"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with deliberation, observing closely, yet half-lazily—for his brain was slack and needed rest—the different types about him, musing on the possibilities of their lives, smiling at the gambols of the intent girls, and the impudent frolics of the little boys who seemed the very spawn of sand and sea and sun, till he had nearly passed the harbor, and was opposite ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... no' past wark. If I like, I can dae my darg wi' ony man,' he replied rather ironically. 'Pit oot the kale, Leezbeth, or we'll be burnt to daith. Are ye slack yersel' that ye can come ower here at wan o'clock in ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... plumb line to a nail or other suitable projection. On coming down to the lower floor it is often found that the bob has been secured either too high or too low. When fastening the line give it plenty of slack and when the lower floor is reached make a double loop in the line, as shown in the sketch. Tightening up on the parts AA will bind the loop bight B, and an adjustable friction-held loop, C, will be had for adjusting ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... a man already chastened by misfortune and fatigue. He went into the waiting-room and after a vain search for the poker—the new stationmaster evidently kept it in a different place—sat down in front of an irritatingly dull fire banked up with slack, and nursed his damaged hand and meditated ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... within a few feet of the surface of the water. Through these passages, the tide, especially the ebb, rushes with great velocity—six or seven knots at least—and vessels when leaving the lagoon, generally waited till slack water, or the first of the flood, when with the usual strong south-east trades, they could stem the current and avoid the dangerous "mushrooms." But no shipmaster would ever attempt either of these passages, except ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... but of the other two English knights, were so strong that he dared not express his discontent. He himself had twice been engaged with pirates, but had gained no particular credit, and indeed had, in the opinion of his comrades, been somewhat slack in the fray. He was no favourite in the auberge, though he spared no pains to ingratiate himself with the senior knights, and had a short time before been very severely reprimanded by the bailiff for ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... but for it, would have been employed for other purposes. Meanwhile the causes making for unemployment will be unaffected. Miscalculations will still be made, the building trades will still become slack in the winter, the casual methods of engaging dock laborers will still continue, trade cycles will still recur, while beneath them, and concealed by them, some industries will expand and others will decay. Thus, like the armies at Salonika, the new business ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... miser ever do for you?" the voice went on, "or his slack-twisted son for that matter? Let them stew in their own juice. Give me your word, and you'll be ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... is slack, He kicks a leather ball about; Recalls old tales of wing and back, The Villa's rush, the Rovers' rout; Or lays a tanner to a pup On Albion (not "perfidious") ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... He tried at once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not arrive ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sand eel, strained for a gallant run. Down on the thwart went book, pencil, and spectacles, and I had an exciting five minutes in midstream with an undoubted "fish." He fought like a Trojan—and then the line fell slack. The fish was off. How do they escape from these triangles? Caught lightly by one hook, I suppose, and, as a result, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... fussy—but I know 'em," said Collie, as Boyar, apparently terror-stricken at a manzanita that he had passed hundreds of times, reared, his fore feet pawing space and the traces dangerously slack. Louise bit her lower lip and quickly called Anne's attention to a spot of vivid color on the hillside. To Dr. Marshall's surprise, Collie struck Apache, who was behaving, smartly with the whip. Apache leaped forward, bringing Boyar down to his feet again. The doctor would have ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... A huge hand seized the slack of Thomas's shorts and the boy was heaved up to the muscular shoulder. The two faces were now on the same level and twinkling gray blue eyes were looking into ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... not this discourse cool your charity; lest, seeing the souls enjoy so much comfort in Purgatory, your compassion for them grow slack, and so continue not equal to their desert. Remember, then, that notwithstanding all these comforts here rehearsed, the poor creatures cease not to be grievously tormented; and consequently have extreme need of all your favorable assistance and pious endeavors. When Christ Jesus was ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... view. The train rumbled on; then it went from half speed to a stop with one jerk that brought a cry from the coaches. During the next second there was the successive crashing of couplings as the coaches took up their slack. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... of such a transformation, of putting immediate social convenience in the first place, and respect for truth in the second, are seen, as we have said, in a distinct and unmistakable lowering of the level of national life; a slack and lethargic quality about public opinion; a growing predominance of material, temporary, and selfish aims, over those which are generous, far-reaching, and spiritual; a deadly weakening of intellectual conclusiveness, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... made as to drop. A policeman caught her in his arms, but the woman shook herself free. "I sha'n't faint—no—I sha'n't faint," she gasped, "the cellar—look—look—" She ran forward and raised the head of the dead man. When the officers saw the dangling slack wire disappearing through a hole in the floor they grasped the situation. "The passage outside!" cried Deborah, directing operations; "the trap-door," she ran to it, "fast bolted below, and them ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... this evening, at this place, for the due consideration of this subject, such of the Assistants as may be here present in Boston, and to advise with them thereupon, when and where I shall hope to be favored with the presence and counsel of my friend, whose zeal is never slack in aught that may redound to ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... arrangements. For supper we had, not unleavened bread, but that which contained "the little leaven," that having had no time to "leaven the whole lump," rendered it still heavier of digestion; butter half-worked, tea made of water that did not get time to boil, and slack-baked cakes. I supped on cucumbers, and complaining of fatigue, was conducted by my kind aunt to the sleeping apartment next her own, as it would seem like old times to have me so near. What was wanting to make my bed comfortable, might have been owing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... crisis. When they go out to lunch, the younger ones leave their top-hats behind them, and take the air with plastered polls; and after lunch is over, young and old alike have a round of dominoes before placing threepence under the coffee-cup and returning to business. If business is slack, they tell each other jokes, which get into the papers with some such introduction as, "A good story going the round of the Stock Exchange." Probably it was going the round of the nurseries in 72, but the ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... heard a deep groan, and before he could even look up the master's mate fell forward, shot through the head. His boat took the lead. "Now's your time," cried Dick Rogers; "we'll be the first aboard, lads." The crew were not slack to follow the suggestion. In another moment they were up to the schooner, and, leaping on her deck, led by Pearce, laid on them so fiercely with their cutlasses that the Frenchmen, deserting their guns, sprang over the bulwarks into their boats on the other side nearest ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... Moors, Arabians, Ethiops black, Of the left wing that held the utmost marge, Spread forth their troops, and purposed at the back And side their heedless foes to assail and charge: Slingers and archers were not slow nor slack To shoot and cast, when with his battle large Rinaldo came, whose fury, haste and ire, Seemed earthquake, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... especially that of the morning, meekness, compunction, careful self-examination every evening, fasting, humility, alms, &c. In Pa. 43, p. 146, he thus apostrophizes the rich: "Hear this, you all who are slack in giving alms: hear this, you who, by hoarding up your treasures, lose them yourselves: hear me you, who, by perverting the end of your riches, are no better by them than those who are rich only in a dream; nay, your condition is fair worse," &c. He says that ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... cannot imagine how grinding our trade is— Long hours, and long waits, BOB, when custom is slack! When the premises hold one old gent and two ladies, 'Tis hard for twelve chaps to be kept on the rack. To knock off at five on a Saturday eases Our week's work a little. One evening in six Ain't more than the Public can spare—if it pleases— If only its hours 'twill ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... place behind the counter was uncongenial to him in many ways. There was too much in-doors about it, to begin with. From early morning until late evening he had to be at his post, with brief intervals for meals; and the colour was leaving his cheeks, and his muscles were growing slack and soft, owing to ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... oracles of God in all ages have testified from heaven how certain and possible it is, though many have found it in experience and left it on record to others, there is so slender belief of the reality and certainly of it, and so slack pursuit of it, as if we did not believe it at all. Truly, my beloved, there is a great mistake in this, and it is general too. All men apprehend other things more feasible and attainable than personal holiness and happiness in it, but ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... were little archipelagos of light made by groups of candles in front of great pale images. The church was comparatively empty, and most of the people present were kneeling in the chapels; for Christine had purposely come, as she always did, at the slack hour between the seventh and last of the early morning Low Masses and the High Mass ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Philadelphia, has republished The Ministry of the Beautiful, by HENRY JAMES SLACK, of the Middle Temple, London, consisting of a series of conversations on the principles of aesthetic culture. A vein of refined and pure sentiment pervades the volume; the style is often of exquisite beauty; but the discussion ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... get at some of the secrets to-morrow," he said, "but it will mean early rising, as the trap is to be hauled at slack water." ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the balcony, and then descend, taking with him the man on guard at the door. Apportion men and bags in all the boats but one. That one I shall take charge of. Put Greusel in command of the flotilla, and tell him to convey his fleet as quietly as possible to the eastern shore; then paddle up in slack water until he is, say, a third of a league above Pfalz. There he must await my skiff. You will stand by that skiff until I join you. I shall likely be accompanied by three women, so retain the largest and most ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... of either of the principal parties concerned; but even then the rude, open-spoken husband would consider himself absolved from any attention to an ill-favoured wife, and the free tongues of her surroundings would not be slack to make her aware of her defects. The cloister was the refuge of the unmarried woman, if of gentle birth as a nun, if of a lower grade as a lay-sister; but the fifteenth century was an age neither of religion nor of chivalry. Dowers were more thought ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spirit, and were eager to exert themselves with the utmost zeal." Here also, however, he was biding his time for obvious reasons; for to his wife he writes, "I have done them all like honour, but it is because I would not have the world believe that there were officers slack in their duty. Without a thorough change in naval affairs, the discipline of our navy will be lost. I could say much, but will not. You will hear of it from themselves;" that is, probably, by their mutual recriminations. Such indulgent envelopment of good and bad ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Cynthia went up to the hotel and oversaw the preparation of Jeff's meals and kept taut the slack housekeeping of the old Irish woman who had remained as a favor, after the hotel closed, and professed to have lost the chance of a place for the winter by her complaisance. She submitted to Cynthia's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... all their little discoveries and interests. Bill rode a good many miles that day, always beside a wire fence; and occasionally he would stop, dismount, and busy himself in some small repair, where a fence-post had sagged down, or the wire become twisted or slack. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... cushion against which the raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential—a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion of the effects ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... suit me better than a night ashore," said I with truth, for I had had enough of the drink, the slack language, and the rough sea life, and looked forward to the land with a pleasant ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... ma'am, for what age d'ye take me?" Cai caught up the slack of the rope and hitched it taut over his shoulder. He was rejuvenated. He made a spring for the ladder, and went up it much as twenty years ago he would have swarmed up the ratlines. "Make yourself small," he commanded, as Skin, at imminent risk of falling, drew to one side before his ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... brought all the firmness of his high character to bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can inspire those with whom ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... in later years prone to self-analysis). At preparatory school was fairly forward in studies, at public school somewhat backward, at University suddenly took a liking to intellectual pursuits. Throughout he was slack at games. Has never been able to learn to swim from nervousness. Can whistle well. Has always been fond of reading, and would like to have been an author by profession. He married at 24, and has had two children, both of whom showed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... back to Bungroopim—when it happened to be a slack day for you on the run, and when the married couple had levanted and I'd got an incompetent black-gin in the kitchen—or when the store wanted tidying and you and I had a good old spree amongst ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... every little detail of a man's past life. Not that I've been a Don What's-his-name. Far from it. Costs a bit too much, that game. You simply can't do it on sixty quid a year, paid monthly, and that's all there is about it. Not but what I don't often think of going it a bit when things are slack at the office and my pal in the New Business Department is out for lunch. It's the loneliness makes you think of going a regular plunger. More than once, when Tommy Milner hasn't been there to talk to, I tell you I've half a ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... market, for, unless they were overcrowded, the cod lived quite as contentedly in the tanks as in the open sea. But in one respect the fishermen were disappointed. They found that the fish arrived slack, flabby, and limp, though well fed and in ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... iron, with brass tap and steam-pipe. In other respects it resembles Fig. 4, with which it possesses similar advantages of construction. Either maybe had at varying prices, according to size, from L5. 15s. up to L23. 10s. They are supplied by Messrs. Richard & John Slack ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... everybody, he was made a common sport and jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. Now that he was grown to the ripeness of manhood he was still looked upon as being—to use a quaint expression—"slack," or "not jest right." He was heavy, awkward, ungainly and loose-jointed, and enormously, prodigiously strong. He had a lumpish, thick-featured face, with lips heavy and loosely hanging, that gave him an air of stupidity, half droll, half pathetic. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... sacred work demands not lukewarm, selfish, slack souls, but hearts more finely tempered than steel, wills purer and harder ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Mac called. "Let him think it out," as step by step Roper followed, the halter running slack on the water. When almost out of his depth, he paused just a moment, then, obeying the tightening rope, lifted himself to the flood and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the jib halliards, Mason. Lay out there, Bert, and get in that slack sail. It's blowing a bit. Gee, see that bank of wind ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... hour later they were light-heartedly demolishing an excellent dinner, and the manager of the Hotel de Loup was congratulating himself upon the acquisition of two unexpected guests during the slack season. Afterwards they made another pilgrimage up to the Roche d'Or ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... farm, they looked for the wife but she was not to be seen. The children had evidently gone up to the little white schoolhouse at the head of the lane. Radbourn let the reins fall slack as he talked on. He did not look at the girl, his eyebrows were drawn into a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... late in the night that they feared to attempt it then lest the dawn might overtake them while they were swimming. 'Twas a great pity, said Joe, that their wits had hung fire, like a damp flint-lock, for this was the night when the pirates would be the most slack and befuddled and it would be precious hard waiting through another day. Jack glumly agreed with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... exceptions to the rule; but, except those who provide certain requisites for eating and drinking which are in continual demand, there are few workmen in Paris or elsewhere in France, who have not every year quite enough slack time to perplex them. They can ill afford the interference of any small crisis in the shape of a strike, or large crisis in the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... fished up the stream; that is, the angler throws his line into the stream above where he stands, and allows it to float down opposite to him, when he makes another throw; by this means he always keeps his line slack, and the May-fly floats on the surface, which is essential to his success. I mention these two methods of angling because both are practised in bright weather, and therefore prove that fish both ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... to FRAYNE, and speaking volubly and violently.] Now, look here, sir, I'm a busy woman—as busy and as hard-working a woman as any in London. Because you see things a bit slack Ascot week, it doesn't follow that my books, and a hundred little matters, don't want attending to. [Sitting at the desk and opening and closing the books noisily.] And I'm certainly not going to have gentlemen, whoever they may ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... setting to my Lips, I winde so lowd and shrill, As makes the Ecchoes showte from euery neighbouring Hill: 60 My Doghooke at my Belt, to which my Lyam's tyde, My Sheafe of Arrowes by, my Woodknife at my Syde, My Crosse-bow in my Hand, my Gaffle or my Rack To bend it when I please, or it I list to slack, My Hound then in my Lyam, I by the Woodmans art Forecast, where I may lodge the goodly Hie-palm'd Hart, To viewe the grazing Heards, so sundry times I vse, Where by the loftiest Head I know my Deare to chuse, And to vnheard him ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... instant did the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to be rather slack at this time; and it struck Mr. Fenton all at once that he could scarcely have a better opportunity for wasting two or three days in a visit of duty to the Listers, and putting an end to his sister's reproachful letters. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... brood, which must live mainly by its wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils constituting the family furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, is familiar to all who live in cities. There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than these children of rich families, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... attended at the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by the vindication ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... "Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... himself just right when he talked to you and kept himself looking right up to the mark. His salary wasn't very big, but he had such a persuasive way that he seemed to get a dollar and a half's worth of value out of every dollar that he earned. Never crowded the fashions and never gave 'em any slack. If sashes were the thing with summer shirts, why Charlie had a sash, you bet, and when tight trousers were the nobby trick in pants, Charlie wore his double reefed. Take him fore and aft, Charlie looked all right ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... he was a very poor slack-twisted sort of fellow. Betty, I've never kissed you since you stood beside me as my little wife, twelve years and a half old! ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him— Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, Act i, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Lolling Table; where our Discourse is, what I fear you would not read out, therefore shall not insert. But I assure you, Sir, I heartily lament this Loss of Time, and am now resolved (if possible, with double Diligence) to retrieve it, being effectually awakened by the Arguments of Mr. Slack out of the Senseless Stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to demonstrate that Penitence accompanies my Confession, and Constancy my Resolutions, I have locked my Door for a Year, and desire you would let my Companions know I am not within. I ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... "Thursday is a slack day with him," she said rather gravely. "I assure you he works harder than most clergymen, and is very conscientious and painstaking. He is not at all strong, but he never ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... it be shot slowly from a slack bow (for if it be shot with too much speed the fire is extinguished), so as to stick anywhere, it burns obstinately, and if sprinkled with water it creates a still fiercer fire, nor will anything but throwing dust upon it quench it. This is enough to say of mural engines; let ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... his reason with firm hands he saw but one course to follow; but, when his mind went slack for a moment, the old desire to have her returned more strongly than ever, and he heard voices arguing, pleading, persuading—she was the equal of any woman in the world, they said, in mind, in purity, and in innocence. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the momentary slack tide of work, the giant had conceived the idea of searching out the driver crew for purposes of pugilistic vengeance. Thorpe's suspicions stung him, but his simple mind could see ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... polite native clerk, so the toil had to be done twice! Then to the post office at the docks; borrowed a rusty pen there from another native clerk and did a home letter. What a fine building it is, and what a motley slack lot of people you see there! Near me a group of half-naked natives were concocting and scratching off a wire between them, others squatted on the floor and beat up their friends black hair for small game. One man made netting attached to the rail round the ticket office, seated of course, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn, when the man's hand reached out and clutched him, half by the jowl, half by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no threat in that reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, all-confident, and it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. To him it ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... the clump of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm lassitude spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too hot ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... be mighty slack for the great gland specialist, Stanley Fenwick. Is this all he can find for his pretty nurse ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... of the head of the establishment sit and work in the shop along with the men. Their busy time is during the marriage season from November to June. A village tailor is paid either in cash or grain and is not infrequently a member of the village establishment. During the rains, the tailor's slack season, he supplements his earnings by tillage, holding land which Government has continued to him on payment of one-half the ordinary rental. In south Gujarat, in the absence of Brahmans, a Darzi officiates at Bhawad marriages, and in some Brahman marriages a Darzi is called with ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... guess it's done.' 'Now,' says the captain, 'look here, pilot; here's a rope you hain't seed yet, I'll jist explain the use of it to you in case you want the loan of it. If this here frigate, manned with our free and enlightened citizens, gets aground, I'll give you a ride on the slack of that 'ere rope, right up to that yard by the neck, by Gum.' Well, it rub'd all the writin' out of his face, as quick as spittin' on a slate takes a sum out, you may depend. Now, they should rig up a crane over the street door of the State house at Halifax, and when any ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... moved outdoors every spring and summer and lived the wholesome life of the outdoors for three or four months! We could not have "slack times." ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... classified as belonging high in the spectacular drama; when the horse, having finished the meal of cracked corn he had been enjoying by the roadside, with the reins thrown slack over his neck, suddenly lifted his head with an air of arriving at some instant conclusion and started merrily down ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... am I thus sequestred from the court? No notice? shall I not know the cause Of these my secret and suspitious ils? Accursed brother! vnkinde murderer! Why bends thou thus thy minde to martir me? Hieronimo, why writ I of they wrongs, Or why art thou so slack in thy reuenge? Andrea! O Andrea, that thou sawest Me for thy freend Horatio handled thus, And him for me thus causeles murdered! Well, force perforce, I must constraine my-selfe To patience, and apply me to the time, Till Heauen, as I haue hoped, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... watcher, was a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... on, devising reasons for not thinking too harshly of the Devil. Most of it was an abridgement of some verses Jurgen had composed, in the shop when business was slack. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the major was not noted by Joel and his set, in the excitement of receiving so many guests, and in the movement of the wedding. But, as soon as the fact was ascertained, the overseer and miller made the pretence of a 'slack-time' in their work, and obtained permission to go to the Mohawk, on private concerns of their own. Such journeys were sufficiently common to obviate suspicion; and, the leave had, the two conspirators started off, in company, the morning of ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... chain-anchor slack," I calls, "and then up with her jibs," which they did. "And now her fores'l—up with her fores'l." Then we broke out her chain-anchor. I was to the wheel and knew the second the anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. "Don't stop to cat-head that anchor," ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... went—but slack and slow: His savage force at length o'erspent, The drooping courser, faint and low, All feebly foaming went.... At length, while reeling on our way, Methought I heard a courser neigh, From out yon tuft of blackening firs. Is it the wind those branches ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... that compacting small coal into lumps is a wrong operation, and that we ought rather to think of breaking big coal down into slack? The idea was suggested to me by Sir W. Thomson in a chance conversation, and it struck me at once as a brilliant one. The amount of coal wasted by being in the form of slack is very great. Thousands of tons are never ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... introduction, "there's only the picquets. They have everything to themselves excepting that the Frenchies are just alongside. The Frenchies watch us close, but we watch them closer, and there's always a way. Rounds are not kept up the whole night, for everything is slack now, and when they are finished the fun begins. The reliefs, lying on the ground, strip off everything so that they can crawl like snakes and that no one can get hold of them. They crawl in through holes, over walls, with never a match or a light to show ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... very glad of this job, as times were slack. So he took the cloth, and at once set to work. Half of it he made into a beautiful dress for the Thrush, with a skirt and jacket, and sleeves in the latest fashion; and as there was a little cloth left over, and he was an honest Tailor, he made her also a pretty ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... rate, one per second for 5,600 years! This, however, is not probable; but Mr. Sorby's remarks has completely removed all doubt as to its physical possibility from the Darwinian theory; "and they prompt us," says Slack, "to a wonderful conception of the powers residing in minute ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... dialogue between Mr. Liversedge and his relative allowed Glazzard to keep silence, save when he exchanged a few words with his hostess or Miss Pope. He had a look of extreme weariness; his eyes were heavy and without expression, the lines of face slack, sullen; he seemed to maintain with difficulty his upright position at the table, and his eating was only pretence. At the close of the meal he bent towards Mrs. Liversedge, declared that he was suffering from an intolerable headache, and begged her ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... oven, but not too hot, or it would blacken the crust; on the other hand, if the oven be too slack, the paste will be soddened, and will not rise, nor will it have any colour. Tart-tins, cake-moulds, dishes for baked puddings, pattypans, &c., should all be buttered before the article intended to be baked is put in them: things to be baked on sheets should be placed on buttered paper. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... be paid them home [Footnote: Two lines in this speech appear to have been lost.] By the just gods, they with their impious vaunts Will be consumed and perish utterly. To cope with thy Arcadian goes a man Modest in speech but nowise slack in deed, Actor, his brother of whom last I spake, Who will not let a tongue without an arm Within our gates rave to our overthrow, Nor entrance give the foe, who on his shield To flout us bears the hated effigy. His Sphynx, midst rattling darts, ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... seems to have been very slack, especially for the big girls. This is how Mary describes it: "The liberty which the first class had was so great that, if we attended our tutor in his study for an hour or two every morning, no human being ever took the trouble to enquire where we spent the ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... light line, it was a long one, and the slack of it was now in the water, so that Dickory had to pull hard upon it before he could grasp enough of it to pass around his body. He had scarcely done this, and had made a knot in it, before a lurch of the brig brought a strain on the rope, and he ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... twenty-one pounds of meat: Lean pork, seven pounds; fat, seven pounds; round beef, seven pounds. Seven ounces salt; one and one-half ounces black pepper; one coffee cup powdered sage and summer savory; one teaspoonful cayenne, slack; one tablespoonful freshly ground ginger; one tablespoonful ground mustard. Get your meat ground at the butchers. Mix the sausage yourself. Mix spices all together with salt, working it through the meat ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... your good," said Torpenhow, not in the least with reference to past clowning. "It would let you focus things at their proper worth and prevent your becoming slack in this hothouse of a town. Indeed it would, old man. I shouldn't have spoken if I hadn't thought so. Only, you make a joke ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to it, little lady," said Crayford. "Happen when I'm gone, when the slave-driver's gone, eh, he'll get slack, begin to think he knows more about it than I do! He's not too pleased making the changes. I can ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... doorkeeper and orderly, always on the watch to welcome poor souls such as he was. He has had his share of trials since he was converted. Bronchitis and asthma often keep him a prisoner and make work slack. 'I don't have to look for troubles, they come trooping along, but grace keeps them company,' he says joyfully. Then a shade of sadness steals into his voice as he continues, wistfully, 'What was I doing to miss all those years? Wretched, terrible ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... up. The bicycles were brought round, and the four went gaily out of the front door to light lamps and see to suspiciously slack tyres. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... fish in gently, then suddenly gave it plenty of slack line. These tactics were repeated, while Dave and Greg almost ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... terror, and nearly leaps overboard on the opposite side of the boat I give unwillingly the word to fire. Many of the foremost savages fall—the rest hang back. We shove off. The oars are quickly got out. The moon rises. I distinguish the channel. It is almost slack water. We pull for our lives. Golding and Taro stand up and fire. The savages either do not see their comrades fall or do not dread the bullets, for they rush along the rocks still within a few yards of us hurling their stones and darts. I feel assured that if we strike a rock our ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... is consistent with the liberty of other people, but no more. If we could infuse the spirit of this kind of discipline into family and school life, making it systematic and continuous from the earliest years, there would be fewer morally "slack-twisted" little creatures growing up into inefficient, bloodless manhood and womanhood. It would be a good deal of trouble; but then, life is a good deal of trouble anyway, if you come to that. We cannot expect ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... pink jes' a-creepin' back T' the pale, drawn cheek, an' ye note a smile, Then th' cords o' yer heart that were tight, grow slack An' ye jump fer joy every little while, An' ye tiptoe back to her little bed As though ye doubted yer eyes, or were Afraid it was fever come back instead, An' ye found that ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... none, the disappointment set him in a flame of rage, which, burning like an inward furnace, parched his throat. And now he laid him down on the bank, to try if in the cool stream, that murmured as it flowed, he could assuage or slack the fiery ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... purpose of small gamblers, in a neighbouring street below the rooms of the Board of Trade. The lift used by members of the Board of Trade would be sent down to bring up from the open Board what was known as a "bucketful" of the smaller speculators, when business was slack. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... hands and the feet. Georgie had been conscious of walking a little lamely lately; he had been even more conscious of the need of hot towels on his face and the "tap-tap" of Mr Holroyd's fingers, and the stretchings of Mr Holroyd's thumb across rather slack surfaces of cheek and chin. In the interval between the hair and the face, Mr Holroyd should have a good supper downstairs with Foljambe and the cook. And tomorrow morning, when he met Hermy and Ursy, Georgie would be just as spick ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... in his motor-boat. He had been out to sea to lift his lobster-pots and he had been waiting at the entrance of Clam River for the tide to make the water deep enough for him to come up. On days when the tide was not so low he could come up all right, even at "slack water." But this time the channel was not deep enough for his motor-boat and he had ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the stretching-machine said, "Slack up!" ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had made a discovery which brought with it a ray of hope. He found that with an effort he was able to bring his teeth against the rope where it passed over his shoulder. His hands were tied behind his back, but with the slack he would gain after gnawing through the rope, he would be able to loosen them. They had taken his revolver, but they had overlooked the hunting knife he always carried within his shirt suspended from his neck—a precaution which ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... when a woman with child in the ninth month bringeth forth her son, with two or three hours of her birth great pains compass her womb, which pains, when the child cometh forth, they slack not a moment: ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... of slack or fine coal, through more careful methods of mining, through limitations on the excessive use of powder and larger use of wedges, through the abolition of laws for the payment of miners on a run-of-mine basis, and in the case ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... varied, and protracted by a constant succession of entertainments of various descriptions. Mr. Chalons exhibited many of his most surprising deceptions in the rotunda; where also young Gyngell displayed some capital performances on the slack-wire. In the long room the celebrated fantoccini exhibition, with groupes of quadrille dancers, enlivened the scene. In one walk of the garden, Mr. Gyngell's theatre of arts was erected, where were exhibited balancing, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... training of an eyas, or young hawk, which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was to ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the stars. He was taken to a log cabin, under three guards. They tied his wrists and elbows together behind his back, with buffalo-hide thongs that bit into his flesh. They put a noose close around his neck and fastened the end of the rope to a beam above, giving him just enough slack so ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... answer. "It will run out the cable and down the cab. I've left them plenty of slack to move around ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... iron ore?—no, that mud that the river leaves when it rises—'Gumbo' the people call it. Some fellow found by accident that it became red flint when fired, and was making a fortune selling it to the railroad." To burn it, he used the slack coal from the Jonesburg mines nearby, which until then had also been waste. I put a handful of the stuff in my pocket; and, after the conductor left us, I turned the whole enterprise over to the Goodwin part. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... are in that order from east to west. The Carillon Rapid is two miles long and has, or had, a fall of 10 feet the Chute a Blondeau a quarter of a mile with a fall of 4 feet and the Longue Sault six miles and a fall of 46 feet. Between the Carillon and Chute a Blondeau there is or was a slack water reach of three and a half miles, and between the latter and the foot of the Longue Sault a similar reach of one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... hard work against Napoleon for the easier, safer, and better paid work under the Stars and Stripes; while the mere want of any enemy to fight for the command of the sea after Trafalgar had tended to make the British get slack. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the lynx was cut into strips and fashioned into a rawhide line which Bill made fast to their belts, leaving plenty of slack to allow free use of the rackets. The rifle was left in the cave, and, muffled to the ears, the two stepped out ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... go home from their work at evening—drifting they go in droves, hurrying along. It is a startling thing to look closely at them. The people have bad mouths. Their mouths are slack and the jaws do not hang right. The mouths are like the shoes they wear. The shoes have become run down at the corners from too much pounding on the hard pavements and the mouths have become crooked from ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... journey, when he has got squaws and baggage with him, a red-skin never goes at a walk, and the horses will keep on at this lope for hours. That is right. Don't sit so stiffly; you want your legs to be stiff and keeping a steady grip, but from your hips you want to be as slack as possible, just giving to the horse's action, the same way you give on board ship when vessels are rolling. That is better. Ah! here comes Pete. I took this way because I knew it was the line he would come back by—and, by gosh, he has got ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... withdrew the money from the bank, and, when business got a little slack, in the afternoon set out in search of a clothing store. Dick knew enough of the city to be able to find a place where a good bargain could be obtained. He was determined that Fosdick should have a good serviceable suit, even if it took all the money they had. ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... warrior, six or seven years old. His claws were an inch and a quarter long, and curved like simitars. His forefeet and his left hindfoot were free, and as Kazan advanced, he drew back, so that the trap-chain was slack under his body. Here Kazan could not follow his old tactics of circling about his trapped foe, until it had become tangled in the chain, or had so shortened and twisted it that there was no chance for a leap. He had to ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... furnaces at the works of Ougree, near Liege. The works produce 20,000 tons of puddled bars per annum, in fifteen double furnaces. The consumption of coal per ton of ordinary puddled bar is under 11 cwt., and per ton of "fer a fin grain" (puddled steel, etc.) 16 cwt. The gas is produced from slack, and the waste heat raises as much steam as that from an ordinary double furnace. The consumption of pig iron per ton of puddled bar was rather less than 211/2 cwts. for the year 1882; and that of "mine" for fettling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... counted him for her own knight, grew wroth with him, and on a certain day she called him to her chamber, and said thus: "Sir Lancelot, I daily see thy loyalty to me doth slack, for ever thou art absent from this court, and takest other ladies' quarrels on thee more than ever thou wert wont. Now do I understand thee, false knight, and therefore shall I never trust thee more. Depart now from my sight, and come no more within ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... imbecility—applies to old men of unsound character, not to all. Appius governed four sturdy sons, five daughters, that great establishment, and all those clients, though he was both old and blind. For he kept his mind at full stretch like a how, and never gave in to old age by growing slack. He maintained not merely an influence, but an absolute command over his family: his slaves feared him, his sons were in awe of him, all loved him. In that family, indeed, ancestral custom and discipline were in full vigour. The fact is that old age is respectable just as long ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... his way on the parched Paroo and the Warrego tracks once more, And lived like a dog, as the swagmen do, till the Western stations shore; But men were many, and sheds were full, for work in the town was slack — The traveller never got hands in wool, though he tramped ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... the posts notes the time of each courier's arrival and departure; and there are often other officers whose business it is to make monthly visitations of all the posts, and to punish those runners who have been slack in their work.[NOTE 6]) The Emperor exempts these men from all tribute, and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... an ague, the prospector stood. His face had gone chalk white under its dirty stubble of beard. He looked sick and even more unwholesome than usual. From his slack jaws poured a constant whining of ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... that I need a new coat," he said. "I told Pietro when things were slack that he could make me one, but he gets lots of orders now. See the little girl in the corner? She's going out—no, she's going to stay here; they've found her room at that table. I suppose you'd turn your nose up at her because she has a lot too much powder on her ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a small spar and a block, to which a line and an iron bar were attached. The men looked strange in her eyes at that distance. In the marvellously clear light she could see their features distinctly, and, when Courtenay shouted to a sailor to haul in the slack of the line, she caught a trumpet-like ring that recalled the scene in the saloon when he held back the mob of stewards. His athletic figure, silhouetted against the shimmering green of the water, was instinct with graceful strength. He looked a born leader of men, and, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... hard facts soon restored the equilibrium of his naturally prudent soul. The worst feature of the army was not that it had been beaten, but that it had not been commanded. The reins of discipline had been so slack that licence and indulgence had sapped its fighting strength. The tyranny of circumstances demanded a peaceful sojourn in the province, and Albinus resigned himself to ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... serve incorporate some cream and fine butter, garnishing with some chopped oysters and mushrooms, mixed with breadcrumbs and herbs. Add a little seasoning of salt, pepper and nutmeg, some raw egg yolks, and roll this mixture into ball-shape pieces, place them on a well-buttered baking sheet in a slack oven and poach them, ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... time occurred one of the periodic anti-Semitic movements whereby government officials were wont to clear the forbidden cities of Jews, whom, in the intervals of slack administration of the law, they allowed to maintain an illegal residence in places outside the Pale, on payment of enormous bribes and at the cost of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... abruptly short-pointed, four-angled; shell thick, brittle, 1.4 mm.; partitions thick, corky; cracking quality good; kernel bright light yellow, sutures broad, open, shallow, secondary ones almost lacking, sometimes slack at bottom end; texture rather open; ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... already uplifted, riding crop in hand. "Let me go!" Her voice was so low that he hardly heard it, but full of a thousand threats. Then, swerving her horse quickly to one side, she jerked the bridle from his slack fingers and was off ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... month with Smith, but as it was the slack time of the year there was little routine work on the station, and much of our time ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to him. Ha, Dennet, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge |
