"Excuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with directness. "Why should I have come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only excuse for imagining you could ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Busteed's apology; but the judge still said that he should send him to prison. 'You will, will you?' said Brady; 'I say you will not.' And, citing authority after authority against his power to do so, he dared him to thus stretch his prerogative. The judge thought best to excuse ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... only too glad of an excuse for climbing a tree, however cheaply he might hold one who cared for flowers; and by the time Bessie had put on her lilac-spotted sun-bonnet—a shapeless article it must be confessed, with a huge curtain serving for a tippet, very comfortable, and no trouble ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had waited for days without finding any trace of him or hearing any word from him, and at last had turned about on her lonely, homeward road. And yet he was blameless then. As far as that was concerned, he could excuse himself; he could explain all. He felt so guilty in some things, that he was anxious to show his innocence in other things where he had not been to blame; and so he hastened most eagerly to give a long and an eloquent vindication of himself, by explaining all ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... Ambassador Crodfoller's voice was faint. "Magnan, you'll be knighted for this. Thank God you reached me. Thank God it's not too late. I'll find some excuse. I'll get ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... spread. The sputum coughed up from the lungs is the principal carrier of the disease, and the person who, having tuberculosis, even in its earliest stages, spits in a public place, is an enemy of mankind, for he endangers the lives of hundreds of others. The only excuse for this is that he usually does it through ignorance, but the knowledge of the danger should be so impressed on all the people that no one could plead ignorance, and for a consumptive to spit on the street should be counted as much a crime morally as for ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... "Excuse me, sir," he said, having evidently decided that I was a fit person to converse with, "but are you ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... to excuse themselves from the practice of family religion, upon the ground that they have not the capacity nor the time. If so, you should not have married. But if you are Christians, you have the capacity, and you will take ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... to excuse a crime, my son, but the merciful God who employs our poor passions to His own great purposes has used your acts to great ends. The world is trembling on the verge of unknown events and nobody knows what a day may bring forth. Let us wait ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... whirl, finding her duties at school sufficient excuse. She often longed for some young life, however, and wondered why she did not meet the daughters of the ladies who were so kind to her when she went out under Miss ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... struggled under the necessity to move. Why shouldn't he want to move? Why not? Because he didn't want the day in front—the plunge into a strange country, towards nowhere, with no aim in view. True, he said that ultimately he wanted to join Lilly. But this was hardly more than a sop, an excuse for his own irrational behaviour. He was breaking loose from one connection after another; and what for? Why break every tie? Snap, snap, snap went the bonds and ligatures which bound him to the life that had formed him, the people he had loved or liked. He found ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... be necessary for him now to find some occupation, which with his abilities I have no doubt he will easily do. As usual, the young people are in a hurry to know their fate, so it will be a charity to them to reply as soon as convenient. Excuse the trouble I am giving you, and, with kind regards to Mrs B. ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... bray about music, stride straight to the notes, and have no patience till they come to Beethoven; who foolishly prate and fume about my unclassical management, but at bottom only wish to conceal their own unskilfulness, their want of culture and of disinterestedness, or to excuse their habitual drudgery. Lazy people without talent I cannot undertake to inspirit, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the house; but Edgar, so anxious lest any cross be given to his wife, with a double reason then for tenderly guarding her health, could not inflict a serious sorrow upon her with only a baseless jealousy for its excuse. Thus, Heathcliff became intimate at Thrushcross Grange, the second house to which he was made welcome, the second hearth he meant to ruin. At this time he was lodging at Wuthering Heights. On his return he had first intended, he told Catharine, "just to have one ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... anticipated any determined resistance. Of course they had looked for a formal protest, and perhaps a sufficient show of opposition to excuse the sheriff in the eye of any stickler for legal formalities. They had not however come prepared to fight a battle, and no one of them seemed willing to lead an attack upon the jail. The leaders of the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... of that black night—often leave him, sitting through solitary evenings with pipe and samovar, quite unchallenged. Indeed there were already times when it seemed as if he need hardly wait for the excuse of the "Tosca" to turn ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Adrian, as that American girl used to say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear, but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!) But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever been sentimental ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... grass banished all thought of the shadow, and then there came a cheerful voice in her ears, and the big policeman was standing by her side. For a few moments they were stationary, making salutation and excuse and explanation, and then they walked slowly on through the sunshine. Wherever there was a bush there were flowers on it. Every tree was thronged with birds that sang shrilly and sweetly in sudden thrills and clear sustained melodies, but in the open spaces the silence was more wonderful; there ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... because he was defamed himself, but he stood up for his friend[776] that was abused, the occasion giving him a reasonable excuse for self-commendation. So too the Romans were far from pleased at Cicero's frequently passing encomiums upon himself in the affair of Catiline, yet when Scipio said they ought not to try him (Scipio), since he had given them the power ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... his father, who was a good man, believed him; but his mother could not be persuaded that it was true; and seeing that he went almost every day a-hunting, and that he always had some excuse ready for so doing, though he had been out three or four nights together, she began to suspect that he was married; for he lived thus with the Princess above two whole years, during which they had two children, the elder, a daughter, was named Dawn, and the younger, a son, they called Day, ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... interfere with this engagement with the boys if she could help it. However, it happened this evening that some old friends of the family who were passing through the city on their way south called, and it was impossible to excuse herself, so the boys were left ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... rate, after receiving the appointment, his courage failed him, and he begged the king to excuse him from performing so dangerous a commission. The king was, however, very unwilling to do so. Finally, it was agreed that the king should give the earl his written order, executed in due and solemn form, and signed with the great seal, commanding him, on the royal authority, ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... windmills. There would be excitement, fascination in playing such a thrilling part in real life. Were you ever hungry, Prince?" She broke off. "What an absurd question! What is more to the point, tell me it was all well done—the device, or excuse, of substituting another motor-car for her own, the mad flight far into the night, down the coast where save for that mishap—But I met all difficulties, did I not? And, believe me, it was not easy—to keep your little American inamorata concealed until the Nevski could be repaired and ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... much she thinks of Aunt Therese. And the people she's been engaged to! There ain't a worse flirt in the city of St. Louis; and always some excuse or other to break it off at the last minute. I haven't got any use for her, Lord knows. There ain't much love lost ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Luck, it is my Design to confirm to them viva voce, what I have already given them under my Hand. If you will honour me with a Visit, I will compliment you with the first opening of my Mouth, and if you please you may make an entertaining Dialogue out of the Conversation of two dumb Men. Excuse this Trouble, worthy Sir, from one who has been a ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with clearness, gravity, and elegance; yet what frequently gave me great uneasiness when I heard him, as it did while I attended to you, was to see so excellent a genius falling into such frivolous (excuse my freedom), not to say foolish, doctrines. However, I shall not at present offer anything better; for, as I said before, we can in most subjects, especially in physics, sooner discover what is not true ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... they touched upon them at all, with the coolness and impartiality of naturalists: They did not conclude things to be necessarily worse because they were different. A modern Tom Coryat, instead of introducing the use of the fork among his countrymen, would find some excuse for thinking the Italians a nasty people because they used it. In our day it would appear that the chief aim of a traveller was to discover (or where that failed, to invent) all that he possibly can to the disadvantage of the country ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... "Excuse me," interrupted De Beauxchamps, "but that air need be under no greater pressure than at the surface. I shall know how to provide for that. Remember the Jules Verne. Simply give me carte blanche in this matter, let me have the materials to work with, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... unpleasant truth which the others had characteristically shirked, for Blake was often careless and Benson had taken the risks of the journey with frank indifference, though they had the excuse that after nearly starving once or twice they had succeeded in getting fresh supplies. Now, however, their hearts sank as they thought of the expanse of frozen wilderness that lay between them ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... the army was not extended to the fleet, which continued totally unready; nor was the organisation of the volunteers carried out in an efficient manner. The excuse afterwards advanced was that not more than 15,000 enrolments were expected, while the actual figure reached 35,000. Besides being from its very bulk less manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this mass of men was ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the men had no excuse for posing as warriors; for the Fantis were the only cowardly race on the coast, and had several times shown themselves worthless as fighters, when the Ashantis ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... was in his diversions we know not; here was no room for such things. It was no time for mirth. Neither can I say I ever saw him smile. Those who speak so positively of his being like King James the Seventh, must excuse me for saying that it seems to say they either never saw this person or never saw King James the Seventh; and yet I must not conceal that when we saw the man whom they called our King, we found ourselves not at all animated by his presence; and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... first engagement should always be kept, and if a patroness should honor you with such an invitation, and you have made prior arrangements, you should at once explain by note your position, which will be a sufficient excuse to your ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... no doubt of the excellence of your family, Mr Forster. I can only express my deep regret that it is not noble. Excuse me, Mr Forster; except you ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... "Excuse me, doctor," he said apologetically. "Mrs. Preston keeps me a close prisoner. But she won't ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "But think of the experience I'll get, Alice," he insisted. "The directions say, 'If the man of the house is at home make some excuse and call again'; but with my usual luck he's sure to see me first, and then I'll go out on three legs. I suspect the material will get polished all right. But the talk that man gave me to learn is certainly ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the South), and we have a fox-hunt or two in the mornings, and that old buck to look after whose tracks I showed you in the road; besides the ducks and turkeys which are waiting to be shot, and all the Christmas frolicking, from which the ladies will not excuse us. We will therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon for a walk among the fields and woods to see what manner of country we are in. Bending our steps first toward the huge old oak which seems to hang ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... liberty to dedicate this offering to you, as a token of respect and esteem. This, together with a grateful remembrance of the courtesies extended to me, and the support which I have derived from your friendship, will be, I hope, a sufficient excuse for ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... of Catullus to excuse the wantonness of his own verses, which he is sending to his friend Paternus; and Apuleius cites the passage in his Apology for the same purpose. "Whoever," says Lambe, "would see the subject fully discussed, should turn to the Essay on the Literary Character by Mr. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... ma'am, I'm a quarter late, and could you please to excuse me; the clock around the corner doesn't go, and Kate she didn't know the time; and Mrs. Meeker said would you please accept her love and these grapes in a basket. She says they're the finest of the lot, and you needn't ...
— Three People • Pansy
... scepters and have naught of chivalry (vi. 51). It may be said that both Dante before Tasso, and Milton after him, employed similar classical language in dealing with Christian and mediaeval motives. But this will hardly serve as an excuse; for Dante and Milton communicate so intense a conviction of religious earnestness that their Latinisms, even though incongruous, are recognized as the mere clothing of profoundly felt ideas. The sublimity, the seriousness, the spiritual dignity is in their thought, not in its expression; whereas ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... often doing it. I could on the spur of the moment write as many as twenty names of people of whom I am accustomed to speak ill without really knowing much about them. I make it an excuse that they are in the public eye, that I don't like their politics, or their social opinions, or their literary output, or the things they do on the stage. Anything will serve so long as it gives me the opportunity ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... before-mentioned. They had, curiously enough, all been equally honoured with the distinction of knighthood, and their schemes for seeing her were manifold, each fearing that one of the others would steal a march over himself. Not content with calling, on every imaginable excuse, at the house of the relative with whom she sojourned, they intercepted her in rides and in walks; and if any one of them chanced to surprise another in the act of paying her marked attentions, the encounter often ended in an altercation of great violence. So heated and ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... in his own charming way. He was so happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so compelling, that Antonia granted him, without a word, the favor his eyes asked for. And the lovers hardly heard the excuse she made; they understood nothing of it, only that she would be reading in the myrtle walk for one hour, and, by so doing, would protect ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... "Excuse me," he murmured, as he reached for something in his pocket. He took a card from an envelope and, looking at one of his ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... Granvelle, mournfully, "that nobody in Rome believes in his Majesty's journey to the provinces." From that time forward, however, the King began to promise this visit, which was held out as a panacea for every ill, and made to serve as an excuse ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to excuse us for our Medism. We will now endeavour to show that you have injured the Hellenes more than we, and are more deserving of condign punishment. It was in defence against us, say you, that you became allies and citizens of Athens. If so, you ought only to have called in the Athenians ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... reformed than the other.—The Book is perhaps, as it stands, too bulky for the subject; but if the Reader knew how many pressing considerations, as it grew into size, the Author resisted, which yet seemed intitled to be heard, he would the more readily excuse him. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... but it will take some time," he went on. "Let me have one of your dressing-gowns. I shall be more comfortable for the night, and these ladies will excuse me, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from the gallant Peredeus, and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamond betrays her shameless insensibility both to honor and love. She supplied the place of one of her female attendants who was beloved by Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence, till she could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen of the Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin, must be the consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... you will excuse this written by a stranger. I have often observed you listening to the sermon in our church. My wife and I are going abroad, so we offer you our pew; you appear to admire Eyton's preaching as much as we do—we shall be very glad if ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... misfortune," she continued, "to care very little for the pastimes you speak of; and as for the company, I've no doubt it will be very pleasant for those who go, but to me it will afford very little pleasure. Your mother must therefore excuse me, William:—I should be a very ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... one morning, she had said, "Come—I want to introduce you to Miss War-field." Pinckney had demurred, and offered as an excuse that he was smoking. "Nonsense, Charles," said the girl; "I have told her you are coming." Pinckney threw away his cigar and followed, and the presentation was made. Miss Warfield drew herself almost unusually erect after courtesying, as if in protest at having to bow at all. She was so tall that, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... letter, and request you to excuse my calling upon you at your hotel this evening, as I am unwell; but if you will do me the honor to come to Vavasour House on receipt of this, I will discuss the matter in question with you, and trust you will believe that you may ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... accusation," they said, "was only to cover that wretched conduct, and, if possible, to hide or excuse the disgrace and failure that had attended all their measures. Was any other part of their policy more commendable or more successful? Did the cruel and sanguinary laws of the preceding session answer any of the purposes for which they were proposed? Had they in any degree ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... affords—grog drinking—to which no earthly bliss can be compared in the Indian's estimation. To find the Company serving out rum to the natives as payment for their services in this remote quarter, created the utmost surprise in my mind: no excuse can be advanced which can justify the unhallowed practice, when the management of the native population is left entirely to themselves. Why then is it continued? Strange to say, while Indians were to be seen rolling drunk about the establishment, an order of Council appeared, prohibiting the ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... of some lame excuse or other, had persisted in putting off the visit which Lady Tressady had intended to pay them at Ferth during the Whitsuntide recess, and since their return to town there had been no meeting whatever between the two ladies. George, indeed, had seen his mother two or three times. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feet, his brow darkening. "Do you think I don't suffer doubly on your account? That I don't feel the insolence of his behavior toward you four-fold? There is but one excuse for him and my mother, and that lies in their terrible disappointment about ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... instituted by some of the tribunes, dared indeed to commit no act of violence, but, together with the malcontents in the senate, changed their clothing as if for a calamity. They immediately, however, repented in regard to this costume and without waiting for any excuse went back to their accustomed dress. Now when the tribunes endeavored to abolish the levies and rescind the vote for the proposed campaigns, Pompey, for his part, showed no anger. He had sent out his lieutenants ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... Bud found excuse to call Bronson aside to show him a good place to fence-in the corral. Dorothy was playing ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... Newfoundland's history, he might have added a third fact; namely, that the French claims in Newfoundland have been for the Jingoes of the last half-century a convenient means of excuse for shirking their own responsibility to the unfortunate island, and for covering up the malignant selfishness of those tradesmen in Canada and England to whose private interests the island has ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... always excited my imagination, and the thought of the island having thus by chance been revived in me, I began to feel that a visit to it would be a very charming adventure, and that Sir Samuel's story of the marble, even if it should prove to be a myth, would at least be a plausible excuse for embarking on so long a journey. Moreover, it provided Sir Samuel with an excuse for writing to Sir Henry Bulwer, then governor of the island, and asking him to do what he could in the way of securing accommodation ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Excuse, General, the earnestness with which I refer to this matter. I do not exaggerate the merits of the case; on the contrary, I do not half state it. I am, General, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Buergermeister as about the functions of a Mayor. In short, my knowledge of Germany, like my knowledge of England, is based on a series of life-long, unclassified, more or less inchoate impressions, and the only excuse I have for writing about either country I find in my own and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... religion and philosophy, shorten, would add to the national misfortunes, by injuring the health of so great a supporter of our sinking liberties. I ought to ask pardon for this digression; it is more proper for me in this place to say something to excuse an address that looks so very presuming. My sex is usually forbid studies of this nature, and folly reckoned so much our proper sphere, we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that, than the least pretensions to reading or good sense. We are permitted no books ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... each other, they were implacable to their enemies, and they gave no quarter; the dead bodies of their enemies afforded horrible festivities, which the want of other animal food explains, but can hardly excuse. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... and yet they were very cruel—that is, if they are to be judged by the standard of the present age; but in this let us pass sentence on them with moderation, and even with indulgence. The magnitude of the deeds they were accustomed to perform can never be fully estimated now, and these should excuse to some extent many of their clumsy and misguided modes of operation. It must not be supposed that all these men were afflicted by a demoniac spirit. It was their training that blanketed the sympathetic side of them, until they unconsciously acquired ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... burn, and she prays thee, Hymenaeus, to come quickly. Telethusa, dreading the same thing that she desires, at one time puts off the time {of the wedding}, and then raises delays, by feigning illness. Often, by way of excuse, she pretends omens and visions. But now she has exhausted all the resources of fiction; and the time for the marriage {so long} delayed is {now} at hand, and {only} one day remains; whereon she takes off the fillets for ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Junius ever dealt in more furious words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... part in every play in which we had appeared at the Princess's. "Walking on is so dull," the young actress says sometimes to me now, and I ask her if she knows all the parts of the play in which she is "walking on." I hardly ever find that she does. "I have no understudy," is her excuse. Even if a young woman has not been given an understudy, she ought, if she has any intention of taking her profession as an actress seriously, to constitute herself an understudy to every part in the piece! Then she would not find her time as ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... breach of charity and humility, only not universal among all sects and parties of this period, and common to the best and gentlest men in all; we should not therefore bring it in charge against any one in particular. But what excuse shall be made for the revival of this presumptuous encroachment on the divine prerogative in ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... oyster-like insensibility to the passing events,—a mind-stupor,—a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been for many weeks my lot, and my excuse; my fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; no thing is of more importance than another; ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... a scandalized little cry. Her attitude was determinedly that it was just an ordinary marriage, as good an excuse for sentiment and pretty frocks as ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... to Janet Dunton. Now there was a gulf wider than the world between them. He slipped out of the best room by the outside door and came in through the kitchen. The neighbor's sleigh that was to call for them was already at the door, and John begged them to excuse him. He had set his heart on helping Huldah make mince pies, as he used to help his mother when a boy. His sister was in despair, but she did not say much. She told John that it was time he was getting over his queer freaks. And ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... answer to your letter; a mass of business and constant illness must be my excuse. That I am here for the restoration of my health proves the truth of my excuse. Do not snatch the laurel wreaths from Handel, Haydn, Mozart; they are entitled to them; as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... over the apartment again with a haunting sense of familiarity, and then recognized the janitor and laughed; and to that house with the pathetic widow and the pretty daughter who wished to take them to board. They stayed to excuse their blunder, and easily came by the fact that the mother had taken the house that the girl might have a home while she was in New York studying art, and they hoped to pay their way by taking boarders. Her daughter ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... stick, I purposely touched the back of his neck—unperceived by him, of course—he fled frightened out of his life, supposing it to have been a ghost. He met me again on the high road in the plain, about half a mile farther on, and explained his conduct with the very truthful excuse, that "a spirit had seized him by the throat and shaken him violently, meaning at all costs to enter his mouth, and that it was to escape serious injury that he had fled!" When I told him that it was I who had touched him with the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... "you must excuse my company to-night. Langley will be glad to go with you; and as we sail so soon, I have a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... "if the Senora will excuse me, I could not lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I want. I could ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... did—for a minute. I thought you're wanting to borrow a horse was just the flimsiest kind of an excuse to ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... shops, but that the landlord, Mr. Danby, had taken them away the day before to see how the ceilings were standing, and had not returned them. "But if you was thinking of taking a shop here," the poor baker added, with some hesitation, "I—I—if you'll excuse my advising you—I shouldn't recommend it. I've had ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... "Excuse me for a moment," he resumed; "I am suffering as usual, after drinking tea. I so delight in it that the temptation to-night was more than I could resist. Tea disagrees with my weak ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... owing to the summer heats and the Vardar marshes, some 210,000 were down with malaria.[8] Nevertheless, under pressure from home and against his own better judgment,[9] General Sarrail began an offensive (10 August). As might have been foreseen, this display of energy afforded the Bulgars an excuse, and the demobilization of the Greek forces an opportunity, for a fresh invasion. M. Zaimis, in view of the contingency, imparted to General Sarrail his Government's intention to disarm the forts in Eastern Macedonia, so that he might forestall the Bulgars ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... will, for days together, refuse all food, or worse still, go dirt-eating, stuffing themselves with clay till they have the mal d'estomac, and so die: this mal, of which our English stomach-ache gives no valid translation (which must prove my excuse for placing here a foreign word), being, with the Yaws, their most frequent and fatal complaint. Of a less perplexing nature also are their fits of the Sulks, when, for more than a week at a time, they will remain wholly ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... cheeks you, you feel as if you'd like to hit him. My young brother did hit him. What was still more to his advantage he gave people the impression that he was always ready to jump over the table at them. My impression is that the old Head didn't dare flog him and had been glad to find an excuse to get rid of him. It didn't occur to the old chap that my brother wouldn't come home. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... asked the meaning of it, and Farmerson said that in making a fresh hole he had penetrated the gas-pipe. He said it was a most ridiculous place to put the gas-pipe, and the man who did it evidently knew nothing about his business. I felt his excuse was no consolation for the expense I ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... wires of the instrument gave way, as a patient kicked and rolled frantically upon the ground; this was a good excuse for ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... has been a depression in the Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took up the tale one ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... affecting the memory of the sacred dead, affixing a shame on the scutcheon of the living, in the irreverent hands of a Gustave Rameau,—it was too dreadful to contemplate such a hazard. And yet, if Isaura were the missing heiress, could Graham Vane admit any excuse for basely withholding from her, for coolly retaining to himself the wealth for which he was responsible? Yet, torturing as were these communings with himself, they were mild in their torture compared to the ever-growing anguish of the thought that ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said Grace, hastily wiping her eyes, and rubbing the traces of tears from her cheeks—"Excuse me, Sir George ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... lighthouse bluff, and we descended to the landing-place to meet them in a state of excitement not easily imagined. Fourteen months had elapsed since we had heard from home, and the prospect of receiving letters and of getting once more to work was a sufficient excuse for unusual excitement. The smallest boat was the first to reach the shore, and as it grated on the sandy beach an officer in blue naval uniform sprang out and introduced himself as Captain Sutton, of the Russian-American Telegraph ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the name given in the Middle Ages to the sea-roving, adventure-loving inhabitants of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; in their sea-rovings they were little better than pirates, but they had this excuse, their home was narrow and their lands barren, and it was a necessity for them to sally forth and see what they could plunder and carry away in richer lands; they were men of great daring, their early religion definable as the consecration of valour, and they were the terror of the quieter nations ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... are enemies of society, and I assume that they are—not because they have property, but because, as a rule, they have acquired it by unjust processes and use it tyrannically—what excuse have we for aristocracies, an idle class, a privileged class, who toil not, nor spin? What is a recognized aristocracy, such as England maintains? From what perennial fountain did it draw its nobility and wealth? Came they not through Norman ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... to its natural conclusion, left the lesson which it had begun to teach abruptly broken off in the midst,—left a glory of the Lord unrevealed, and a terror to wicked men unspoken. That he might proclaim the whole truth, and leave his unrepenting hearers without excuse, the Lord proceeded then and there to demand of them, "Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... authority of the Egyptian Government, or for the appointment or actions of General Hicks." At this time the Turkish Government were supplying the Mahdi with money and officers in the hope that the troubles in the Soudan would afford them an excuse for sending troops to "assist the Khedive." As we continued to get telegrams from Hicks Pasha, Sir Edward Malet informed the Egyptian Government by letter that we must repeat that we had no responsibility for the operations in the Soudan. We foresaw the failure of the Hicks expedition, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... journal for two days, owing to a slight indisposition, which furnished an excuse ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... England know that, as long as she enforces her blockade, her friends in Belgium will have to pay for it." It is the same kind of double-edged declaration as that used on the occasion of the Allied air-raid on Brussels. Literally speaking, it cuts both ways. The excuse becomes a threat and the untruth savours of blackmail. Healthy minds work by single or treble propositions. If we did not remember that our aim is to analyse the beautiful and heroic side of the ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... am," was his startling response. "You've got to be, in love. If you don't think you're pretty fine how are you going to convince anybody else that you are? But you'll have to excuse me for a moment—these bracelets are cutting my wrists to pieces. I must find that man who locked me up. You must stay here till I come back—I won't be a minute," and the young man darted out of the room with a ludicrous diving motion of his arms as he parted the heavy crimson ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... brown eye had wavered ever so slightly, indicating some one behind Fairchild. "But I was n't on the Denver road yesterday, and if you 'll excuse me for saying it, I don't remember ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... arouses my interest. Is this indolence an inherent characteristic of the native, or is it true, as a foreign traveller has said in speaking of a country whose inhabitants are of the same race as these, that this indolence is only a fabrication to excuse our own laziness, our backwardness and the ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... waiting one day at the kings heeles when he entred the parke at Greenewich, the king blew his horne, Flamock hauing his belly full, and his tayle at commaundment, gaue out a rappe nothing faintly, that the king turned him about and said how now sirra? Flamock not well knowing how to excuse his vnmannerly act, if it please you Sir quoth he, your Maiesty blew one blast for the keeper and I another for his man. The king laughed hartily and tooke it nothing offensiuely: for indeed as the case fell ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... God, might have discerned the signs of the times, and proclaimed the coming of the Promised One. The prophecy of Micah designated His birthplace;(510) Daniel specified the time of His advent.(511) God committed these prophecies to the Jewish leaders; they were without excuse if they did not know and declare to the people that the Messiah's coming was at hand. Their ignorance was the result of sinful neglect. The Jews were building monuments for the slain prophets of God, while by their deference to the great men of earth they ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... not with pride. From time to time her people tried to hide their tears, and she made a sign of pitying them. Seeing that the dinner was on the table and nobody eating, she invited the doctor to take some soup, asking him to excuse the cabbage in it, which made it a common soup and unworthy of his acceptance. She herself took some soup and two eggs, begging her fellow-guests to excuse her for not serving them, pointing out that no knife or fork had been set in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... telling of obscene stories. As one man puts it, "There are few essentially rotten minds." When, however, the name of our Lord is used not only profanely, but dragged into the most obscene and horrible connections, unheard of in peace times, no possible excuse can be offered and the habit cannot but prove deadening and baneful in its influence. Men who never before thought of swearing find themselves driven to strong language and to reckless, heightened, or intensified expression in the trying and ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... of the great hall were more powerful than those of the secret chamber. He replied curtly, however,—"I have excused the lady from coming, Cadet. She is ill, or she does not please to come, or she has a private fancy of her own to nurse—any reason is enough to excuse a lady, or for a gentleman to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... professional pretensions and social formulas, men for whom not only their daily bread but their collective character, their personal achievement and their individual merit come from the sea. Those words of the statesman were meant kindly; but, after all, this is not a complete excuse. Rightly or wrongly, we expect from a man of national importance a larger and at the same time a more scrupulous precision of speech, for it is possible that it may go echoing down the ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... equally to Europeans and to Mahomedans—as well as for tumultuous processions only too well calculated to provoke affrays with the Mahomedans and with the police, which in turn led to judicial proceedings that served as a fresh excuse for noisy protests and inflammatory pleadings. With the Ganpati celebrations the area of Tilak's ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... threats?" replied Serge, already calmed. "Excuse me; I know that you will not tell; if not for my sake at ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... It had been a very small grumble, but there are no sins for which there is less reason or less excuse than small ones: in no sense are they worth committing. And we grown people commit many more such than little children, and have our reward ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... Wellington; and when the Boyd family summoned me the next morning at four or five o'clock to set off with them for Antwerp, I permitted my repugnance to quitting the only spot where I could receive letters from Trves to conquer every obstacle, and begged them to excuse my changed purpose. They wondered at my temerity, and probably blamed it ; but there was no time for discussion, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... George" (we are never told his surname), who gives the overture-orgie. One might, as the lady said to Professor Wilson in regard to the Noctes, say to him, "I really think you eat too many oysters, and drink too much [not indeed in his case] whisky," and I can find no excuse for his deliberately upsetting an enormous bowl of flaming arrack punch on a floor swept by women's dresses. But he is quite human, and he makes the best speech and scene in the book when he remonstrates with Musidora for secluding herself because she cannot discover the elusive marquis-rajah ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... has never been any agreement as to what vox means or as to what populus means." In spite of endless discussions about democracy, this remark of Sir Henry Maine is still so far true that no other excuse is needed for studying the conceptions which lie at the very base of popular government. In doing so one must distinguish the form from the substance; for the world of politics is full of forms in which the spirit is dead—mere shams, but sometimes not recognized ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... questions of a local nature; and the same motive now induces me to decline attendance on Committees on any private Bills, except such as relate to Ireland." The answer, Mr. Estcourt said, he had given to this communication was, that the Committee could not recognise such an excuse; he reminded Mr. O'Brien of the resolutions of the 12th of February, but offered to consult for his convenience, inasmuch as important Irish business was before the House, by postponing, if possible, his attendance to a later period; but that unless he had heard from him ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... it avail," I asked, "since neither of us can help matters? Do you want the fulness of my heart or merely a word and an excuse?" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... mocking voice from the lake added to my perplexity. It was not, I reflected, such a voice as one might expect to hear from a country girl; nor could I imagine any errand that would excuse a woman’s presence abroad on an October night whose cool air inspired first confidences with fire and lamp. There was something haunting in that last cry across the water; it kept repeating itself over and over ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... picnic variety; they saw in this an opportunity of spending halcyon days in the game preserves, glorious opportunities for making collections of big game heads, all sandwiched in with pleasant and successful enterprises against an enemy that was waiting only a decent excuse to surrender. ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... said, "with quite extraordinary fluency, and with a-a-really interesting and engaging accent; but—excuse me please—shall I be entirely frank? You see you have learned the language, under many disadvantages, among the Koraks, Cossacks, and Chukchis of Kamchatka and the Okhotsk Sea coast, and—quite innocently and naturally of course—you have picked up a few words ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... we are delighted with you here—in fact, you are quite a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you that you possess one failing pretty general with your ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... his stock in trade; that's his excuse for being. Women are crazy about him, as you probably know, but—give me a man the men like." There was a pause. "So you don't ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... and maintenance of his curate in the single case of absence with the bishop's licence, from extreme necessity of sickness). When the living amounted to L70 or upwards, he would have the choice, as at present, of residing, or finding some legal excuse for non-residence; but in the latter case he would be obliged to provide a curate constantly resident. And in both cases proper certificates of residence would be required to be ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... perfectly easy about THAT, Miss Briggs. We'll put 'Literature, Science, and Art' to one side and enjoy the delights of the open air, and, if I happen to say anything that sounds like book, just you excuse me, for I don't mean it. Mebby I DO get to talking about that book when I don't mean to, for it is a book that a man that knows it as well as I do just can't HELP talking about. It's a wonderful book. It is a book that has all the wisdom and ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... last! What happiness! I am saved, when I had almost given up all hope! Monsieur de Gramont, you will excuse me! Au revoir!" ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... absolutely guaranteed. Too often colored people have entrusted their savings to wholly irresponsible persons, lost them through the dishonesty of these persons, and in discouragement abandoned all attempts at saving. Today, however, there is no excuse for any man not saving a certain amount of his earnings no matter how small it may be. It is a poor person, indeed, who cannot invest twenty-five cents at stated intervals in a Thrift Stamp. Many are able also to buy small Liberty Bonds. It is a duty and a privilege for colored persons to ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... so," retorted Isabel, scornfully; but the next moment, with a kind of rough tenderness, she drew the shawl closer round Alice's shoulders. "Yes, we're different; perhaps that's why I like you. And I do like you still, though sometimes, when you look up at him with the eyes of a sick calf, and make excuse to touch him——" ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... his day, "There is a deal more of politics than of conscience in their action." Yet there are times when even the word conscience may have to be used, and no other will suffice. Another is "Duty"—so often put forward as the excuse for people doing something stupid, probably something they have been in the habit of doing and seem unable to give up, but which is really only a nuisance to themselves and also to others. Yet there are under the abused words ideas which should be ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... had acted very wickedly, and was guilty of every thing that he had been accused of, and lamented that disorder of his mind, and distraction which his love to a woman, he said, had brought him to. So when Archelaus had brought Pheroras to accuse and bear witness against himself, he then made an excuse for him, and mitigated Herod's anger towards him, and this by using certain domestical examples; for that when he had suffered much greater mischiefs from a brother of his own, he prefered the obligations of nature before the passion of revenge; ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... course, of course," said the Doctor. "Excuse me, surely you are related to the Deer Family, ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... or Frizland, or the Barbarous jangling of the Negroes and Savages. In the choise that I was to make I could not but give the preference to those of the greatest credit and repute, took some Prince (excuse the allusion) who having laid his design to reunite all the Kingdomes of the world, began his conquest upon those Nations that were most formidable and renown'd, from an apprehension that the rest in a little time would be less able to ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... greater than the number required to serve on the inquest, because many find it very inconvenient, and others find it impossible, to give their services. Valid excuses are admitted in plea against the performance of the duty; but a frivolous excuse is not allowed; and a tradesman, whose turn it is to serve, if he can prefer no good reason for not serving, must serve or pay the fine. Six guineas is the heavy penalty inflicted upon a recusant who declines service altogether. This preliminary meeting is called merely ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... black-balled.) Each gambling dame she knew, and he Knew every shark of quality; From the grave cautious few who live On thoughtless youth, and living thrive, To the light train who mimic France, And the soft sons of nonchalance. While Jenny, now no more of use, Excuse succeeding to excuse, Grew piqued, and prudently withdrew To shilling whist, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... "Each and All" so in most of his verse Emerson is too much of a teacher or moralist to be a poet. In "The Rhodora," one of his most perfect poems, he proclaims that "Beauty is its own excuse for being"; but straightway he forgets the word and devotes his verse not to beauty but to some ethical lesson. Very rarely does he break away from this unpoetic habit, as when he interrupts the moralizing of his "World Soul" to write a lyric that we welcome ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... we find in Chinese lo-che for the Sanskrit ragas, dust, we may ascribe the change of r into l to the inability of the Chinese to pronounce or to write an r. We may admit that the Chinese alphabet offered nothing nearer to the sound of ga than tche; but the dropping of the final s has no excuse in Chinese, and finds its real explanation in the nature of the Gatha dialect. Thus the Chinese Fan-lan-mo does not represent the correct Sanskrit Brahman, but the vulgar form Brahma. The Chinese so-po for sarva, all, thomo for dharma, law, find no explanation in ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... existence a wine-shop where the guest fares so badly that he would go at once were it not that he fears to call for the reckoning. The reckoning, Mary, is death. I have called for it. I am about to pay. Let me tell you. I have no excuse to offer, no forgiveness now to await. My heart was a meadow: you made it stone. There were well-springs in it: you dried them, Mary. When I first saw you, you were a dream fulfilled. Others had brought ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... the third evening succeeding our return, Silvia and I started upstairs early to give them a chance to have the exclusive use of the library, the Polydores having all been sent to bed. As we were making some plausible excuse for going to our room, ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... on, and she did not go. Every little trivial domestic duty was made an excuse for delaying it. Miss Amilly, finding her sister unusually bad company, went out to drink tea with some friends. The time came for ordering in tea at home, and still Deborah had ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the Triton with more regret and homesickness than remorse; and then he would add by way of excuse, "Ay, but then I ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not for the substantial tokens of her actuality he possessed she would have seemed to him like the heroine of a play. He would have reproached himself for disloyalty if the intensity of each minute as he had to meet it had not been an excuse for him. The time would come when the pressure of the instant would be less great, and he should be able to get back the emotion with which he left her. Perhaps if she had been "his type of girl," her image would not have ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... railroads that had long held the town in scorn. Two of the industries failed, the new station was cited as an awful example by the Professor of Fine Arts at the college, and yet Paul Fosdick made himself essential to Montgomery. The commercial club's bimonthly dinners gave the solid citizens an excuse for leaving home six nights a year, and in a community where meetings of whist clubs and church boards constituted the only justification for carrying a latch-key this new freedom established him at once as a friend of mankind. Fosdick was wholly presentable, and while his contributions to the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Vaughn, and beside her the gentleman who had been so kind to her, and had seemed to take such a friendly interest in her success with her little pupils. They had not yet been observed, and there was still time for the mortified girl to make her escape unseen. The first impulse of her mind was to excuse herself to her eccentric companion, and turn ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the brat! Pshaw!" said Captain Brand, quieting down, and returning the pistols to his pockets. "How nervous I am! Excuse me, caballeros. I was ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... desperate moment injured, I had better call it robbed, a relative of ours. The boy had got into difficulties, but hitherto, although he had been a fool, there was a certain generosity in his rashness. He was very hard pressed—I have seen that since—but I can make no excuse for what ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... mind on it, for sailor men are very uncertain; only they are pretty sure to roll around the whole world, making excuses that ships take them whether they will or not. A poor excuse for not coming is better than none." Then as the door closed behind the girl she added, "I wish he would send money to buy her clothes; it would be as little as he could do, for she is not my child, but my sister's. I, too, wish he would come, for a cold winter we have had taking much coal and ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... I excuse myself this time, but I must hold myself to the same standard that I want to hold Lee Greenfield to. How do I know that he hasn't had all sorts of cold, creepy feeling's keeping him from ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... who in the sixteenth century set in motion the chaos which threatens to overwhelm us to-day, the religious abuses existing at the time can offer no excuse for their destruction of Religion, because stains happened to sully the purity of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Fairy then; as it was, she didn't tell the story till later on, when Belvane happened to be near. I regret to say that Belvane listened. It was the sort of story that always got overheard, she explained afterwards, as if that were any excuse. On this occasion she was just too early to overhear, but in time to prevent the ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... an ill day, Captain, never reckon it other. But, say you were bound to the peace, the law allows you to defend yourself. That will prove but a poor excuse. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... family quickly came to the entrance to welcome them; and D'Arcy, coming back, explained what had occurred. He had seen the blaze of their burning hut, but not suspecting the cause, had gone across the lake with his canoe on runners, to ascertain if they had got home safe, not sorry for a good excuse for his visit. His appearance naturally caused great dismay and anxiety. He, however, afforded his friends some comfort, by assuring them that he believed the missing ones would be found on the island, towards which, supplied with a compass, he ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... "Excuse me, Mr. Grant," he spoke respectfully, "but I'm in pretty close touch with conditions along the lines. If I can ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... began to beg the Snake to excuse him, saying that he could not leave the sheep; but ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... there should be anything. It was far more interesting than Where. Why was a deeper question than whence. It made them feel more important, for one thing. Somebody—but Somebody who was not there—owed them a proper explanation about it. The burden of apology or excuse was lifted instantly from Uncle Felix's shoulders, for, obviously, he had nothing to do with the reason for ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood |
