, had lived upon chance jobs at Downhill or Poppleby, together with a good deal of underhand poaching, which he kept as much as possible from the knowledge of his family, never being sure what Molly might not tell her sister, nor what Judith might disclose to the ladies. Polly had made a miserable marriage, and Jenny was in service at a public-house, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... strongest motives and best opportunities of self-help. The status quo is drawing very near to its inevitable end. The two courses then open will be Home Rule on the one hand, and some shy bungling underhand imitation of a Crown Colony on the other. We shall have either to listen to the Irish representatives or to suppress them. Unless we have lost all nerve and all political faculty we shall, before many months are over, face these alternatives. Liberals are for the first; Tories ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... with the Dubois' watchman once, right in the middle of the public street—thirty-six rounds or so they had of it—and licked him, as John Bull says, in true British style; and that is always Thomas's way, and the only thing that he understands properly; none of your underhand dodges like hiding behind places and throwing brickbats when one isn't looking. So that the Hooligan ways of fighting were quite too much for him at first. And although Mr. Bull spent a lot of money ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... consideration. The Kamraviona and Kidgwiga followed us home, and told Bombay the king did not wish us to leave till next moon, and then he would like us to fight his brothers on the way. This message, sent in such an underhand manner after the meeting, Bombay failed to deliver, telling them he should be ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... them on that point. I have not yet begun to copy out the second Canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and the discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown upon the first. I say all this to them as to you, that is, for you to say to them, for I will have nothing underhand. If they had told me the poetry was bad, I would have acquiesced; but they say the contrary, and then talk to me about morality—the first time I ever heard the word from any body who was not a rascal that used it for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore









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