"Offhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lothario, Launcelot, Galahad, or any of that blankety-blank-verse coterie. There remains yet unsung the lay of the five-foot-five, slightly bald, and ever so slightly rotund lover. Falstaff and Romeo are the extremes of what Mr. Lipkind was the not unhappy medium. Offhand in public places, men would swap crop conditions and city politics with him. Twice, tired mothers in railway stations had volunteered him their babies to dandle. Young women, however, were not all impervious ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... over opposite the grand stand; you fellows follow me. Come up offhand and I'll show where a big haul lies right ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... office boast and pleasantry that Lilly could recite offhand through the current program of any of the nine theaters, leaping glibly from motion picture, to acrobat, and ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... perceived anything unusual in this hearty offhand invitation. To Hanscom it was just another instance of Western hospitality, and to the sheriff a common service, and so a few minutes later they all sat down at the generous table, in such genial mood (with Mrs. Throop doing her best ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... was an old lady who had difficulty in walking," the seine-maker went on in the same offhand manner, "and maybe she stumbled and fell when ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... and of the inadequacy fully to match it of the peculiar systems that he knows. They don't just cover HIS world. One will be too dapper, another too pedantic, a third too much of a job-lot of opinions, a fourth too morbid, and a fifth too artificial, or what not. At any rate he and we know offhand that such philosophies are out of plumb and out of key and out of 'whack,' and have no business to speak up in the universe's name. Plato, Locke, Spinoza, Mill, Caird, Hegel—I prudently avoid names nearer home!—I am sure ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... taken leave very cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr. Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind her father; and she ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... yellow head and muttered a formal blessing with an offhand manner, as if it were a mere ceremony. Bud stared contemptuously at him the while, and Cap uttered a low rumble as of a distant growl. Margaret felt a sudden desire to laugh, and tried to control herself, wondering what her father ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... time, before one's time; in anticipation; unexpectedly &c. 508. suddenly &c. (instantaneously) 113; before one can say "Jack Robinson", at short notice, extempore; on the spur of the moment, on the spur of the occasion [Bacon]; at once; on the spot, on the instant; at sight; offhand, out of hand; a' vue d'oeil[Fr]; straight, straightway, straightforth[obs3]; forthwith, incontinently, summarily, immediately, briefly, shortly, quickly, speedily, apace, before the ink is dry, almost immediately, presently at the first opportunity, in no long time, by and by, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... reporter who brought us the information. Ask him any questions you like. I've perfect confidence in him, and I stand by any statement of his we print. I don't think people realize how careful we are on financial matters—they seem to think that a popular paper will print any sort of canard offhand." ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... eyes but ours has the Party System lost credit? I say in nearly everybody's. If this were a free country, I could mention offhand a score of men within a stone's throw; an innkeeper, a doctor, a shopkeeper, a lawyer, a civil servant. As it is, I may put it this way. In a large debating society I proposed to attack the Party System, and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... on the south, "this is rather an offhand soiree, and we may as well cut out proper names. But I will put you wise to the fact that I am the Magazine Lion. I got away from Roosevelt in Africa. He called me 'Mucky,' and I made tracks. Here he cannot hurt me, for they will never let ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... nothing. We were talking chiefly of—of club matters," he answered, in a fair imitation of his usual offhand manner. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... forcible mode of using it. . . . He has two requisites of a debater, a melodious voice and clear, sharply defined enunciation. His forte in debating is his power of mystifying the point. With the most offhand assured airs in the world, and a certain appearance of honest superiority, like one who has a regard for you and wishes to set you right on one or two little matters, he proceeds to set up some point which is not that in question, but only a family connection of it, and ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... contrary to her expectations the Chia consort had expressed her desire that no more than a single stanza should be written on each tablet, so that unable, after all, to disregard her directions by writing anything in excess, she had no help but to compose a pentameter stanza, in an offhand way, merely with the intent ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Copley seemed to think it all right. Their conversation is absolutely sublimated when they get to talking of architecture. I have just copied two quotations from Emerson, and am studying them every night for fifteen minutes before I go to sleep. I'm going to quote them some time offhand, just after morning service, when we are wandering about the cathedral grounds. The first is this: "The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone, subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower, with the lightness ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the curiosity, Eusebius, to enquire of very many real scholars, who have professed to keep up their Greek after leaving the universities, if they have re-read Homer in Greek, and almost all have confessed that they had not. They read him in Pope and Cowper. Let them read him offhand, and fluently, continuously, as they do Marmion, or the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and I cannot but think they will be struck with the Homeric resemblance in the poems of Sir Walter Scott. Both great poets had, too, the same relish for natural scenery, the same close observation; did we ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... and whistled softly to himself. This was a contingency he had not foreseen. What would the Mexican chief do to two of the range-rider's friends who delivered themselves into his hands so opportunely? Steve did not think he would kill them offhand, but he was very sure they would not be at liberty to return home. Moreover, Harrison would be on the ground, eager for revenge. The prizefighter never had liked Farrar. He had sworn to get even with Threewit. An added ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... could remove the property in the time limit set. I informed the gentlemen that I could make my bid considerably higher if I was granted more time in which to remove the debris. President Francis asked me how much more I could bid, and I told him I could not state offhand. The conditions as to the removal of the wreckage in the specified time, namely, three months, were somewhat prohibitive, as it would be impossible to fulfill the requirements without an enormous expense. It would be well-nigh impossible ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... one asked me offhand, 'Does the male hummer help the female feed the young?' I am quite sure I should have answered, 'Of course he does.' As the case now stands, however, I am inclined to believe ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... when he takes up some philosophic dilemma, or some quaint abstraction (viz., Certainty, Predestination, Idleness, Uxoricide, Prohibition, Compromise, or Cornutation) and sets the idea spinning. Beginning slowly, carelessly, in a deceptive, offhand manner, he lets the toy revolve as it will. Gradually the rotation accelerates; faster and faster he twirls the thought (sometimes losing a few spectators whose centripetal powers are not starch enough) until, chuckling, he holds up the flashing, shimmering conceit, ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... way down the stream, little elated at my solution of what at first had seemed a mystery, for I felt that Nick would have told me offhand all about it. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Whether Germany and the other States would still maintain their cohesion when they were no longer fighting units, and when the motives of conquest and defence were no longer in operation, is a question on which I should not like to dogmatize either way. Certainly we have no right to assume offhand that the unifying process which has given the nations the mass cohesion and efficiency they require for holding their own against enemy States would still remain in full power when there were no longer any ...
— Progress and History • Various
... resemblances of animals as being due to heredity, their differences as due to adaptation,[383] but he did not adopt Haeckel's crude and shallow definition of these terms. For Gegenbaur heredity was a convenient expression for the fact of transmission, and was not explained offhand as the mere mechanical result of a certain material structure handed down from germ to germ. Adaptation he defined in a way which took the fullest account of function, and was as far as possible removed from Haeckel's definition of it as the direct mechanical effect of the environment ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... taken off the 5.30 from Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... himself in his amazement. They were in a great hurry, too, to get him under the yoke, he thought; but they should find that a soldier on his way to the manoeuvres is not to be betrothed and married offhand. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried. "Every canyon 's got a trail that runs up a ways, and there's canyons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter out, like." ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... was something in the quiet man that had effectually prevented any development of roughness in Norah. Boyish and offhand to a certain extent, the solid foundation of womanliness in her nature was never far below the surface. She was perfectly aware that while Daddy wanted a mate he also wanted a daughter; and there was never any real danger of her losing that gentler attribute—there was too much in ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... between the fingers, showing it is not attached to the deep structures, and when it is so moved it is not tender or sore. Any little lump which ulcerates located on the genitals must be regarded with suspicion. Boys and men should not be satisfied with any offhand statement that, "it is nothing." It may be a chancre, and it may be exceedingly ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... memory, or offhand—Bonaparte never admitted any one to such secrets—instead of the proclamation he had dictated to Bourrienne two days earlier, he pronounced ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... His offhand manner covered a good deal of irritation. He made a shrewd guess at the idea in Fontenoy's mind, and meant to show that he would not be ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hopes and high aspiration, not even his friend Crowder. When Crowder rallied him about this treatment of the Alstons he had been short and offhand—didn't care for society, hadn't time to waste going round being polite. He left upon Crowder the impression that the Alston girls did not interest him any more than any other girls. "Old Mark isn't a lady's man," was the way Crowder excused him to Chrystie. Of course ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... the statue committee. Mrs. Frostwinch says Mr. Calvin's the man who has most influence in the committee, and it occurred to me that it would be a good thing if you'd put Mrs. Fenton up to taking my part with Calvin. You see," he continued, in an offhand manner, "artists don't get any show nowadays unless they keep their eyes open, and I mean to be wide awake. I'm ready to do a good turn, too, for anybody that helps me. John told me the other day that you and he had had a row, and if ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... incidental to the production of a difficult sound. He stopped suddenly and looked at me, half alarmed. This made me laugh more heartily, and he grasped my hand with the serious air of a physician feeling the pulse of his patient. Being assured there was no danger, he indulged in a little offhand cachinnation himself and was, I judged, well pleased with the trial, for he repeated it frequently afterward, and greatly ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... offhand just what I'll do, Don Manuel. Make your proposition to me in writing, and one month from to-day I'll let you know whether ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... consider," said Monica with a smile, "but one can't do these things offhand—that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy of you not to go there—she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's a pretty country. Have ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... asked to go further than this and to give offhand a definition of humor, or of that elusive quality, a sense of humor, he might find himself confronted with a difficulty. Yet certain things about it would be patent at the outset: Women haven't it; Englishmen haven't it; it is the chiefest of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... to prove it? He knew Riley's lines, and wrote them down. I doubt if the greatest poet that ever lived scribbled lines like that, offhand." ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... with his hat and staring hard at a pile of old ties just outside the window. He raised his head, and regarded her steadily. It was beginning to occur to him that there was a good deal to this Miss Georgie, under that offhand, breezy exterior. He felt himself drawn to her as a person whom he ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... entered. A young, exceptionally powerfully-built weaver; offhand, almost bold in manner. PFEIFER, NEUMANN, and the APPRENTICE exchange looks of mutual understanding ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... earthquake, Bird, at all events. Offhand I would say that a huge cavern had been washed in the earth and the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... that this was a grave, constitutional, legal, and historical problem not to be solved offhand by vehement citations from Scripture, nor by pragmatical dissertations from the lips of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... being always suspected of serving himself in some secret way in return. Still, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, and the position of affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little farther than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. For if those who gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which the whim of the moment may have ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... puzzling their heads over many matters connected with the golf course mystery. Jack had obeyed the colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand, informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for the same period was 66,255 bushels. All of which information, useful ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... style took on beauty and breadth, as if the man's soul were looking through wider and wider windows at the world. But it always remained the simplest of styles. In an offhand reply to a serenade by an Indiana regiment, or in answering a visiting deputation of clergymen at the White House, Lincoln could summarize and clarify a complicated national situation with an ease and orderliness and fascination that are the despair of professional historians. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... but he has some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers already a little gray. This is a very offhand portrait of so illustrious ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... have seen Lily when Trampy was driven to confess his discomfiture to her! He would have been revenged offhand! Lily seethed with rage against her husband, that footy rotter! What! Was that his great scheme? Did he call that an idea? How often had not Jimmy spoken to her about it! It was pinned on the wall, it lay about in the Gresse ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... say offhand. We'd have to figure that. That's another reason for filling the boat up, though. The more we have the less everyone's share of the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Hills, "there's nothing in it. My land, he's as offhand about 'em as if they were circulars, and I don't believe he answers one ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... receiving hours. As I held back, he repeated the invitation, but in vain. Broechner's influence was too strong. A few years later, in some dramatic articles, I had expressed myself in a somewhat satirical, offhand manner about Goldschmidt, when one day an attempt was made to bring the poet and myself ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... "historical perspective" to profitable account,—to write something that thousands were willing to read and to pay for. Thirty thousand was the number thus far; and that number, reached within six weeks, meant a hundred thousand before the "run" should be over. His method involved simply a familiar offhand treatment of royalty, backed up by an excess of beauty, bravery, sword-play, costume, and irresponsible and impossible incident. "The only wonder is," he said, "that I shouldn't have taken up with this before. Anybody can do it; almost everybody ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... of that arm, thin and white, D'Herouville felt all his ire ooze from his pores. He could not measure swords with this old man, who stood near enough to his grave without being sent into it offhand. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... contrast between this splendid structure, on which the costliest material is lavished and wrought in the most advanced style of Oriental art, and the soil on which it rises, in the wilderness amongst the native Hebrew nomad tribes, who are represented as having got it ready offhand, and without external help. The incompatibility has long been noticed, and gave rise to doubts as early as the time of Voltaire. These may, however, be left to themselves; suffice it that Hebrew tradition, even from the time of the judges and the first kings, for which the Mosaic tabernacle ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... at us a look fierce as any bonassus; while he asked, abruptly, what we thought in England of one whom he styled the "Demosthenes of Ireland"—looked at us for an answer. As it would have been unsafe to have answered him in the downright, offhand manner, in which we like both to deal and to be dealt by, we professed that we knew but one Demosthenes, and he not an Irishman, but a Greek; which, by securing us his contempt, kept us safe from the danger of something worse; but, our Demosthenic friend excepted, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... his own conditions and requirements, and should be able to form very exact ideas of just what he wants, and the doing so is, in my opinion, one of the most important requisites for satisfactory tomato growing. I also believe that it is as impossible for a man to answer offhand the question, "What is the best variety of tomato?" as for a wise physician to answer the question, "What is the ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... his Majesty the Sun of the tropics is not to be claimed offhand. The imperious luminary does not grant his letters-patent to all. Very few does he permit to wanton in his presence without exacting probation. He is a rare respecter of persons. Though there are faces, like King Henry V.'s, which the sun will not condescend ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... many, even among educated people, can tell you offhand how an American President is elected, what is the difference between a Republican and Democrat, or what is the position of the Governor of a State? Well, it will not be Mr. Harris' fault if the reader does not know how to answer these and kindred questions at the same time ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... tell them at the Office," said L., as he dipped his pen into the ink and continued the work he had been previously engaged in. F. said a few civil words—the offhand gratitude of a man who was fully as much in the habit of bestowing as of receiving favours, and withdrew. L. scarcely noticed his departure; he was deep in his despatch, and wrote on. At length he came to the happy landing-place, that spot of rest for the weary foot—"I have the honour to be, my ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... men were matched. Should they ever be pitted against each other, it would be impossible for anyone to determine offhand ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... indeed." The constable slowly drew out of his pocket the clews Tom had given him. "Could this be a piece out o' Bill's coat?" he asked in an offhand ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... Russian, or German, or English, or Danish, or Dutch, as the case might be. There were also some Americans. The great national types were more or less easy to discern—except the Americans. That is, Chip Walker could see no one whom he could recognize offhand as a fellow-countryman. Three gentlemanly, jovial Englishmen were easily made out, because, in Walker's phrase, they "flocked by themselves" and in the intervals of sitting in the Bundespalast complained that ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... must be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam, in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they, unless they are going to be Richard the Thirds, or ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... "Offhand, I'd say today was your day to be cautious, quiet and respectful to your betters, namely me. However," she added in a conciliatory tone, "since you put it on a Budget Control basis, I'll ask the Cow to give you a real, mathematicked-out, planets ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... do with Eeny-Meeny when we go home?" asked Gladys. That was a question nobody was prepared to answer offhand. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... hated to speak of money matters, yet he could not but mention the fact. When the money began to arrive he did not resent it by any means, as he was to buy a blood horse with it—no less. His letters have a jolly, bullying, but offhand and jerky tone, and they are very short. He gives Murray advice on publishing and is willing to advise the Government how ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... In political life it was his special glory to extemporize statesmanship without sacrificing pleasure. He could be at once the most reckless of rakes and the leading spirit in the Cabinet or the House of Commons. He seems to have thought that philosophical eminence was obtainable in the same offhand fashion, and that a brilliant style would justify a man in laying down the law to metaphysicians as well as to diplomatists and politicians. His philosophical writings are equally superficial and arrogant, though they show ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... picture. I wonder how he would have related it himself. He has confided so much in me that at times it seems as though he must come in presently and tell the story in his own words, in his careless yet feeling voice, with his offhand manner, a little puzzled, a little bothered, a little hurt, but now and then by a word or a phrase giving one of these glimpses of his very own self that were never any good for purposes of orientation. It's difficult to believe he will never come. I shall never hear his voice again, nor ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the disadvantage of ignorance. He did not know precisely how things stood, much less could he explain this sudden attack. Yet if the tall, lean man, serious and growing grey, represented one form of strength, the shorter, stouter man, with the mobile face and the quick brain, stood for another. Offhand he could think of no weak spot on his side; and if he must fight, he ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... regardless of expense or anything else and was returned a few years ago a finished product, sublime, though a little terrifying to look at, and reeking with knowledge of one kind or another. I have heard it said that DeLancey can tell offhand what has been the correct thing in dress for each of the last thirty-five years, and that he can handle as many as fifteen articles of cutlery and forkery at a ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... believe my ears. As you may observe, Mr. Holmes, my hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of sacrificing it in this offhand fashion. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... in April, as I'm drivin' home from the station with Sadie, who should step to the curb and hold me up but Mr. Bayne. Does it offhand, friendly, mind you. Course I stops sudden. Sadie bows and smiles. I lifts my lid. Mr. Bayne holds his square-topped derby against his white shirt front. We shakes hands cordial. And I'm most gaspin' for ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Wells' was in great feather—it had never known such times. Every house, every lodging, every hole and corner was full, and the great hotels, which more resemble Lancashire cotton-mills than English hostelries, were sending away applicants in the most offhand, indifferent way. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore of the opinion that it is best to accord freedom to dreams. Whether any reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not prepared to say offhand. Reality must naturally be denied to all transition—and intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the unconscious wishes, brought to their last and truest expression, we should still do well to remember that more than one single form of existence must be ascribed ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... forthcoming to give evidence against them; such can be purchased outside any cutcherry in India for a few rupees. The men were convicted. Some were given a choice between execution and service in the Nawab's army; others were sentenced offhand to a term of imprisonment, and these considered themselves lucky in escaping with their lives. In vain they protested their innocence and pleaded that a messenger might be sent to Calcutta; the Nawab was known ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... what is the use of haggling over the matter, and beating so long about the bush? One should know offhand the long and short of ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... whether she was not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. "It can't be decided offhand." ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... appears upon the scene. Probably it has been already ascertained that the male relatives have gone on a hunting or fishing expedition, but to make assurance doubly sure one or two of the party advance toward the women unarmed and make inquiries hi an offhand way. If the absence of the male relatives is confirmed, they thereupon seize the girl, and their companions rush out in full panoply from their hiding places and carry off the fair prize. By the time the girl's relatives become aware of the occurrence, the captors have eluded all ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... illustrated with so much success in Rienzi, so that, oppressed by a secret sense of shame, I had no serious rejoinder to offer to his candidly poisonous abuse. My line of defence was not yet sufficiently clear in my own mind to be available offhand, nor was it yet backed by so obvious a product of my own peculiar genius that I could venture to quote it. Moreover, my first impulse was only one of pity for the unlucky playwright, which I felt all the more constrained to express, because his burst of fury gave me the inward ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the little man was released offhand; but he looked nothing the less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or constable to rase out the written troubles in his brain, for they concerned another, whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself. When this was done, and the man had gone his way, ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... offhand description of Washington in these later days is that given by an English actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving near Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man and a woman was upset. Bernard dismounted to give help, and presently ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed for ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... to earth in a good-sized field. Woods horizoned the field on three of its edges and a sunken road bounded it on the fourth. She measured, I should say at an offhand guess, seventy-five feet from tip to tip lengthwise, and she was perhaps twenty feet in diameter through her middle. She was a bright yellow in color—a varnished, oily-looking yellow—and in shape ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... some lines, which I enclose to you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic merit; and Miss Nimmo tells me that you are not only a critic but a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerable offhand jeu d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo or you, if they were worth house-room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... embarrassing not to be able to remember offhand how large your family is, but mine seems to vary from day to day, like the stock market. I should like to keep it at about par. When a woman has more than a hundred children, she can't give them the individual attention they ought ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... horse and ride to Manzanita to interview old Vanney and a couple of other big guys from the East. My first story's on the wire," explained the newcomer offhand. "I want some local-color stuff for my ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... are best? Not which are the most intriguing, or cause the most hilarity, but which really and truly are the most useful for their purpose—that of conveying food to one's mouth in a convenient and graceful manner. Don't condemn Ann offhand. If I were to ask you this question, what answer ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... amorphous aerial regions, to which such definite words as "worlds" and "planets" seem inapplicable. And artificial constructions that I have called "super-constructions": one of them about the size of Brooklyn, I should say, offhand. And one or more of them wheel-shaped things a goodly number of square ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... does not convict him of untruth, and that pretends not to instruct him in the progress of the works of nature. When we read in Bouchet the miracles of St. Hilary's relics, away with them: his authority is not sufficient to deprive us of the liberty of contradicting him; but generally and offhand to condemn all suchlike stories, seems to me a singular impudence. That great St. Augustin' testifies to have seen a blind child recover sight upon the relics of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius at Milan; a woman at Carthage cured of a cancer, by the sign of the cross made upon her by a woman ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... often encountered the criticism that intelligence tests are superfluous, and that in going to so much trouble to devise his measuring scale he was forcing an open door. Those who made this criticism believed that the observant teacher or parent is able to make an offhand estimate of a child's intelligence which is accurate enough. "It is a stupid teacher," said one, "who needs a psychologist to tell her which pupils are not intelligent." Every one who uses intelligence tests meets this attitude ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... penholder, carved to resemble a chessman and with a hole in the top through which you could see four views of Nauheim. And, as for experience, as for knowledge of one's fellow beings—nothing either. Upon my word, I couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady who sold the so expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads to the station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whether the porter who carried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or no when he said that the regular tariff was a lira ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... you say, Andy," he remarked. "There is no proof as yet that any one we knew had a hand in this business. You may get in trouble if you mention names offhand. Go slow now. We'll find out the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... afterwards. It was a very grave and orderly council—one which would contrast favourably with many of our nineteenth century councils, for those savages had not at that time acquired the civilised capacity for open offhand misrepresentation, calumny, and personal abuse which is so conspicuous in these days, and which must be so gratifying to those who maintain that civilisation is the grand panacea for all the moral ills that flesh is ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... so far in advance of them but that the others could hear quite distinctly his offhand introduction of their party on the threshold, and the somewhat lukewarm response of the inmates. "We thought we'd just drop in and be sociable until the coach was ready to start again," he continued, as the other passengers entered. "This yer gentleman is Ned Brice, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... for them. Bad as they were, they knew they were not a match for the five individuals who faced them. The three men who had entered the room last were Jim terrors right on their looks, and their easy, offhand manner froze the blood in the veins of the conspirators. Girard attempted to face the matter by a display of nerve, but his attempt was pitiful in view of the situation as it at ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... in these days such a drug is renown, We've "Immortals" as rife as M.P.s about town; And not a Blue's rout but can offhand supply Some invalid bard who's insured "not to die." Still let England but once try our authors, she'll find How fast they'll leave even these Immortals behind; And how truly the toils of Alcides were light, Compared with his toil who can read ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... cost of an old house re-erected on a new site cannot be given offhand. There are too many elements to be considered. How extensive are the changes, how many baths, what type of heating system, are only a few. All are important factors that must be determined before the final figure can be set. So, the prospective buyer must have patience and understanding. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... Prohack ought to have been resuming his ill-remunerated financial toil for the nation at the Treasury, Bishop suggested in his offhand murmuring style that they might pay a visit to the City solicitor who was acting in England for him and the Angmering estate. Mr. Prohack opposingly suggested that national duty called ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... him. Royal societies, scientific associations, and the British government were debating what steps should be taken to find him. But they were very slow in coming to any conclusion, and while they were weighing questions and discussing measures, an energetic American settled the matter offhand. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... will be easy for these people to lay a finger at once on blots, however unfairly"), or {tois suggrammasi} (sc. my(?) compositions; so {auta}, S. 7 below, {ou gar dokein auta boulomai k.t.l.}) (e.g. "since it will be easy offhand to find fault with them incorrectly") (or if {ta me orthos}, "what is incorrect in them"). I append the three translations of Gail, Lenz, and Talbot. "Je sais combien il est avantageux de presenter des ouvrages methodiquement ecrits; aussi par le meme sera-t-il plus facile de prouver aux sophistes ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... into himself at this insolent and offhand definition. He was astonished and hurt at the tone of his friend. However, presently, he resolved to go through with it, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... imparts that which shows that his own conduct has been reprehensible or that he would enlist the support of his superior in some unworthy act, it is better to hear him through and then skin him, than to treat what he says in the offhand manner. An officer will grow in the esteem of his men only as he treats their affairs with respect. The policy of patience and goodwill pays off tenfold because what happens to one man is soon known to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Mrs. Barton,' he said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... answer such a question positively, offhand, but I don't, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition of ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... find that we are of some account in the world,' says Mr Desmond, in his offhand Irish way; 'but if you please, Miss O'Regan, we are as hungry as hounds, and as thirsty as hippopotami, and I'm sure you'll say a good word to get us ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... sealed several times, there was a sheet of paper, covered with close writing, which could not be read offhand, since the letters were apparently jumbled together quite ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... him little abrupt questions about the neighbourhood, his parish, his work, in a soft tone which had, however, a distinct aloofness, even hauteur. His answers, on the other hand, were often a trifle reckless and offhand. He was in a mood to be impatient with a mondaine's languid inquiries into clerical work, and it seemed to him the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... movement it has no importance. Only when that is done is it imbued with life. But how among countless suggestions is a "cause" to know the difference between a true invention and a pipe-dream? There is, of course, no infallible touchstone by which we can tell offhand. No one need hope for an easy certainty either here or anywhere else in human affairs. No one is absolved from experiment and constant revision. Yet there are some hypotheses that prima facie deserve ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... aimed at creating a musical equivalent for the Maeterlinck 'atmosphere,' The score of 'Pelleas et Melisande' is a pure piece of musical impressionism, an experiment in musical pioneering the value of which it is difficult to judge offhand. He has wilfully abjured melody of any accepted kind and harmony conforming to any established tradition. His music moves in a world of its own, a dream-world of neutral tints, shadowy figures, and spectral passions. The dreamy unreality of the tale ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the resting time passed in the country cottage, Scott found enjoyment in composing poems based upon some of the legends and superstitions with which he had become familiar in his jaunts among ruined castles and scenes in the Highlands. Some of these verses, shown in an offhand manner to James Ballantyne, who was the head of a printing establishment in Kelso, met with such favorable recognition that Scott was encouraged to lay bare to his friend a plan that had been forming in his mind for publishing a great collection of Scotch ballads. As a result Scott ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... expect me to answer offhand so momentous a question as that, do you? It is all very well, of course, for you, who have given the matter much careful thought, to feel so confident as you do that your plans are capable of realisation, but with me it is very different; the entire idea is absolutely new to me, and—if I may ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... seated in friendly converse around the soda fount of a Kansas drug store; and I want you to feel as free to talk back as though we had gotten into this difficulty by accident instead of design. Ask me all the questions you want to, and if I'm unable to answer offhand I'll look the matter up later and telegraph you—at your expense. With such unbounded liberty there's really no telling whither we will drift, what subjects we may touch upon; but should I inadvertently trample upon any of your social idols or political gods, I trust that you will ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... horrible tale. He declared that a little child had been barbarously sentenced by resident magistrates to a month's imprisonment for throwing a stone at a policeman. Some hard-headed or hard-hearted Yorkshireman, however, would not believe Mr. Waddy offhand, and challenged him to declare names, place, and date. On the 15th of November, Mr. Waddy gave the following particulars in writing. He stated that the magistrates who had imposed the brutal punishment were Mr. Hill and Colonel Bowlby, that the case was tried at Keenagh on the 23rd of April, ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... etc. Much virtue in that "etc." I cannot therefore regard The Triumphs of Sara (HUTCHINSON) precisely as the work of a beginner, though it has a freshness and sense of enjoyment about it that might well belong to a first book rather than to—I doubt whether even Mr. NORRIS himself could say offhand what its number is. Sara and her circle are eminently characteristic of their creator. You have here the same well-bred well-to-do persons, pleasantly true to their decorous type, retaining always, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... large one." He smiled amusedly at the thought of this hypothetical collection, and the grandiloquent tone in which he referred to it. "I can not say, offhand, ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... shy, she would sometimes raise her eyes from her book in school and find him gazing steadily at her like a timid deer drinking thirstily at a spring. Nancy did not like Cyril, but she pitied him and was as friendly with him, in her offhand, boyish fashion, as she ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it shall be turned to some good work. If I do not return, it will rest on your conscience that before you make your confession, you shall see it well placed for a charity. You'll have to find the charity, I can't say what it should be offhand now, but come with me. I must tell some man living my secret, and you're the only one. Besides—I trust you. Surely ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... del Toboso named, I was struck with surprise and amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he told me it meant, "History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian." It required great caution to hide the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and snatching it from ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... two ladies, he again appeared. Between two violent blushes, and with an air which would have been light and offhand if it could, Mr. Ransome presented to his friend, the foreman, his mother—and Miss Usher. And as if the foreman had not sufficiently divined her, Miss Usher's averted shoulders, burning cheeks, and lowered eyelids made it impossible for him to forget that she was the Lady whose approval was ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... replied with such offhand promptitude that I was certain the answer would have been the same had I asked him ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... cannot say, for King Valoroso roared out 'POOH, stuff!' in a terrible voice. 'We will have no more of this shilly-shallying! Call the Archbishop, and let the Prince and Princess be married offhand!' ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it? Write down what you would or could have said on the subject. Take two or three hours of leisure and quiet; write with great deliberation, but write on till the subject is concluded. No deferring, no bit by bit piecework, but all offhand. No correction, not a word to be altered; once written let it stand. Put the Essay aside for a month. Then criticize it with your best judgment—the order and sequence of facts, its verbal defects, its want or superabundance ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... things in mind, and recalling his well known ambitions to found a Greater Greece—by extending Epirus north along the Adriatic, and bringing the millions of Greeks of Asia Minor at least under the protection of the Government at Athens—that I mustered up my courage and asked M. Venizelos offhand if he felt confident of being able even to maintain the integrity of his country as it ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... luck," answered the watery-eyed young man with an offhand attempt at familiarity. "I'm his ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... cried Lucetta distressfully. "'Tis somebody else that I have married! I was so desperate—so afraid of being forced to anything else—so afraid of revelations that would quench his love for me, that I resolved to do it offhand, come what might, and purchase a week of happiness ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... was pat. I had seen several of the men snip the head from a rattlesnake with a single offhand shot—yes, they all carried their weapons easily and wontedly. But the target of an immobile can lacked in stimulation to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... nothing about it, in particular—nothing except that he would like to put them up for me. I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-houses all my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to appear (to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in an offhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eight lightning-rods put up, but—The stranger started, and looked inquiringly at me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make any mistakes, he would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... way along some watercourse, attracts little attention apart from that aroused by his clumsy, grotesque shape; yet few who look upon him are able to give offhand even a bare half-dozen facts about the humble creature. Could they give any information at all, it would probably be limited to two or three usages to which his body is put—such as soup, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... her, where she might wait while he went on alone to the house, and presently returned with both the good people of the farm. They were more offhand and less deferential than were her own people, but were full of kindliness. They were middle-aged folk, most neatly clad, and with a grave, thoughtful look about them, as if life were a much heavier charge to them than ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... either he did not or would not perceive it, and he sailed without showing me any preference. In six months he returned, and whether it was that he was told of by others, or at last perceived, my feelings towards him, he joined the crowd of suitors, made a proposal in his offhand manner, as if he was indifferent as to my reply, and was accepted. My father, to whom he communicated the intelligence as carelessly as if he were talking about freight, did not approve of the match. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... husband. His elation over all that was implied by her consulting him on so personal a matter, was almost lost in his feeling of annoyance. This made it plain that he must lose no time, but marry her offhand. What with her penchant for orphans and for foolish investments, she would make ducks and drakes of her fortune unless a ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... previous Sunday had been quite accidental, but his appearing a second time among her favorite haunts hinted of more than the fortuitous. Daylight was made to feel that she suspected him, and he, remembering that he had seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park, stated offhand that he was thinking of buying it. His one-time investment in a brickyard had put the idea into his head—an idea that he decided was a good one, for it enabled him to suggest that she ride along with him ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... not move her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities—Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remark—flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any unwatchful ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... contributions to the holy volume? And what had they exactly in their several individual minds, when they delivered their utterances? These are manifestly questions of historical fact, and one does not see how the answer to them can decide offhand the still further question: of what use should such a volume, with its manner of coming into existence so defined, be to us as a guide to life and a revelation? To answer this other question we must have already in our ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... had managed the fatality, thought the remark very offhand from a man in his position, comic even, and a ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... of the peculiar pattern of the pearl-shell fish-hooks? To this question, those who maintain that no handiwork of man exists which does not borrow from nature, or from something precedent to itself, may find a satisfactory answer offhand. As it weathers on the beach, the basal valve of the commonest of the oysters, of these waters occasionally assumes a crude crescent. Indeed, several of these fragments have at odd times attracted attention, for they have so closely ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... is effectuation in the only shape in which, by a pure experience-philosophy, the whereabouts of it anywhere can be discussed. Here is creation in its first intention, here is causality at work.[1] To treat this offhand ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Shakespeare never calls him the bard of Avon, or a bard of anything; and he reads him o' nights and ponders over him o' days while he is walking, or smoking, or at night again while he is waking in his bed. If he is too poor to buy a copy offhand, he saves up his pennies till he can get one, and he does not trouble himself about the commentators or the mulberry tree. He would not give two pence to sit in a chair made of it; for he knows that he could not tell it from any other chair, and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... be very rich," I said. "I wonder," I asked, "if I could sell him an automobile?" The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... few grief-saturated remarks. So was Perkins. Every one was confidently expecting Perkins to make the effort of his life and swamp the chapel in sorrow. He was in the secret and he afterward said that he would rather try to write a Shakespearean tragedy offhand than to write another funeral oration about a man who he knew was at that moment sitting in a pair of pajamas in an upper room half a mile away and yelling ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... tension between reality and the vision of the soul, the greater is the task and the more gigantic the creative power which such a task may develop. It has been said that, in this scene, Goethe revealed leanings towards Catholicism. I do not pretend to deny it offhand, but I must insist on these leanings being understood in the sense of my premises. Goethe took from tradition those elements which were able to materialise his spiritual life and gave them a new interpretation. ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... mind here, whether she realized it or not; and this touch the girl Corinne had given her. Now, too, impulse met convenient opportunity. For two weeks she had been thinking that if she did ever happen to go to the Works, she would make a point of going in some offhand, incidental sort of way, thus proving to herself and the public that she had not the slightest responsibility for whatever might be going on there. (How could she possibly have, no matter what Mr. V.V. thought, with ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... been a remarkable achievement if he had planned to do so and had learned up his speech; but the fact was that he was compelled to speak offhand on the spur of the moment. He describes the situation in a letter of February 6, 1894, to Professor ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... her go so easily. Assuming charge in a simple, offhand manner, he found a taxicab which took them to the South Station, led her to the ticket-office, secured a chair, and put her ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... given with an offhand cordiality decidedly prepossessing. Expressing my thanks, I at once accepted it in the spirit it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his impatience until breakfast-time, then strolled down to the bunk house, wearing the boots. Several of the men were there, just finishing the meal, and rolling their after-breakfast cigarettes. Whitey sat down, sort of offhand and careless-like, and to his pained surprise, no one noticed the boots. Then he crossed his legs and leaned back, with his hands clasped behind his head—and ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... they had already visited the Spray's deck, and would now, if they could, try her again. Their sea-boots, I have no doubt, would have protected their feet and rendered carpet-tacks harmless. Paddling clumsily, they passed down the strait at a distance of a hundred yards from the sloop, in an offhand manner and as if bound to Fortescue Bay. This I judged to be a piece of strategy, and so kept a sharp lookout over a small island which soon came in range between them and the sloop, completely hiding them from view, and toward which the Spray was now drifting helplessly with the tide, and with ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... works of all the great composers. Bill Opus and Jeremiah Fugue have no secrets from him—none whatever—and in conversation he creates the impression that old Issy Sonata was his first cousin. He can tell you offhand which one of the Shuberts—Lee or Jake—wrote that Serenade. He speaks of Mozart and Beethoven in such a way a stranger would probably get the idea that Mote and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb |
