"Understudy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dark leather handbag. Clo helped her into the long gray coat which covered her evening dress; and the two stole out of the flat like flitting shadows. They went down in the elevator, but the hall-porter was off duty for the night, having left a young understudy ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... imagination, and brought him up sharply against the realization of danger. He had ceased to see Nan alone. Bivens's increasing devotion had made this easy and on Harriet's return from Europe with an engagement as understudy in grand opera his life settled down once more to the steady development of his ideal of service to the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... representation of Hernani to be given as a benefit for the sufferers in the Royal Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels. The star who had undertaken "Dona Sol" fell ill ten days before the performance was due. The Comedie was much embarrassed, for the usual understudy of the indisposed actress was an amiable echo, with little talent. Mounet-Sully thought immediately of Esperance and obtained permission to make whatever arrangements he could with her. His arrival at the ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... pull together," the plump girl continued, very much in earnest. "No hanging back—no squabbling over little things. If Ruth Fielding can write a picture play we must all do our prettiest in acting in it. Why! I'd play understudy to a baby elephant in a circus for the sake of helping build ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... as Brennan's "leg man," the newspaper term for understudy, John became acquainted with the men in Los Angeles who appear almost daily in the news. He met Le Compte Davis, Paul Schenck, Joe Ford, Dick Kittrelle, Al MacDonald, W. I. Gilbert, Frank Dominguez and Jud Rush among the lawyers; the district attorney and his staff of deputies; "Bud" Hill, ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... cars, greasing up, and changing tires in a country garage down in the San Juan." He paused for a moment. "Before that I was chaperon to a stable full of horses on a Salinas ranch. I've tried being a carpenter's helper, an assistant gardener, understudy to a suburban plumber—and other things too numerous to mention—in the last three months. I think the most satisfactory thing I've tackled was the woods up ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... understand, however, that once having given out a part, I should not attempt to take it from the girl I had given it to simply because some other girl desired it. That would be both unfair and unjust. The only thing I could promise you would be to allow you to understudy Rosalind in case anything happened to Miss Pierson. Would you care to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... of simple human charity she was called upon to perform? Could it not be considered something similar to acting as an understudy—continuing a role which had been left with some last lines unsaid by the principal actor? Why need she hesitate to respond to the urgent appeal for comfort and for help? "No brightness—only darkness, until you came. Ah, dear love! the shadows when you ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... wasn't just he shouldn't get what he paid so dearly for. I gathered together what money I could, and went to Africa steerage. I found I couldn't do anything there about searching for Sid, so I resolved to be his understudy and bring fame to him, if it was possible. I sank my own identity, and made up as Sidney Ormond, took his boxes, and sailed for Southampton. I have been his understudy ever since; for, after all, I always had a hope he would come back some day, and ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... Coghlan had been taken ill just before the raising of the curtain, and, there being no understudy, no performance had been given and the audience dismissed. All this was duly commented upon by the New York morning newspapers. Edward read this bit of news on the ferry-boat, but his notice was in the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... earnest, very dutiful, anxious to please Terriss, listened eagerly to the suggestion during an understudy rehearsal. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... at that. But we can't go on pretending to study this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Find by looking at the name beneath, one Roxanne Milbank, who had been chorus girl and understudy in "The Daisy Chain," but who, by reason of an excellent performance when the star was indisposed, had gained ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... operations, they taking almost all the profits and the depositors and policy holders taking almost all the risk. It had never once occurred to me to have any feeling of any kind about Tom, or in any way to take him into my calculations as to Anita. He was, to my eyes, too obviously a pale understudy of his powerful and fascinating brother. Whenever I thought of him as the man Anita fancied she loved, I put it aside instantly. "The kind of man a woman really cares for," I would say to myself, "is the measure ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... Understudy for Driver; 3. Butler; 4. Footman; 5. Veterinary Surgeon; 6. Carpenter (if wheel comes off, &c.); 7. Handy working Orator (to explain to people that we're not a Political Van); 8. Electrician (in case horses go lame, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... always quoted the text 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof' to him, until at length he sent for the family Bible and ruled it out with red ink in a rage. But I say, do you think that we shall be called upon to understudy St. ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... win for Wrykyn by two goals and a try to a try. But the calculations of the school had been upset by the sudden departure of Paget at the end of term, and also of Bryce, who had hitherto been regarded as his understudy. And in the first Ripton match the two goals had both been scored by Paget, and both had been brilliant bits of individual play, which a lesser man could not have ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... she said, "if I'm to get any dinner before the theatre. I would have liked to stay, and put my poor little understudy on, so as to give her a chance. She's a nice little girl—not half stupid, and really keen to learn and to work. But I can't. I'm in honour bound to appear to-night. You see, it's our second century—the first one we could not observe, because it ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... to show you a point-lace scarf," I snapped. Nebuchadnezzar's understudy squeezed himself out from behind the counter, and lumbered a step or two nearer me, moving not straight ahead, but from side to side, as tables do ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to follow. The Infant Samuel, making fresh appearance in new part of understudy of Chancellor of Exchequer, conceded point of procedure made by Radical Cave. Promised objection should be fully met. Holt, amid ironical cheers from Opposition, said in these circumstances would not move amendment. Incident reminded Walter Long of story of the Colonel and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... full of that sort of bright ideas. Well, now he has found that I am not all his fancy painted me, he wouldn't come away with me; and I want you to understudy me while the going is good. In the fifth reel, which will be released to-night after the household has retired to rest, you will be featured. It's got to be tonight, because it has just occurred to me that Ogden, knowing that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may go to him with ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... or a strong arm. But why be downhearted? I haven't drunk up all my Christmas presents yet. As a last hope I can load upon them and get some kind ambulance to drag me up to the dippy department of some nice hospital. Honest, I am getting so thin that before long I won't be able to understudy a drop of water in ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... dear George Alexander that I would have been only too pleased to understudy Irene in the new piece—in fact, it would have just suited me, Mr. Rathbone, and left me plenty of time for my social engagements too. Besides, if I once got a chance of a part like that I feel I should have made a hit. Oh, it was a cruel disappointment! After being too charming to me—or, ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... man becomes a millionaire you may have him for a competitor, but even with this risk, it is much wiser than to try to carry all the burden yourself. A multimillionaire should raise a goodly brood of millionaires, and of necessity does. Wise is the man who sees to it that he has an understudy. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... by Poppy's song that it was broad daylight, was awake and splashing in his bath. Again in Poppy's mind (how unnecessarily) he stood for the respectabilities and proprieties; he was an understudy for Tiny of ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... up. That was Tom, but we call him 'Jephson' in the house. He was one of Michael's stud grooms, but he is engaged to one of the housemaids, and I found he so very much preferred being in the house, so I have arranged for him to understudy Lawson, and he is growing side whiskers. I shall have to break it to Michael on his return from Norway. This way, Jane. We have put you in the Magnolia room. I knew you would enjoy the view of the lake. Oh, I forgot to tell you, a tennis tournament is in progress. I must hasten ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... his name or his person. The landlord was an intelligent, good- looking young fellow; he told them that he was lately married, and they liked him so much that they were sorry to see him afterwards privately boxing the ears of the piccolo, the waiter's little understudy. Perhaps the piccolo deserved it, but they would rather not have witnessed his punishment; his being in a dress-coat seemed to make it also ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... proprietor himself. Uncle Noah made a critical pilgrimage about the store, pausing at last before a counter where the proprietor had laid out a number of turkeys for the careful inspection of this beaming shopper about to select an understudy for the incomparable Job. A very respectable fowl was presently mantled in brown paper and laid beside the other bundles, along with sundry bags of cranberries and apples, oranges and nuts, celery and raisins, cigars for the Colonel, a box of candy for Mrs. Fairfax, huge ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... came to New York to get a start. Though she bore one of the most distinguished and honored names in the profession, she sat around in agents' offices for six months, beating vainly at the door of opportunity. Finally she got a chance to understudy Elsie De Wolfe, who was playing with John Drew, in "The Bauble Shop," at the Empire. One day when that actress became ill this seventeen-year-old child played the part of a thirty-two-year-old woman with great success. Understudies then became ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Taylor by twenty; but both established their reputation before middle age. Lowin at twenty-seven took part with Shakespeare in the first representation of Ben Jonson's Sejanus in 1603. He was an early, if not the first, interpreter of the character of Falstaff. Taylor as understudy to the great actor Burbage, a very close ally of Shakespeare, seems to have achieved some success in the part of Hamlet, and to have been applauded in the role of Iago, while the dramatist yet lived. When the dramatist died, ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... preacher should aim at developing on his own lines, thinking in his own way and expressing his thoughts in their own native dress. No matter how eminent the paragon you admire, do not become an understudy of him. Remember he is great only because he is himself and not the imitation of another. Try, however, to get at the secret of his greatness. What is it? He discovered his strong points and cultivated them. Go ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... mother of the incomparable—Penelope, has heard that I am a famous business woman; a worthy understudy for Mrs. Hetty Green; so she came to me for advice. She had a letter from a New York broker offering her a fraction more than the market price for her three thousand shares ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... old, if indeed he had not already done so. It was obvious that he could not last much longer—perhaps a year; not more—and it was necessary, therefore, to find an understudy. Irish terriers had been a part of the household for many years. Yet another must be discovered, though, as all agreed, there could ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... set you on me, has he, to pull me away from what I think is right? He wants me to be like the rest of 'em, eh? I can be an understudy for Herbert Linton and an errand boy for the State machine! I didn't think, ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... dollars to the madam of a fashionable brothel." Having thus secured adequate funds, she assembled a number of out-of-work actors and actresses and engaged them to accompany her on a twelve months' tour in Australia. Except for Josephine Fiddes (who was afterwards to understudy Adah Isaacs Menken, of Mazeppa renown) and, perhaps, her leading man, Charles Follard, they were of ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... deal of his time in New York now," the letter read, "and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I'm going. I shall stay as long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won't get the condition ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... business until they get their emotions or their hair touched up too much. Then you want to have a flat footed, heavy breathing man with sandy whiskers, five kids and a building and loan mortgage ready as an understudy to take her desk. Now there was that widow lady that me and Andy Tucker engaged to help us in that little matrimonial agency scheme we ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... this time Van Dyck was busying himself as understudy, by making love to Rubens' wife. Rubens was a score of years older than his pupil, and Isabella was somewhere between the two—say ten years older than Van Dyck, but that is nothing! These first fierce flames that burn in the heart of youth are very apt to be for some fair dame much older than himself. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... holes; there was "the trail," hard and firm, in the full pride of present patronage, defying the invasion of the boldest blade of grass; and by the side of it, faint and shadowy, like a rainbow's understudy, ran "the new trail," strong in the certainty of being ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... the stage; nor did he violate his oath, for when he afterwards played Harlequin another actor of his size, and of considerable activity was equipped with the parti-coloured habit, and when a leap was necessary Vandermere passed off on one side of the stage as Dawson—Vandermere's understudy—entered at the ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... assented good-humoredly. "I believe another month or two of it would have worn me out. It's considerably pleasanter and more profitable to act as your understudy; but a fairly proficient carpenter might have ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... to inspire an abiding faith that the white man should be, must be, will be, lord paramount of this planet. I promise you that when you elect me to the presidency, nothing that's black, yaller or tan gets an office under my administration. I shall certain not follow Mark Hanna's understudy and fill the departments at Washington with big, fat, saucy blacks, to employ white women as stenographers and white men as messenger boys. There's lots of good in the Senegambian—lots of it; but not in a thousand years will he ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... typewriters in his managerial room at the Regent. He received me very courteously. "Yes," he said in response to my question, "the rumour is quite true. The principal part in 'The Orient Pearl' will be played on the first night by Miss Euclid's understudy, Miss Olga Cunningham, a young woman of very remarkable talent. No, Miss Euclid is not ill or even indisposed. But she and I have had a grave difference of opinion. The point between us was whether Miss Euclid's speeches ought to ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... that if Marah Adams could be brought out of herself and interested in some work, or study, it would be the salvation of her reason. Her mother told me she is an accomplished musician, but that she refuses to touch her piano now. I thought you might take her as an understudy on the organ, and by your influence and association lead her out of herself. You could make her acquaintance through approaching the mother who is a milliner, on business, and your tact would do the ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tall, thin, aristocratic boy—spoke solemnly. He was a dandy, the understudy—as John soon discovered—of one of the "Bloods"; a "Junior Blood," or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on "swagger," a stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... eleven dollars a week; but painting was his forte—if he only had time to devote to the technique! Yet all the arts being one he had written a play; he also modeled in clay and sang tenor parts as understudy to the great Schudenfeldt. Hope, good-cheer and a devotion to art were the distinguishing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... play of this pentalogy Heywood has to cope with no such matchless models or precursors; and it is perhaps the brightest and most interesting of the five. Sinon is a spirited and rather amusing understudy of Thersites: his seduction of Cressida is a grotesquely diverting variation on the earlier legend relating to the final fall of the typical traitress; and though time and space are wanting for the development or indeed the presentation of any more ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was an honest nonentity who left the country in disgust because he was not backed up by the Government. Several modern figureheads would be very much surprised at any Government expecting them to do more than 'understudy Royalty.' But Cowper thought himself a diplomatist; was fond of authoritatively laying down the law on continental affairs, as though he had the refusal of the Foreign Office in his pocket; and felt he ought to have as much support as Palmerston obtained from the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... practising games for the 'Sylumites,'" explained Zura. "I'm premier danseuse to the Nipponese kiddies and Lady Jenny is my understudy. What's the argument?" she asked, observing first one face, then the other, keenly alive ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... no excuse for loafing away any halfer. His services as referee were in demand, not merely as a matter of utility, but of preference. Taylor, who had watched rather anxiously Todd's progress, smiled easily at the success of his understudy. ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... over the short tangents and lifting her around the curves in breath-taking spurts. Later this expedient began to lose its fillip. Since the train was running wholly on the air-brakes there was nothing for the fireman to do, and Jackson, the loyalest understudy Gallagher had ever known, tumbled from his box in a doze, staggered across the gang-way into the half-filled tender, and fell like a man anaesthetized full length on the coal. Gallagher did not ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... idea of the original appearance of the other pyramids, which have lost their casing. These two pyramids very probably belong to kings of the Hid Dynasty, as does the Step-Pyramid of Sakkara. They strongly resemble the Giza type, and the northernmost of the two looks very like an understudy of the Great Pyramid. It seems to mark the step in the development of the royal pyramid which was immediately followed by the Great Pyramid. But no excavations have yet proved the accuracy of this ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... have emigrated. I love him dearly, but I'm fonder of myself, and Corsica, large as it is, is too small to contain Napoleon Bonaparte and his brother Joseph simultaneously, particularly as Joseph is distinctly weary of being used as an understudy ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... 44. THE UNDERSTUDY by Johnson Morton (Harper's Magazine) is an ironic character study developed with much finesse in the tradition of Henry James. Its defect is a certain conventional atmosphere which demands an artificial attitude on the part of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... constant taking of pulse and temperature, to say nothing of hypodermic injections at those awful moments when there seems no pulse to feel. It means that no one woman, be she ever so competent, can keep up the fight single-handed for twelve hours at a stretch, and that an understudy to work under her may mean the very turning of the scale. I have been understudy by night, and proud I am to record that Nurse proclaims me unusually "handy" for a member of the "laity". Hour after hour we have fought together for the little darling's life, while ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... than acting as understudy for an absent g.p.," said I, a little enviously. "But you deserve to succeed, for you were always a deuce of a worker, to ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Sally contended, "she's got some chance, some right to hope for better things. She's an understudy, and her principal might fall ill—or something. That's better than marrying a man you don't care for—or clerking at Huckster's ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... fragments and pebbles, that, as soon as they were dry, became as dull and homely as the flints upon a garden path. I have toiled at this childish pleasure for hours in the strong sun, conscious of my incurable ignorance; but too keenly pleased to be ashamed. Meanwhile, the blackbird (or his tropical understudy) would be ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Jack, mockingly. "Perhaps it was a dream. Perhaps I had an understudy over there. Perhaps a whole lot of things. But the one positive fact about which there isn't any doubt is that I'm here ahead of you, and you've lost out ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... "But you know how easy a queen like her can pick up an understudy. Some have been mighty busy lately, too; one in particular. And I don't mind sayin' I'd hate to see ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... the several instructors in my studios, who have had long stage experiences and specialized training for their jobs, the Stage Manager is able to answer any question that can come up concerning stage matters, and he is able to understudy and play most ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... and had laid by in the bank nearly a thousand dollars; so I went to the head of the firm and made the proposition that I should work at the office each day until one o'clock and be paid half of what I was then getting—that is, fifty dollars a month. In the afternoons an understudy should sit at my desk, while ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... hopeless toil by the Man with the Hoe. He might have found nearer home a better illustration of the work that is never done, that has no inspiration to lighten it and looks for no appreciation to glorify it, in the Woman with a Broom." "She is understudy to a perpetual motion machine," was one of her epigrams. She referred to the many successful business and professional women at the convention ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... enough to tell her of the extraordinary likeness which existed between the two and had let her read his first wife's love-letters. She brooded over these facts now that he neglected her. She realised that she had inherited all the first one's pet names, that she was only her understudy, as it were. It irritated her and the attempt to win him for herself led her into all sorts of mischief. But she only succeeded in boring him, and in silently comparing the two women, his verdict was entirely ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... minutes something happened which completely altered the current of Peggy's thoughts. Mellicent's partner called attention to something at the opposite end of the room, and the girl turning to look at it, her understudy naturally followed her example, and straight-way forgot Mellicent and her doings for the rest ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... tevil didn't you zay zo? demanded the manager. 'How am I to know? Gif her a zovereign,' he whispered, 'and ask her if she vants anything—bort-wine or chellies. You know.' Then he turned, roaring: 'Vere is Miss Lawrence's understudy? Zing, if you please, Miss Clewes. I never sbeak to beobles twice. You may go home, Miss Lawrence. Dell Villips if you want anything, ant I'll zee to it. Vy the tevil don't beobles zay when there are things the madder at home? Now, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... coat over his pajamas and stamped his bare feet into his boots. "Oh, I tell you, Clay," he said with a grim chuckle, "we're mixing right in with the four hundred, we are! I'm substitute and understudy when anybody gets ill. We're right in our own class at last! Pure amateurs with no professional record against us. Me and President Langham, I guess!" He struck a match and lit the smoky wick in ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... the grains of wheat at the order of mother-in-law Venus! Psyche had all the kingdom of ants to help her. But who helps Peter? One can't suppose that he's rich enough to fling all his salary to an understudy while he gads. Yet I've seen him going to his room with a sheaf of papers which would keep the nose of a common secretary at the grindstone for six or seven hours, whereas P. S. is free to do as he pleases in less than ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... I've saved my stamps since then. Well, I've got a small staff." Anthony heaved a sigh of relief. "Two old carters, two carpenters, three magnificent sailors—all deaf, poor chaps—and a little lame engineer. But I haven't an understudy.... I hope you'll like it, and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... desolated the Lydenburg district; the hero of the cave affair in which men, women, and children were closed up in a cave and burnt to death or suffocated; a man who is the living terror of a whole countryside, the mere mention of whose name is sufficient to cow any native. Mr. Schoeman is the understudy of Abel Erasmus, and is the hero of the satchel case, in which an unfortunate native was flogged well-nigh to death and tortured in order to wring evidence from him who, it was afterwards discovered, knew absolutely nothing about the affair. The Queen, or Chieftainess, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and the captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... returned home? He had been nominated for alderman. It is too early to predict the fate of this unhappy man. And what tools Fate uses with which to carve out her devious peculiar patterns! An Apache Indian, besmeared with brilliant greases and smelling of the water that never freezes, an understudy to Cupid? Fudge! you will say, or Pshaw! or whatever slang phrase is handy and, prevalent at the ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... shall be dead—or the man waiting for me on the street corner... I shall not tell him my decision until the last moment. I don't want to give him the chance to work in an understudy or complete the job himself... Will you go to Hilmer to-morrow and warn him?... He arrives from the south at the Third and Townsend depot somewhere around eleven o'clock. Advise him to postpone the launching. And have the approaches ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... I am afraid, the obvious end of things," he explained. "You have given me a run for my money, I confess. A Monsieur Guillot who is remarkably like you, still occupies your box at the Empire, and Mademoiselle Jeanne Lemere, the accomplished understudy of the lady who has just left us, is sufficiently like the incomparable Louise to escape, perhaps, detection for the first few minutes. But you gave the game away a little, my dear Guillot, when you allowed ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this far, Bob, and you must pull yourself together so as to go through the game today," Jack went on to say, warmly. "If you failed us our goose would surely be cooked, you know, because the fellow who has been practicing as your understudy at fullback is a mighty poor fish, and Marshall will know it as soon as the first period is over, especially if they push us hard, and he breaks down, as he's pretty ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... regular "man," O'Hagan would attend one or another of the tenants in the capacity of substitute valet: as in the present instance, when Maitland, having left his host's roof without troubling even to notify his body-servant that he would not return that night, called upon the janitor to understudy the more trained employee; which O'Hagan could be counted upon to do ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... thrilling adventures of my brave comrades by word of mouth. I know I'm little and perhaps my suit would not have fitted Miss Juanita as well as my friend Hamilton's, but it was not because of my size that unkind fate singled him out for the hero part and left me not so much as an understudy. It was pure hard luck, and now I demand, as the slighted party, that the story of the rescue from the Spanish prison be told in the minutest detail for the benefit of the assembled company by those who acted the principal parts. Captain Dynamite, I ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... horse I'll ride out and see them myself. My understudy can perhaps stand another day with the sheep without going crazy. When I come back I may be in a better position to call upon the lady doc and talk it over. She's fond of me, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the fact is, I am not at all ashamed, nor do I mind confessing exactly what I have done. My talent is my own, and it is my opinion that the world will crowd after me all the more because I have done this daring thing, and you, my poor little understudy for the time being, will be my understudy no longer. I take the part of leading lady once for all myself. I am coming up to London to-morrow, and will call to see you, as, on consideration, I think that fourth story which you are preparing for the Argonaut might as well appear ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried to get me to understudy the hired ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... during business hours. He was aware that it would be a matter of some delicacy to leave the bank at that hour. There was a certain quantity of work still to be done in the Fixed Deposits Department—work in which, by rights, as Mike's understudy, he should have lent a sympathetic and helping hand. 'But what of that?' he mused, thoughtfully smoothing his hat with his knuckles. 'Comrade Gregory is a man who takes such an enthusiastic pleasure in his duties that he will go singing about the office ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... the mill, and I came at once. I haven't been here since May, and I just thought I'd take a half a day off. Luckily, my understudy was with me. I left ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... music as a phenomenon natural to churches, and failed to connect it with human agency. Sedately she set out Theodora's bows and ruffles to the best advantage. Carefully she rearranged the floral decorations of the perambulator, and set her elastic understudy in erratic motion. Complacently she surveyed the whole and walked out into the sunshine—free. And presently the minister, the intricacies of a new hymn reconciled to the disabilities of a lack of ear and a lack of training, came out into the body of the church, ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... began, with a pretty show of girlish confusion, quite foreign to her usual bold method of reaching out for whatever she coveted, "I would like to ask you if I might understudy the Princess. Of course, I know that I can't sing as Miss Stevens sings, and I wouldn't for the world wish anything to happen to prevent her from singing on the great night, but I am so fond of music that it would be a pleasure ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... them to advance their own ambitious designs. Antony and Octavius struggle with each other to catch the reins of power which have fallen from his hands; Dolabella, who seems to regard himself as an understudy of Caesar, plays a serio-comic part in Rome in his efforts to fill the place of the dead dictator; while Decimus Brutus hurries to the North to make sure of the province ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... and when the holidays were over, including my own, which not unnaturally took me to Venice,—"Italiam petimus" should always be the motto of an English youth,—I returned to take up the position of a weekly leader-writer and holiday-understudy, a mixed post which by the irony of fate, as I have already said, had just been vacated by Mr. Asquith. Here was an adventure indeed, and I can say again with perfect sincerity that for me the greatest delight of the whole thing was ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... should be allowed existence. The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of Germany is such that there can be no room on the earth for another than itself. Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To the masses that is their God's will. Their God is an understudy of their Kaiser." ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... explaining to Fillmore stopped Sally. And while she was chafing at this new complication which had come to upset the orderly routine of her life there was an outburst of voices in the other office. Ginger's understudy seemed to be endeavouring to convince somebody that the Big Chief was engaged and not to be intruded upon. In this he was unsuccessful, for the door opened tempestuously ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... during the rehearsal of the Italian opera. Shall I ever forget that treat? It was much greater in my eyes than the real performance later on. If my memory serves, "Don Giovanni" was the opera. One of the principals was suddenly taken ill, and this rehearsal was called for the benefit of the understudy. He was a dumpy, puffy little Italian, and played the heavy father. Madame Titiens was—well—the heavy daughter. In the first scene she has to throw herself upon her prostrate father. This is the incident I saw ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... while he telegraphs," said Nita with finality. "We can't understudy a monkey. Josephine Boyd, come here and go through your long speech. I want to be sure that you get it right. It didn't make sense the way ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... precisely the same position in which Lloyd had carried hers, she swept down the aisle in such exact imitation of the other maid of honor, that every one who had seen the first wedding was convulsed, and Kitty's whisper about "Lloyd's understudy" was passed with stifled giggles from one to another down ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... first. He let me understudy Victoria Lafontaine, a young artist very much in vogue just then, who had the most delightful talent. I played in La maison sans enfants, and I took her role at a moment's notice in Le demon du jeu, a piece ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... actress there's no such word as 'cannot,'" she said bitterly. "I could play a part to the finish, and crawl off the stage to die the next instant; yet no one would have guessed that I was dying. I have no understudy. What use to have one? What audience would stop in the theatre after an announcement that their Maxine's understudy would take her place? Every man and woman would walk out and get his money back. No; for the sake of the man ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... worth having—nothing really worth father's years of hard work—could come to them as a family until Peter Rolls ceased to identify himself personally with the Hands, Ena had pleaded, and at last the head of the establishment engaged an official "understudy" to represent him every day in the gorgeously furnished office which had seemed to old Peter what the body is ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... her eyes.] I was a pupil of Tedder's for twelve months, and then he got me on at the Canterbury; and from the Canterbury I went to Gatti's, and from Gatti's to the Lane, for a few lines in the pantomime and an understudy— my first appearance in the West End— [singing] "Oh, the West End is the best end!"— and from there I went to the old Strand, and there Morrie Cooling spotted me, and that led to me being engaged at the Pandora, where I ate my heart out, doing next to ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... every year. Bless you! I don't want to 'fill a little space,' and I particularly don't want 'a heart at leisure from itself'; I think that is such a dull, old-maidish sort of thing to have—I wouldn't have one for anything. People who have hearts at leisure from themselves always want to understudy Providence, ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... those negroes' private patches were all green and small and not up to indemnity standard. But in the private patches of three other negroes there was a number of competent melons. I consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the board. He said that if I would approve his arrangements he would arrange. I said, "Consider me the board; I approve; arrange." So he took a gun and went and collected three large melons for my brother-on-the- halfshell, and one over. I was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... she burst out radiantly, "Oh, I had such luck. I was only the understudy, and doing minor parts, when the soprano was taken ill in the second act and I went in and scored a triumph. It was 'Love Tales of Hoffmann' and when I sang the 'Barcarolle' they recalled me seven times! That is they recalled us both—it's sung ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... and kept laughin' at nothin'; but I've knowed lots o' queer people as had more sense than them as wasn't queer, and there's no denyin' as he's knowledgeable in sheep." The result was that Toller was forthwith appointed as an understudy to Snarley Bob. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... discussed plans and possibilities, and if all goes as she expects (I don't see why it shouldn't), I ought to be freed from the unpleasant role of understudy in five or six weeks. The instant my chains are broken by a telegram from the bride saying, "Safely married," or words to that effect, I shall do "all my possible" to fold, my tent like an Arab and silently steal—not to say ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... filled with the desire of taking possession that she had wept hot tears about, but on each of these occasions Bordenave had refused to give her even the shortest leave and had deferred her holiday till September on the plea that he did not intend putting an understudy in her place, even for one evening, now that the exhibition was on. Toward the close of August he spoke of October. Nana was furious and declared that she would be at La Mignotte in the middle of September. Nay, in order to dare ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... by an impassable barrier drawn round her, a circle that was gradually becoming narrowed. She had begun to know that she was being incessantly watched. If Emile were occupied with the business of the Society, and could not fetch her from the Hippodrome himself, he never failed to send an understudy in the shape of one of his allies, generally one of the older men. When she emerged from the performers' entrance a silent figure would come forward to meet her. Often they exchanged no words ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... now? could I go yet? At last it really was time: I scraped the dirt off, and made myself smart, turning my cloak inside out, so that the clean side might be uppermost. Among the numerous guests assembled at the door, whom should I see but the very man whose understudy I was to be, the invalid, in a litter! He was evidently in a sad way; groaning and coughing and spitting in the most alarmingly emphatic manner; ghostly pale, puffy, and not much less, I reckoned, than sixty years old. He was a philosopher, so they said,—one of those who ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... therein beforehand; but this he had not done, and the result was that at three o'clock Jarley found himself in the attic involved in a furious game, in which he represented variously Harvard, the goal, the goal-posts, the referee, and acting with too great frequency as understudy for the ball. What he was not, Jack was, and the worst part of it was that there was no tiring Jack. The longer he played, the better he liked it. The oftener Jarley's shins received kicks intended for ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... morning and I am determined to get this letter written if I break up a dozen parties. As you see, I am in Shanghai, this wonderful big understudy for Chicago, which seems about as incongruous in its surroundings as a silk hat on a haystack! There are beautiful boulevards, immense houses, splendid public gardens, all hedged in by a yellow ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... thinking herself metropolitan, just as those who take their styles from the metropolis feel themselves well dressed. The very Corinthian clerks and grocery boys, lounging behind their counters and in the doorways, the lawyer's understudy with his feet on the window sill, the mechanic's apprentice, the high school youths and the local sporting fraternity—all imitated their city kind and talked smartly about the country "rubes" who came to town; never once dreaming that they themselves, when they "go to town," are as much a ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... girl who was an actress, and on tour in the country she nearly drowned herself one day. When the star heard of it, he said: "How should we have played to-night if you'd been dead—without an understudy, too?" ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... his word to play but the part of an understudy in this drama before he had seen Sancie, else never would he have consented to the compact. King Louis had indeed explained it to him before sending him to Aldobrandino, and Richard had demanded carelessly: "Of ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... this extra work required attention, and Edison solved the difficulty of attending also to the newsboy business by the employment of a young friend, whom he trained and treated liberally as an understudy. There was often plenty of work for both in the early days of the war, when the news of battle caused intense excitement and large sales of papers. Edison, with native shrewdness already so strikingly displayed, would telegraph the station agents and get ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the garden, and in the company of those people we had towed down behind our steamer. They were with their friend, the gardener, and, claiming their acquaintance as fellow-passengers, we made favor with him to see the house. The housekeeper, or some understudy of hers, who received us, said the family were away, but she let us follow her through. That is more than I will let the reader do, for I know the duty of the cultivated American to the intimacies of the gentle English life; it is only with the simple life that I ever make free; there, I own, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... file into the dining room in solemn silence behind the imperturbable Waters, with dubious glances at Mr. Waters' imperturbable understudy in green and buff and silver buttons. Honest red hands, used to milking at five o'clock in the morning, and hands not so red that measured dry goods over rural counters for insistent female customers fingered in some dismay what ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... accomplished monotonously, the conversation drifting into a discussion, in the course of which mention was made of actors, singers, theatre, prices of admission, 'make-ups,' stage management, and music. It was in Birmingham that Ashton, Leslie's understudy, sang the tenor's music instead of her own in the first act of the Cloches: and poor So-and-so, who was playing the Grenicheux—how he did look when he heard his ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... A ring horse is one that just goes round the ring for the bareback riders and equestriennes to perform on. The human being is the "star", and the horse in only a secondary performer, a sort of understudy; yes, that's it, an understudy—he has to study how to ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... he, and never had his voice been so friendly as in these regretful accents, "don't try to go on to-day. You're evidently not yourself. Go home and rest for a few days. We'll get along with your understudy, Miss Esmond. When Mr. Crossley wants to put you in again, he'll send for you. You mustn't be discouraged. I know how beginners take these things to heart. Don't fret about it. You can't fail ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... but little better than they had been in the theatrical business. Many good men and women, too, were out of engagements, and every available part was quickly snapped up. Mr. DeVere had waited long enough for this opening, and now to have to put on an understudy when the play was on the eve of opening, might mean the loss of his chances. Theatrical managers were uncertain at best, and an actor in an important part, with a voice that would not carry beyond the first few rows, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... dreamer. Not at all! I am practical, a man of affairs. Are you content with your position in the Comedie Moderne? No, you are not. You occupy a subordinate position; you play the role of a waiting-maid, which is quite unworthy of your genius, and understudy the ingenue, who is a portly matron in robust health. The opportunity to distinguish yourself appears to you as remote as Mars. Do I ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... unfortunate, she thought, that Colonel Dermot, with his extraordinary knowledge of and influence over the Bhutanese, had left India. But even without him the power of the British Empire would be set at once in motion to avenge this outrage on an Englishwoman. Dermot's understudy, the Assistant Political Officer, faithless lover though he was, would do all he could to save her. Assuredly she would ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... us to warm up to her," contradicted Mademoiselle Eloise, a pale, light-haired sprite, who had arrived late and was making undignified efforts to get out of her clothes by way of her head. She was Polly's understudy and next in line for the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... away," he went on presently, "and keep you from Pierre until he has given up his search and has gone West again. And I can take you at once—in a day or two. Your understudy can fill the part. This engagement is almost at an end. I can make it up to Morena. After all, if we go, we shall be doing Betty and him ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... any vacancy that may occur, you want to make sure that there are two men in the office who understand the work of each position in it. Every business should be bigger than any one man. If it isn't, there's a weak spot in it that will kill it in the end. And every job needs an understudy. Sooner or later the star is bound to fall sick, or get the sulks or the swelled head, and then, if there's no one in the wings who knows her lines, the gallery will rotten-egg the show and howl for its money back. Besides, it ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... up faces," advised the old man, amiably. "Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he can't manage it very well ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... at that, and she said yes, there were windows, plenty of them, only she didn't see how she could get out. And I said she would HAVE to get out, because I was playing Bella in the performance, and I didn't care to have an understudy. Then the situation dawned on her, and she sat down and laughed herself weak in the knees. Of course she wanted to stay, then, and see the fun out. But I was firm; she would have to go, and I told her so. Things were complicated ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... engaged his passage to Cherbourg on a ship that was to sail at the end of the week. That would give Billie's answer time to come. Or—just madly supposing she cared enough to have an understudy play her part for a few days—it would allow time for a wonderful surprise, and the greatest proof of love a girl could ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... been called the gift of prolonged adolescence, and in this sense, surely, there was genius in the warm and gentle heart of this fortunate provincial who held that "old Indianapolis" was "high Heaven's sole and only understudy." No one has ever had the audacity to say ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... city accent! Ah, you wish to bite off bits of slang? My friend, they are green! Every grape you pick breaks in your jaws, for city grapes are glass bubbles! Having taken from the sparrow only his make-up and grimace, you are just a clumsy understudy, a sort of vice-buffoon! And you serve up stale old cynicisms picked up with crumbs in fashionable club-rooms, poor little bird, and think to astonish us with your ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... "pish-ot") who did what he was told in order that some other man who did know why might carry out a threat to blow up somebody who had refused to be blackmailed. It is practically impossible to get inside the complicated emotions and motives that lead a man to become an understudy in dynamiting. Rizzi probably got well paid; at any rate, he was constantly demonstrating his fitness "to do big things in a big way," and be received into the small company of the elect—to go forth and blackmail on his own hook and ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... CHARLOTTE, married Richard Charke, a violinist, from whom she was soon separated. She began as an understudy to actresses in leading parts, but quarrelled with her manager, Charles Fleetwood, on whom she wrote a one-act skit, The Art of Management (1735). She also wrote two comedies and two novels of small merit, and an untrustworthy, but amusing Narrative of Life of ... Charlotte ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... had gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not really the keeper of a Pension for Jeune Filles, but had drifted into it owing to her husband's disastrous descent from pulpit into cellar— understudy for some one who had forgotten to come on. The Postmaster, too, had originally been a photographer, whose funereal aspect had sealed his failure in that line. His customers could never smile and look pleasant. The postman, again, was a ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... humor which set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions of his countrymen; and the cartoonists made his features and gestures familiar to many other millions. On his Western trip, Roosevelt for a companion and understudy had Curtis Guild, and more than once when Roosevelt lost his voice completely, Guild had to speak for him. Up to election day in November, the Republicans did not feel confident, but when the votes were counted, McKinley had a plurality of over 830,000, and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... following afternoon he called upon Mrs. Hind-Willet's understudy, the blue-eyed little ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... principal earthenware manufacturers than some of the manufacturers did themselves. But he did not live for accountancy. At five o'clock every evening he was capable of absolutely forgetting it. He lived for music. He was organist of Saint Luke's Church (with an industrious understudy—for he did not always rise for breakfast on Sundays) and, more important, he was conductor of the Bursley Orpheus Glee and Madrigal Club. And herein lay the origin of those Friday nights. A glee and madrigal club naturally comprises women as well ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... laughed freely and easily nowadays. His first wife had been a sort of understudy for a saint, and after a brief but depressing connubial experience she had died, leaving him with a boy of six; a boy who already, at that tender age, seemed to cherish a passionate aversion to virtue in any form—the result, perhaps, of daily doses of the catechism ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... part? Fanny proposed Joan for the vacant place, but Brown was dubious, and Joan herself not at all anxious for the honour. She had more or less understudied the part, every member of the chorus took it in turn to understudy; but the question was whether it would not be better if Fanny's understudy took the part of the Princess and Fanny played Franzi. It was a character which she had often scored it. Against this had to be set the fact that ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson |
