"Nick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it the least attractive of employments to one of his volatile disposition. For some time indeed he had supported himself comfortably in this way; for through friends of his family he had had good introductions, and, although he wasted a good deal of money in buying nick-nacks that promised to be useful and seldom were, he had no objectionable habits except inordinate smoking. But it happened that a pupil—a girl of imaginative disposition, I presume—fell so much in love with him that she betrayed ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... in the lowered voice, an unspoken appeal to her to admit the truth and be done with proud pretence. And indeed the pride had gone out of Rachel at sight of him; a delicious sense of safety filled her heart instead. She was as one drowning, and here was a strong swimmer come to her rescue in the nick of time. What did it matter who or what he was? She felt that he was strong to save. Yet, as the nearly drowned do struggle with their saviours, so Rachel ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... making their way through the "desolate and voiceless solitudes"; mere wastes of cliffs, crags, caverns, and steep hillsides covered with pine, laurel, and underbrush. Twice they were literally starving and were saved in the nick of time by the killing, on the first occasion, of a big bull elk, on the next, of a small spike buck. At last, sun-scorched and rain-beaten, foot-sore and leg-weary, their thighs torn to pieces by ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a classical subject, when talking to the distinguished Mr. Derringham, and she must be warned and primed up before dinner. Arabella had herself averted a catastrophe and dexterously turned the conversation in the nick of time. Mrs. Cricklander had a peculiarly unclassical brain, and found learning statistics about ancient philosophies and the names of mythological personages the most difficult of all. Fortunately ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... it seems thus clearly; and anecdotes change their value; and in that proportion honesty, as regards one or the other, changes the value of its chances. But what has all this to do with 'Old Nick'? Stop: let me consider. That title was placed at the head of this article, and I admit that it was placed there by myself. Else, whilst I was wandering from my text, and vainly endeavouring to recollect what it was that I had meant by this text, a random thought came over me (immoral, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... did seem to be a fate in the way young Mr. Wescott just happened up to camp in the nick of time to find our guardian and fall in love with her, worse luck," and Lucile vindictively kicked a stone from the path as though it were the meddling Mr. Wescott himself. "And then to think he should like Jim, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... had satisfied himself that the pistols were properly loaded and primed, had resumed all his wonted coolness in danger. "Ask that fellow who is enacting the statue on the top of the rock what he wants. I am a tolerable shot, you know; and if he means evil, I shall nick him before he can carry his carabine to his shoulder, take my ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Sally. "If she is ill she would rather see the old Nick himself than Miss Stetson. I'll run and ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... run both ways between Mallorca and Minorca without touching. Hooray! who says our luck isn't stupendous? Here we are, not having made enough southing, and heading so as to fetch Gibraltar without sighting the islands at all; and then in the nick of time up comes a dea ex machina in the guise of the Eugene Perrier to shove us on the course again. In main-sheet, and then, blow me if we won't have a bottle of that vermouth by way of celebrating the event in a way at ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... felt that, among the countless evidences of the ordering of Providence by which the war for the preservation of the Union was signalized, not the least striking was the raising up of this remarkable man, to accomplish alone, and in the very nick of time, a work which at once became of such ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... name I had better not mention, came running up to us with his clothes torn to tatters, and his hat and gun gone. He presented a curious picture. I heard the burghers jeer and chaff him as he approached, and called out to him: "What on earth have you been up to? It looks as if you had seen old Nick with ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... not live in the basin of the Delaware at the most remote times of which we have any knowledge, we meet with traces of his occupation in the same latitude at more recent periods. At Long-Nick-Branch is a shell-mound that extends for half a mile, and in California there is a yet larger kitchen-midding. It measures a mile in length by half a mile in width, and, as in similar accumulations, excavations have yielded thousands of stone ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... the fuel he brought, And said he feared nought Of the Devil being brewed in his copper: He'd as quickly believe Nick would sit in his sieve, Or dance 'mong the wheat in ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... is no doubt whatever that this time he would have slain me—for the pistol was pointed so truly that I actually looked for a moment right into the barrel of it—had it not been for the Diane's helmsman, who unceremoniously seized me by the arm in the very nick of time and quickly pulled me aside. As it was, the bullet whistled close past my ear. This dastardly act so exasperated our people that forthwith, without waiting for orders, they poured the whole of our port broadside ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... imp of evil brook to lie hidden in the Holy Hole behind the very altar?" said Mrs. Woodford. "But I hear Nick bringing in supper, and I must leave you for the present. God in His mercy bless you, His poor child, and lead you in ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the end of the week that Dick Rover came into contact with Tad Sobber, a stocky youth, with a shock of black hair and eyes which were cold and penetrating. Sobber was with a chum named Nick Pell, and both eyed Dick in a calculating manner which ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... courage and his quality of leadership. He was an excellent tactician, a skill which he had learned in Prussia, where he had served for a considerable time in the Foot-guards of Frederick the Great; hence his nick-name of "The Big Prussian." He had an irreproachable military turn-out, spick and span, curled and powdered, with a long pig-tail, big, highly polished riding boots and withal, a very martial bearing. This smart appearance was the more remarkable because, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... you nick, nick, nick! With your fingers click, click, click! Right foot first, Left foot then, Round about ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... boys' aeroplanes struck the earth not far from the bank of the pond toward which Peggy was at that moment valiantly struggling, the two young aviators leaped out and set out at a run to the rescue. They reached the bank in the nick of time to pull out the ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... uplifts her, graciously kissing her rosebud mouth and when she says: "Your majesty's slightest wish is a command to me, your servant!" and is about to surrender her loveliness to Cupid's forces and temporarily lose her heart, but her soul forever—in the very nick of time comes her guardian-angel to ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... worth so great an exertion. As they fought, the raccoons drew nearer and nearer to the porcupine, who did not offer to move. Another lurch would undoubtedly have brought them into contact with his bristling quills had they not in the nick of time discovered their danger. Instantly they separated and leaped back. The leap brought them to the slippery mud at the edge of the stream and the next moment both rolled ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... and common almost up to our own: a river-god, bearded, crown of reeds, urn, general dampness and uproariousness of temper, all quite correct; and a nymph, whom he pursues, who prays to the Virgin huntress to save her from his love, and who, just in the nick of time, is metamorphosed into a mossy stone, dimly showing her former woman's shape; the style of thing, charming, graceful, insipid, of which every one can remember a dozen instances, and which immediately brings up ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... the gold beads by way of celebration, began a new era in Ann's life. There was no more secret animosity between her and Mrs. Dorcas. The doctor had come that night in the very nick of time. Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann with kindness, but she seemed to smother ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... were all going to a show that evening at the Riverside Opera House. It promised to be an interesting entertainment, for the names of several popular actors appeared on the program. But what made it especially attractive to Joe and his party was the fact that Nick Altman, the famous pitcher of the "White Sox" of Chicago, was on the bill for a monologue. Although, being in the American League, Joe and Jim had never played against him, they knew him well by reputation and respected him for his ability in ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... first hours. He had gone about gawking in places he couldn't have had he been visible. Into the dressing room of the Roxie, into the bars of swank private clubs, into the offices of the F.B.I. He would have liked to have walked in on a poker game with some real high rollers playing, such as Nick the Greek, but he didn't have the time nor know-how to ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... conduit (he does not say which) palisaded with chimney-sweepers' brooms and surrounded by sweeps, probably waiting to be hired, so that "a countryman, seeing so many black attendants waiting at a stone hovel, took it to be one of Old Nick's tenements." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... apostles, especially St. Paul, who did not allow it to trouble them whether the highest or the lowest priest had said it, or had done it in God's Name or in his own. They looked on the works and words, and held them up to God's Commandment, no matter whether big John or little Nick said it, or whether they had done it in God's Name or in man's. And for this they had to die, and of such dying there would be much more to say in our time, for things are much worse now. But Christ and St. Peter and Paul must cover all this with their holy names, so that no more ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... riddance to you," he muttered; "and now for Matthew Brook. You'll sleep sound enough to-night, Stephen Plumpton, I'll warrant. So sound that if Old Nick himself went through your room you'd scarcely be ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... refused to do, and they would doubtless have killed him, but for two men who dragged him from their clutches in the nick of time. These two men were the one-armed Joe and Edward Chester, just returned from the West Indies, whom the former had met by accident that day. They took the locksmith to his home, while the raging crowd brought furniture from neighboring houses and built a bonfire ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... Then he put on long hair and a venerable beard, stained his limbs with henna, and called himself Abdullah of Bushire, a half-Arab. In this disguise, with spear in hand and pistols in holsters, he travelled the country with a little pack of nick-knacks. In order to display his stock he boldly entered private houses, for he found that if the master wanted to eject him, the mistress would be sure to oppose ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Heaven wi' its jasper halls Is now the on'y town I care to be in.. Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls As we ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... an electric-motor car running for the first time, exclaimed: "Well, well, Ould Nick must be pullin' ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... treason here?" cried Mr Underhill's voice behind, which all dreaded to hear. "What say you—'God save Queen Jane?' I say, God save Queen Mary! I serve not my Lord of Northumberland, for all the Papists nick [give me the nick-name] me his spy! I have not proclaimed King John—whereof, as all men do know, Queen Jane is but the feminine. I am a servant of the Queen's Majesty that reigneth by right, and that Queen is Mary. God defend the right, as ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Sganarelle is a blockhead who will spoil everything. However, as we have nobody else, we must make use of him. But where shall we find him?—Ah! here he is in the very nick of time. ...
— The Flying Doctor - (Le Medecin Volant) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... step of the palace with all of them around her, Dorothy told the whole wonderful story of the Scarecrow's family tree. When her breath gave out, the Scarecrow took up the tale himself, and as they all realized how nearly they had lost their jolly comrade, many of the party shed real tears. Indeed, Nick Chopper hugged the Scarecrow till there was not a whole straw ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... with refinement and good taste. And it is worthy of remark that the men who are ahead of the thought and feeling of the present day are crying out for more simplicity in our homes and furniture, as well as for more refinement and real architectural merit. No useless luxuries and nick-nacks, but plenty of public baths, and mosaic pavements laboriously put together by hard hand labour,—these are the points that Ruskin and the Romans liked ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... "I'll no' hae my dog scaret wi' bogles, and running down Auld Nick as if he were a hare. The ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... offering for the whole country. So the people decked him with garlands like a victim and led him to the altar, where they were just about to sacrifice him when he was rescued either by his grandson Cytisorus, who arrived in the nick of time from Colchis, or by Hercules, who brought tidings that the king's son Phrixus was yet alive. Thus Athamas was saved, but afterward he went mad, and mistaking his son Learchus for a wild beast, shot him dead. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... The initials E.C. apply to my brother, Emery C. Kolb; E.L. to myself. These initials are frequently used in this text. For several years the nick-name "Ed" has been applied to me, and in my brothers' narratives I ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... "Tramp—tramp—tramp!" in the corridor, the heavy tread of many feet sounded, coming nearer. Instinctively realizing that the pachydermic parade was headed for his room, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., rushed to the closet, murmuring, "Safety first!" as usual, and stowed away his banjo. He was just in the nick of time, for a second later there crowded into his room Captain Butch, Pudge, Beef, Hefty, Biff, Monty, Roddy, Bunch, Tug, Buster, Coach Corridas, and Thor, the latter duo bringing up ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... much in her line," says Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, "but philanthropic manufacturers, (p. 111) liberal noblemen, and benevolent ladies in travelling carriages, do as well and appear in the nick of time to distribute rewards ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... picked over by the host. But this disposition to share everything was not without its other aspect; we also were expected to share everything with them. We were asked to bestow any little trinket or nick-nack exposed to view. Any extra nut on the machine, a handkerchief, a packet of tea, or a lump of sugar, excited their cupidity at once. The latter was considered a bonbon by the women and younger portion of the spectators. The attractive daughter of our host, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... for instead of boxing fairly, he would kick, pull hair, bite, and scratch most unmercifully, and never fail to take every advantage of his antagonist after he had brought him to the ground. For these reasons he was soon dignified with the nick name of Dick Bear, even by the vulgar boys in the streets; and most of them afterwards took care never to engage with him unless when there were several other boys present to see fair play. One would think that such a rough hewn and slovenly mortal ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... my tracks and addressing a small brown-leafed beech. "What! little Hyla, are you still out? You! with a snow-storm brewing and St. Nick due here to-morrow night?" And then from within the bush, or on it, or under it, or over it, came an answer, Peep, peep, peep! small and shrill, dropping into the silence of the woods and stirring it as three small ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... Gimlet is laid, never to rise again' — Insensible of this check, she proceeded: 'Well, to be sure, you looked and talked so like a real ghost; and then the cock crowed so natural. I wonder how you could teach him to crow so exact, in the very nick of time; but, I suppose, he's game — An't he game, Mr Gwynn?' 'Dunghill, madam.' — 'Well, dunghill, or not dunghill, he has got such a clear counter-tenor, that I wish I had such another at Brambleton-hall, to wake the maids ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the sake of the ladies to give up this out-of-the-way place, and come close, up to the settlement. We feel that we cannot leave you out here unprotected. Think of what would have happened if we had not arrived in the nick ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... "that he should march his troops at once, and the French must be amused for two months until the troops arrived; then, whether the French attacked him or not, he should attack them."[67] Keith also wrote from Vienna to Grenville on 2nd May, that the French declaration of war had come in the nick of time to furnish the Hapsburgs with the opportunity of throwing the odium of the war upon France.[68] Other proofs might be cited; and it seems certain that, if France had not thrown down the gauntlet, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... main, that it was some barbarous thing they had done, and that they had like to have paid dear for it, for the men resented it to the last degree, and gathered in such numbers about them, that, had not sixteen more of our men, in another boat, come all in the nick of time, just to rescue our first men, who were but eleven, and so fetch them off by main force, they had been all cut off, the inhabitants being no less than two or three hundred, armed with darts and lances, the usual weapons of the country, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... manner, might be said to be a typical United States Army officer. His figure would probably fall short of the standard, but he was no less strong and healthy than his brother knights of the sword. His strength was more to be compared to that patient animal after which he was nick-named, the mighty carabao, but he lacked the grace of form and dignity of bearing that the average wearer of shoulder-straps in Uncle Sam's army ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... of H.M.S. Suffolk, and our naval detachments at Ufa. The Czechs (our Allies), who had the same orders as myself, on learning that the Tsarists were also in the conspiracy, frustrated this scheme by instantly moving forward a company for the protection of the bridge, which arrived just in the nick of time. Had we acted strictly to orders, Heaven only knows what the result would have been. British and Czech both had to act on our own judgment, and while, technically, we disobeyed orders, we fulfilled the policy of each country ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second, a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the third, an accidental ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... of this among other incidents. He was, like Peter Maughan, an old schoolfellow of mine with the Christian Brothers in Liverpool. He was one of the men picked out by Colonel Kelly to be on guard when the "old man"—one of Stephens' pet nick-names—came over the prison wall. Ryan was a fine type of an Irishman, morally, intellectually and physically. As Stephens slipped down from the wall, holding on to the rope, he came with such force on my friend's shoulders as almost to bear him to the ground. In my ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... stupid," said the wife angrily. "You ought to have cut a nick in the right one while you 10 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... straight and clean, and tolerably sharp. Ercole looked at it critically, drew the edge over his coarse thumb-nail to find if there were any nick in the steel, and then scratched the same thumb-nail with it, as one erases ink with a knife, to see how sharp it was. The point was like a needle, but he considered that the edge was dull, and he drew it up and down one of the brown barrels of his gun, as carefully as ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... up the desperado's arm just in the nick of time, thus preventing a terrible crime. But the end was not yet. There were five more bullets in the cylinder of the weapon, as the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... languishing for hard-hearted swains; sheep-cotes, rustic dances, junketings, anadems, and true-love knots; monsters invented for the perpetual menace of chastity; chastity undergoing the most surprising perils, but always saved in the nick of time, if not by an opportune shepherd, then by an equally opportune river-god or earthquake; episodes innumerable, branching off from the main stem of the narrative at the most critical point, and luxuriating in endless ramifications. Beauty, eluding unwelcome embraces, is never too hotly pressed ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... broke backward just in the nick of time. The Koeln flagship of the German commodore, was soon staggering off in a blaze, and was later sunk with her total complement of 380 officers and men. The Ariadne, steaming at high speed across the bows of the British ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... school, of which Lord Rosebery is representative, has endeavored to substitute for the moral or social ideals which have hitherto been the motive of politics a general coherency or completeness in the social system which has gained the nick-name of "efficiency." I am not very certain of the secret doctrine of this sect in the matter. But, as far as I can make out, "efficiency" means that we ought to discover everything about a machine except what it is for. There has arisen ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... time; for Britain's enemies would be on her back while she would have to fight in South Africa. The result of that would mean a shattered, humiliated land, with a people in pawn to the will of a rising power across the northern sea. That it had been prevented just in the nick of time was due to Jasmine, his fate, the power that must beat in his veins till ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for thousands of ducks, geese, and wild swans. We reached, before night, a native village called Harchina (har'-chin-ah) and sent at once for a celebrated Russian guide by the name of Nicolai Bragan (nick-o-lai' brag'-on) whom we hoped to induce to accompany us ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... me owld eyes not to seen it, whin me own fingers sewed it, an' me own han's hoong it aboot the little crather's nick?" ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... Count Metternich, behind the next tree, fired and killed the brute, so I was none the worse save for a good fright. It was high time to kill him, for he began charging at the beaters, and threatened to make it lively for us; and if Count Metternich had not, in the nick of time, sent a bullet into him, I doubt whether I should be writing this little account ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... upon her. The teapot was real silver, but it was of old-fashioned shape. Solid as the furniture was, and still after so many years of service worth money, yet it was chipped by kicks from iron-shod boots, which had also worn the dingy carpet bare. There was an absence of the nick-nacks that strew the rooms of people in 'Society.' There was not even a bell-handle to pull; if you wanted the maid of all work, you must open the door and call to her. These little things, trifles as they may be, repelled her. It was a bitter ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... know him first. Me, I'll be only fifteen den. Dat's long time 'go, eh? Well, for sure, I ain't so old like what I'll look. But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's old, old, old, when he's only thirty; an' mean—bapteme! If de old Nick ain' got de hottest place for dat ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... one consolation; the law! the law! She could have no legal proof, and intuition goes for nothing in a court of justice. All the suspicion went against Guy Waring, and Guy Waring—well, Guy Waring had fled the kingdom in the very nick of time, and was skulking now, Heaven alone knew where or why, in the remotest depths of some far ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... could be no mistake, "Faix, mister, and is yer name Charley?" It was then that he rose in bed and uttered the exclamation which I set down in the first line of this story. Charley Vanderhuyn could not tell whether he meant Charles Dickens or Nick. Perhaps you can. Indeed, it doesn't seem to ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... believe, about the three little boys I call "my babies." They are yet in dresses, and as cunning as can be, very regular in attendance. Harry, Eddie, and—well I must tell you about the other name. Down here, many nick-names are used, such as son, bubba, or boysa for the boys, and sister or missy for the little girls. When this little fellow was asked his name, he very bashfully said, "Son." "But you have some other name?" If he knew any other, he was afraid to speak, so I ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various
... near to the outskirts of his village, and coming unexpectedly on his satellite, who was in the act of dragging home a seal which he had just killed, "I meet you in the nick of time— but that is no wonder, for did not my torngak tell me he would cause you to meet me near the village? I want your ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... house-keeper. She was, when not doing the queen, cordial, cheerful in manner, loving to have children about her, to spoil them with cakes and see them romp and dance; free and easy, cynical, Rabelaisian, if I may use the expression, as such mongrel Frenchwomen are apt to grow with years; the nick-name which she gave to a member of a family where the tradition of her and her ways still persists, reveals a wealth of coarse fun which is rather strange in a woman who was once the Beatrice or ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... cloak from the hook. Nick Bramham unpinned his drawing and rolled it under his arm. They turned out the lights and set off down the street, holding on their way through all the people, motor cars, omnibuses, carts, until they reached Leicester Square, five minutes before ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... House that it occurred, and for an hour it had seemed that he could not place his money on a card without making the card a winner. In the lull at the end of a deal, while the game-keeper was shuffling the deck, Nick Inwood the owner of the game, remarked, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... came floundering once again over the partition, and guarding my loins, I leapt into the next compartment, seeing the affair had become a sauve qui peut, and devil take the hindmost: and at the nick of time, when she was about to descend like a wolf on a fold, I most fortunately perceived a bell-handle provided for such pressing emergencies and rung it with such unparalleled energy, that the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... place that ever was," said the messenger, polishing his horse's wet neck. "And I suppose that's what the woman thought when she slipped in there. If I hadn't happened by in the nick of time I wouldn't mistrusted. She didn't see me. She was goin' up the steps, with her back to the road, and the meetin'-house sets a considerable piece from the fence. They was all singin' loud enough to drown a horse's feet ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... mats; and others of the twisted fibres of cocoa-nuts. These are not only durable but beautiful; being generally composed of different colours, and studded with beads made of shells or bones. They have many little nick-nacks amongst them; which shews that they neither want taste to design, nor skill to execute, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... kitchen knife. Edward calls it his "garden coat," and swears he only wears it on dirty jobs, to save his new mackintosh, but nevertheless he is sincerely attached to the rag, and once attempted to travel to London to a Royal Society beano in it, and was only frustrated in the nick of time. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... third season here," I said, "and I never even heard about any old creek bed. I never heard about Nick's Valley either." ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the shock of surprise, ordered Edward from the house. He would sooner see his child dead than the wife of Nick Crown's son,—Nick Crown, a drunken rascal who had been known to beat his wife,—Nick Crown who was not even fit to lick the feet ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... me as well as the boy. Nicodemus is a long name to write at full length, and Nick is vulgar. Besides, as there will be two Nicks, they will naturally call my boy young Nick, and of course I shall be styled old Nick, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... other side, and there was the office of the Democratic paper, and over the door the motto "Our country, right or wrong." This had long appeared to be an uncanny spot, owing to the wickedness of this sentiment, and I was thinking of the possibility of seeing Auld Nick guarding his property, when my attention was attracted to a tall, white figure in the bright moonlight, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... exclaimed Barney. "It's yersilf thot knows a hape more thin Oi thought yez did. Ye show yer good judgmint in surrunderin' to th' girruls, fer wan av thim alone wud capture yez av she set out to, an' ould Nick take th' ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... cutting the glass tubing into lengths convenient to handle. It should be a three-cornered file, of medium fineness, and is used simply to nick the glass at the place it is desired to cut it. The two thumbs are then placed beneath the tube, one on each side of the nick, and the tube bent, as if it were plastic, at the same time pulling the hands apart. The tube will break off squarely at the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... in the very nick of time to avoid disaster. As matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to float clear ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... came very seasonably; you are come in the Nick of Time; I was just now wishing for you; I am extreme glad of ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... fruit forming. It pays to do this, because the second year you will have a good yield. Remember that strawberries which flourish in certain localities may fail utterly in others. That is why you and I are experimenting with this new berry. I am going to give you five plants of Marshall, five of Nick Ohmer, and five of Brandywine. Remember, shorten back the roots three inches before you plant. I shall be around to see your strawberry bed. Remember to cultivate after every rain, and in ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... to the nearer gate, for both were shut, and we got through and swung it home behind us in the nick of time. Even I could mount before they could reopen the gate, which Raffles held against them for half an instant with unnecessary gallantry. But he would see me in front of him, and so it fell to ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... at the nick of fortune? Do you know that a sub-lieutenancy is vacant in my company? Sub-lieutenant, with rank of ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... I don't ye go fo' to set up yo'sef agin de ghoses, kase dey's powerful pernickety when dey's crassed," said the old woman, whom Mark, with his love for nick-names, ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... punctuality, promptness, immediateness. V. be prompt, be on time, be in time; arrive on time; be in the nick of time. Adj. timely, seasonable, in time, punctual, prompt. Adv. on time, punctually, at the deadline, precisely, exactly; right on time, to the minute; in time; in good time, in military time, in pudding time^, in due time; time enough; with no time ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... one'll believe yuh. No one! An' if yuh don't want somethin' turrible to happen, yuh'll say nothin', but yuh'll behave yerself like a decent married woman an' go to church an' say yer prayers against trouble. That woman with the cards says whatever th' old Nick puts into ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... was he appeared to such purpose, and in the very nick of time, that afternoon when lady Cairnedge had come with her servants to carry John away; for of course I knew now that our champion must have been uncle Edmund. He answered he had that very morning made up his mind ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... not a joke," protested the other, with pretended severity. "And I won't be called 'Hel,' just because my name's Helen. It—it sounds like the way Pete and Nick swear at each other when they've been spending their pay at Dirty O'Brien's. Besides, it doesn't alter facts at all. It won't take much more climbing to find ourselves right on the shelf, among the ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... sooner appeared in the judgment-chamber of Justice Gobble, than Captain Crowe, seizing him by the hand, exclaimed, "Body o' me! Doctor, thou'rt come up in the nick of time to lend us a hand in putting about.—We're a little in the stays here—but howsomever we've got a good pilot, who knows the coast; and can weather the point, as the saying is. As for the enemy's vessel, she has had a shot or two already athwart ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... "Let's nick the sword," said Ting-a-ling, "and then it will be a saw." And so, with a sharp little flint, they nicked the edge of it, and the edge of the green fairy's knife (for he had no sword), and as they commenced to saw away as hard as they could at the grape-vine, they heard the Kyrofatalapynx ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... graciousness, though I shall never need their offices," Mayenne said grandly. He stood there stately and proud and confident, the picture of princeliness and strength. Last night at St. Denis it had seemed to me that no power could defy my king. Now it seemed to me that no king could nick the power of my Lord Mayenne. When suddenly, precisely like a mummer who in his great moment winks at you to let you know it is make-believe, the general-duke's ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal State government. Not a moment should be lost. You and the co-operating friends there can better judge of the ways and means than can be judged by any here. I only offer a few suggestions. The reinauguration must ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... lively conversation went forward, more merry than delicate, and at length two or three of the elder women (for the girls were somewhat diffident and bashful) began to assail Raymond with various pungent witticisms. Some of the men took part and an old squaw concluded by bestowing on him a ludicrous nick name, at which a general laugh followed at his expense. Raymond grinned and giggled, and made several futile attempts at repartee. Knowing the impolicy and even danger of suffering myself to be placed in a ludicrous light among ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... one war-whoop, and made a show of descending upon the besiegers, those precious friendlies would assuredly have turned tail and bolted. But the Matabele in the security of their caves made no such sign, and Baden-Powell called up the Cape Boys and the Maxims in the nick of time. In a few minutes the guns were in position on what looked like inaccessible crags, and the Cape Boys shouting and cheering were floundering through bogs, leaping over boulders, and firing with firm hand wherever firing was of use. The fight was now ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... his first knowledge of the mistake they had made, and, leaping into his canoe, he drove it across the stream with resistless speed, reaching the spot in the nick of time, and barely doing that, since he was forced to raise his voice while yet on the river, in order to hold the battle ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... slave-raiders, subsidised or led by Arabs of Zanzibar, were specially active. Working from Ujiji and other bases, they attacked some of the expeditions sent by the Congo Free State. Chief among the raiders was a half-caste Arab negro nick-named Tipu Tib ("The gatherer of wealth"), who by his energy and cunning had become practically the master of a great district between the Congo and Lake Tanganyika. At first (1887-1888) the Congo Free State adopted Stanley's suggestion ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... where they sat, and a light patch had appeared at it. "He's staring! Lord, how he's staring! I say, can you see this?" Erik called out, holding up a gin-bottle. Then, as he drank: "Your health! Old Nick's health! He smells, the pig! Bah!" The others laughed, and the face ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ready on my arrival," said Sir Lionel, still reflective. "You know, Emily, the little twelve-horse-power car I had sent out to East Bengal was a Mercedes. If I could drive her, I can drive a bigger car. Everybody says it's easier. And young Nick has learned to ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... sister of Mary, after attending a Choctaw government school at Grant 1890 to 1894 and completing a course at Oak Hill, taught school until she became the wife of Nick Colbert, an elder of the Beaver Dam church, after his decease she married Bud Lewis and is now occupying and improving ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... she said, "and you come just in the nick o' time. They got all my money. It's in their clothes," and then a look of terror overspread her face. For the moment she had forgotten what she had heard about this man—that he was an escaped convict—a convicted murderer. Was she any better ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a colored man by the name of Joe Nick, called Old Nick by a great many white people of me city. Joe was owned by Rueben Rogers, a lawyer and farmer of Howard County. The farm was situated about 2-1/2 miles on a road that is the extension of Main Street, the leading street of Ellicott City. They ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... appearance in life ought more to dread than having any ridicule fixed on him. In the estimation even of the most rational men, it will not only lessen him, but ruin him with all the rest. Many a man has been undone by a ridiculous nick-name. The causes of nick-names among well-bred men, are generally the little defects in manner, air, or address. To have the appellation of ill-bred, aukward, muttering, left-legged, or any other tacked always to your name, would injure you more than you are aware of; avoid ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... looked about the room; then, after glancing ruefully at the bright little weapon, halfway up the blade of a rich deep blue, in which was figured a pattern in gold, he yielded to necessity, and began to chop at the top bar of the grate, so as to nick the edges of his weapon ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... a low-ceilinged room above a baker's shop in the village, and had strewn it about with books and photographs and nick-nacks until the drab surroundings seemed to reflect a little of her dainty personality. Thither, later in the day, she took Betty off to tea and introduced her to a tall fair girl with abundant hair ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... began selling her old gloves, her old hats, the old odds and ends, and she bargained rapaciously, her peasant blood standing her in good stead. Then on her journey to town she picked up nick-nacks secondhand, that, in default of anyone else, Monsieur Lheureux would certainly take off her hands. She bought ostrich feathers, Chinese porcelain, and trunks; she borrowed from Felicite, from Madame Lefrancois, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... following had not run out on the instant and faced the mob with their pikes, and for a moment forced them to give back, the prisoners would have been rescued at the very door of the inn. As it was they were dragged in, and the gates were flung to and barred in the nick of time. Another moment, almost another second, and the mob had seized them. As it was, a hail of stones poured on the front of the inn, and amid the rising yells of the rabble there presently floated heavy and slow over the city the tolling of the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... right, dad, and I'm not hurt," said the girl reassuringly, as her father ran towards her with a look of anguish on his face. "You just came in the nick of time; they were going to ambush you. Don't let the horses go too near the corral, as they will be stampeded again. A dead ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... he wanted to marry you, did he, Aunt Clarissa, swear he would win you by hook or by crook, and vow that Old Nick himself would not prevent him from making you his own?" inquired Myra, ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... groves wherein these feathered songsters "sport, live, and have their being." Whilst millions of men are sunk in the arms of "the drowsy god." What is the angler about, has he slept soundly, and then awoke in the very nick of time? Or have his slumbers been somewhat broken and disturbed by dreams of crafty old Trout? No matter, he is astir, he has pocketed his tackle, and not neglected something for the inner man; ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... nick-named him 'the obscure.' The more difficult it is to understand the discourses of these gentlemen the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... however, passed unnoticed by the faro players; not a man within sound of the shot, for that matter, inquired what the trouble was about; and even Nick, picking up his tray filled with glasses and a bottle, walked straightway into the dance-hall looking as if the matter were not worth a ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... scrupulously swept and dusted; furniture rubbed; little white knitted mats laid on the dressing-table; the chintz curtains taken down and put up again; a new nice chamber set of white china was bought, for the pitcher of the old set had an ugly nick in it and looked shabby; the towel rack was filled with white napery; the handsomest Marseilles quilt was spread on the bed; the stove was blackened and polished. It looked "very respectable," Anne said, when ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... heerd that my master was cute with the cards, and that few was equal to him in any game with pasteboard or ivory; but, be my conscience, he met his match now, for if it was ould Nick was playin' he couldn't do the thrick nater nor the baron. He made every thing come up just like magic: if he wanted a seven of diamonds, or an ace of spades, or the knave of clubs, there ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Pittsburg in a cab and while leaning on his shoulder his diamond scarfpin got caught in her teeth. She being a bashful young thing—then. Well, when she takes her head off his shoulder the pin naturally comes along, too, and then she got afraid that he would think she was trying to nick it so she stuck the pin in her hat band, intending to restore it on the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... me now, and I know it, and dad knows it," Nick assured him. "I'm going home! You'd better be glad you are not mixed up in this thing," he said, turning to the third boy. "You are safe awhile yet, you ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... lies poor Nick, an honest creature, Of faithful, gentle, courteous nature; A parlor pet unspoiled by favor, A pattern of good dog behavior, Without a wish, without a dream, Beyond his home and friends at Cheam. Contentedly through life he trotted, Along the path that faith allotted, Till time, his aged ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Clearly Nick was no simpleton; he was gaining time; he might not yet know which side I belonged to. I must end this matter. The night was cool. I had no blanket or overcoat. While walking I had been warm, but now ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... one of the institutions of the Quarter, one of the notabilities. It was a matter of pride (I can't think why) to be on terms of hail-fellowship with him, on terms to thee-and-thou him, and call him by his nick-name, Bibi, Bibi Ragout: a sobriquet that he had come by long before my time, and whose origin I never heard explained. It seemed sufficiently disrespectful, but he accepted it cheerfully, and would often, indeed, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... time; I had saved him. After all, nothing else mattered during that supreme moment of thankfulness. A few seconds longer beneath that smothering mass and he would have been dead. By what a strange sequence of events had I come to his side just in the nick of time! ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... saint answered, "you very well know The young man's no more his than your own to bestow. Touch one button of his if you dare, Nick—-no! no! Cut your stick, sir—come, mizzle! be off with you! go!"— The Devil grew hot— "If I do I'll be shot! An you come to that, Cuthbert, I'll tell you what's what; He has asked us to dine here, and go we will not! Why, you Skinflint,—at least You may leave us the feast! Here we've ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... His seven months' work, it seemed, had come to nought. The navigation was already open from the sea to Antwerp, the Lowenstyn was in the rebels' hands. But Alexander was not prone to premature despair. "I arrived," said he to Philip in a letter written on the same evening, "at the very nick of time." A less hopeful person might have thought that he had arrived several hours too late. Having brought with him every man that could be spared from Beveren and from the bridge, he now ordered Camillo del Monte to transport some additional pieces of artillery from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... yet seen, barbarously and implacably hostile, and shamelessly dishonest. On the morning of July 11th, two of the men were engaged at the river, and five of the bullock-drivers were collecting their cattle. One of the natives, nick-named King Peter by the men, tried to snatch a kettle from the hand of the man who was carrying it, and on this action being resented, he struck the man with a nulla-nulla, stretching him senseless. His companion shot King Peter in the groin, and his majesty tumbled ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... root of the evil. And then the new cook had proved to be a violent, intermittent drunkard. She had chased the other maid out of the house, and then, while Mrs. Watson rushed for the police, she had drunk herself into the stupor in which she had been found. But now, in the nick of time, the station cab came up with the luggage, and so the still placidly slumbering culprit was carried out to it, and sent off in the charge of the policeman. Such was the first entry of Mr. and Mrs. Crosse into ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... therefore, for a few more yards, I felt a little cavity in the rough-hewn wall of rock that appeared deeper than the others; there I compressed myself, feeling flatter than a turbot, and absurdly resigned. It was the nick of time. The earth was trembling under the mechanical horror; it passed me, with a roar and rush of wind, by I know not how many inches; there were flashes of light, a screeching of machinery, an acrid smell of mineral oils ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... universal welcome on the part of my companions; and without dropping a hint to the other party, it was at once resolved that the design should be carried into execution. It was carried into execution. An 'up-river' boat chanced to pass in the nick of time. A messenger was forthwith, despatched to Covington, and before twelve o'clock upon the following day another boat on her down trip brought the howitzer, and we had it secretly landed and conveyed to a place in the woods previously agreed upon. My friend, Captain C—, had sent a ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... side of a brig, that stands over a brook, I was sent betimes to school; I went wi' the stream, as I studied my book, An' was thought to be no small fool. I never yet bought a pig in a poke, For, to give awd Nick his due, Tho' oft I've dealt wi' Yorkshire folk, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... is his own father; and the old woman is his grandmother. The robber chief's father was known as "Nick, the Highwayman," a terrible person whose name made everybody's heart beat fast fifty ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... chief mate, "the Rock-scorpions are right. They have pounced upon the derelict like wolves. I almost wish I was there to see the effect when they realize they have been fooled, and they find that that craft is loaded with stones. It was just done in the nick of time; they might have ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... person. Of course she'll be examined, and Williams will do it in style. I shall slip out from our court to hear him, if I can hit the nick of time." ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... are always masterly. Nothing could be truer to Nature, more nicely distinguished as to idiosyncrasy, while alike in expression and in limited range of ideas, or more truly comic, than the two that figure in this story. Nick Whickson, too, the good-natured ne'er-do-well, who is in his own and everybody's way till he finds his natural vocation as an aid to a dealer in horses, is a capital sketch. The hypochondriac Squire Plumworthy is very good, also, in his way, though he verges once or twice ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... nice bright little business in Bridge Street? Carr's. Old Jonas Carr's. He is retiring, you know—or perhaps you don't know—it's been kept secret for business purposes. I am glad to have got hold of it in the nick of time, and I am putting your ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Miss Priscilla, without seeming to glance up from her sewing, "Sergeant,—your hat!" Hereupon, the Sergeant gave a sudden, sideways jerk of the head, and, in the very nick of time, saved the article in question from tumbling off, and very dexterously brought it to the top of his close-cropped head, whence it immediately began, slowly, and by scarcely perceptible degrees to slide down to ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... the saw, poured some oil on it, and passed his nail down the bar until he found a fine nick. Clearing this out with the saw, he began to cut. The task was far easier than he had expected, for the bar had been already almost sawn through and, in five minutes, the cut was completed. A couple of feet higher up he found the other incision, and completed it as quietly as before. ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... had heard at night, and of the things I had done with Sam. I would hear the mountain engine come panting impatiently up the grade. As it reached the top I would rise from my bed and soar off into space, in one swift rushing flight through the darkness I would be there in the nick of time, I would swing on to a freight car in the way Sam had shown me, climb to the top and crouching there I would watch the dark roadway open ahead through the silent forest. Lower would sink the voice of ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... nocked and loosed another arrow, which would have smitten Walter in the face, but that he lowered his head in the very nick of time; then with a great shout he rushed up the bent, and was on the Dwarf before he could get his sword out, and leaping aloft dealt the creature a stroke amidmost of the crown; and so mightily be smote, ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... modify his appearance; already he had acquired somewhat of the quiet and smiling air of the brethren; and he was as yet neither an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the character of each. And certainly here was a man in an interesting nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and trumpets, he was in the act of passing into this still country bordering on the grave, where men sleep nightly in their grave-clothes, and, like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Liner," told of the loss of the splendid ship "Tropic Queen," on a volcanic island after she had become disabled and had drifted helplessly for days. By wireless Jack managed to secure aid from U. S. vessels, and it came in the nick of time, for the island was destroyed by an eruption just after the last of the rescued passengers had been taken off. Wireless, too, secured, as described in that book, the capture of a criminal ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... near being the end of Young Grumpy, for the one-eyed gander would have bitten and banged and hammered at him till he was as dead as a last year's June bug. But happily the Boy and the white dog came running up in the nick of time. The gander dropped his victim and stalked off haughtily. And poor Young Grumpy, after turning twice around in a confused way, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... world there is none thou mayst count upon * To befriend thy case in the nick of need: So live for thyself nursing hope of none * Such counsel I give thee: enow, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... always has a good deal of respect for the fighting strain, no matter if it be in a man, or a beast, or a bird. Old Nick himself must be a grand, two-handed man, and as such we must give him credit. And 'twas the same way with this felly Hume. He had real fighting blood, so he had; and sorra the man ever undertook to impose on him ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... a new fellow," answered Kenrick, Henderson, and all who knew him, as fast as they could, in reply to the general queries. They were proud to know him just then, and this little triumph occurred in the nick of time to raise poor ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Nick Razorblade a barber was, A strapping lad was he; And he could shave with such a grace, It was a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... them both firmly on the surface that she was so kind. He watched her face with wonder, and a little fear, for which he was angry with himself. He noted the three grains de beaute and the smile that seemed to break high on her cheek, in a small nick, like that on the cheek of a Japanese doll. She frightened him, made him feel shy, yet made him feel at ease, too, as though her own were contagious; and his impression of her was softly permeated with the breath ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music is over, I may go straight ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... his remarks on politikle Economy, says: "Vengents, like a 2 tined pitchfork in the hands of Old Nick, will bust up any party which goes back onto its trusted leaders. 'Vengents is mine,' says the disappinted offis seeker, and on Election day he peddles split tickets ontil ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... is always the nick of time chosen by the force, that is to say, when everything is done except the handcuffs, a policeman with a great deal of authority in his appearance came up, and plunged his hands under his heavy coat-tails, as though he were about to deliver them of the bower ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... the location of your father's strike. Relieved of the weight upon his shoulders, Clen had a fighting chance for his life, but it is doubtful if he would have won had it not been that the Indian, missing him at last, returned in the nick of time, and with the aid of a loop of babiche, succeeded in drawing him from the water. The rest of the day was spent in drying Clen's clothing beside a miserable fire of brushwood, and the next day they made Fort ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... much the aggregate amount of which they have despoiled you—it is the knowledge that every other person in Paris is seeking and planning to nick you for some sum, great or small; it is the realization that, by reason of your ignorance of the language and the customs of the land, you are at their mercy, and they have no mercy—that, as Walter Pater so succinctly ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From different points of view, it should appear to change,—now an old man, now an old woman,—a gunner, a farmer, or the Old Nick. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... automobiles. You won't ketch me with an automobile—no, nor a motor-boat, neither; nor any other of them durn things that's goin' to set me livin' like as if I was shot out of the cannon's mouth. What's the good of bein' whizzed through life as if the old Nick himself was at your heels—workin' faster, eatin' faster, dyin' faster? I see nothin' to it—nothin' ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... water, his great wings flapping, rose Plunger. Peter looked eagerly to see if he had caught a fish, but there was nothing in Plunger's great, curved claws. Either that fish had been too deep or had seen Plunger and darted away just in the nick of time. Peter had a splendid view of Plunger. He was just a little bigger than Redtail the Hawk. Above he was dark brown, his head and neck marked with white. His tail was grayish, crossed by several narrow dark bands and tipped with white. His under parts were white ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... out on the floor an' begins to claw on his duds, allowin', bein' he's only half awake that a-way, that it's a passel of them murderin' Clay Whigs who's come to crawl his hump for shore. But she's a false alarm. It's only a Dom'nick rooster who's been perched all night on my grandfather's wrist where his arm sticks outen bed, an' who's done crowed a whole lot, as is his habit when he glints the comin' day. It's them sort o' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... but he is a coarse, unlettered, unfanciful dog.' Letters of Boswell, p. 195. Horace Walpole describes him as 'the rankest of all Scotchmen, and odious for that bloody speech that had fixed on him the nick-name of Starvation! Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 479. On p. 637 he adds:—'The happily coined word "starvation" delivered a whole continent from the Northern harpies that meant to devour it.' The speech in which Dundas introduced starvation was made in 1775. Walpole's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... you please tell us how you happened to find us out and come to our rescue just in the nick of time? I should also very much like to know how you managed to tumble down that precipice unharmed, as well as how you produced those flashes of light that scared the savages so badly—me ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe |
