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Understudy   Listen
noun
Understudy  n.  One who studies another's part with a view to assuming it in an emergency.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Understudy" Quotes from Famous Books



... 'em. They're all right in 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 ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... had 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

... bottle and cut-glass tumbler, a curlicue French mirror slightly awry and, on her desk, a gay-bordered silk handkerchief, a silver-mesh bag, and a great amount of cluttered notations; all of which proved that the understudy secretary had not yet ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... know about that? Grover White, the world's dancing tenor, and Hal Sanderson the world dancing tenor's understudy, drafted! The little tin soldiers are covered with rust and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... practising making 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 ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... William G. Lee, who had served in many subordinate offices in local lodges before he had been chosen First Vice-Grand Master in 1895. For fifteen years he was a faithful understudy to Morrissey whose policy he has continued in a characteristically fearless and thoroughgoing manner. When he assumed the presidency of the order, he obtained a ten-hour day in the Eastern territory for all train and yard men, together with a slight increase in pay for ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... fierce temptation through which he had fought had left its scar, sobered his 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 Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... luncheon he conducted us to the workshop—say fifty yards from the house. Thither the guests had been conducted by the physician in charge's understudy and sponge-holder—a man with feet and a blue sweater. He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face; but the Armour Packing Company would have been delighted with ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... from observation, puts on a cloak of sand, and a cousin assumes a resemblance to an irregular piece of coral—rugged, sea-stained and rotten. But the variety under notice takes a higher place in the deceptive art, for it seems to pose as an understudy to one of the most nimble and vicious habitants of the sea—the banded snake. It lies coiled and folded among the stones and coral of the reef, or partially hidden by brown seaweed, which heightens its momentary effect upon the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... 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 ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... up the elevator and the little scout, roaring like a thousand express trains, shot up through the mist and disappeared from the watchers on the road in the low-hanging clouds, bearing to the bereaved and saddened staff of One-Three-One Hector O'Brien's understudy. ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... 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 your quarry to ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... play that part? (Taking her hand.) JULIA (withdrawing it). Care to play it? Certainly not—but what am I to do? Business is business, and I am bound by the terms of my agreement. ERN. It's for a long run, mind—a run that may last many, many years—no understudy—and once embarked upon there's no throwing it up. JULIA. Oh, we're used to these long runs in England: they are the curse of the stage—but, you see, I've no option. ERN. You think the part of Grand ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... railway-stations, and institutes, and churches, author, antiquarian, and senior partner of Farquhar and Farquhar, leant back in his office chair and turned it sideways to give more point to his remarks. Before him stood an understudy, whom he was sending to superintend the restoration work ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... cheerfully disentangled by the bulky 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, ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... 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 ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... 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

... 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 ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... 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 view. Both pyramids have been entered, but nothing has been found ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... an act 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 do ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... 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 ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... 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 of her true self. But not the kind of man she imagines she ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... Hutton's, 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

... "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

... for. If we want a ring horse, he has to be a quiet sober-going animal, not too well-bred and fiery. 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 keep under ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... pounds. I did it myself, single-handed, in seven days.... 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 stay. It's a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various

... 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 ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... seemed there was a soda fountain set up to fizz and to spout; and the books of Fowler & Givens showed the name of a new customer to replace each vanished old one. So trade ran its even course, and Red Hoss was retained temporarily to understudy, as it were, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... 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, Miss Presson, ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... Martie just seemed inspired, the way she talked when old lady Preble died. Miss Fanny, in the Library, began to entertain serious hopes that the girl would take the Cutter system to heart, and make a clever understudy at the old desk. Sally, watching, dreamed and yearned of Martie's distinction, Martie's happiness; Lydia prayed. Malcolm Monroe, as became a man of dignity, ignored the whole affair, but Len, realizing that various advantages accrued, befriended his sister, and talked ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... again. He 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, ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... fractions. The 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 of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... 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 for seven ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Where is the understudy to read Miss Lyston's part? You haven't got one! I knew it! I told you last week to engage an understudy for the women's parts, and you haven't done it. I knew it, I knew it! God help me, ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... 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, Lowin was forty, and ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... had arrived on the hill, with two other scouts: Tait, and "Chips" whose real name was Charley White. "Chips" imitated Buffalo Bill in every way; seemed to think that Bill made the world. He was Buffalo Bill's understudy. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... 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 reader. Its admirable distinction ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... important and most perfunctory of speeches. Not he. Into every syllable he would pour real meaning, real conviction. At last, after twenty years of yearning from the wings, chance did rush him on as an understudy. Unfortunately, he was assigned to the role of the page in "King John," who must march into the throne-room and announce the ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... of 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 and Miss Winch ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... Carroll 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 ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... 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 ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... at 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

... was not such a bad person: had he been born poor and driven a dray, or been understudy to a grocer, he would very likely have evolved into a useful and inoffensive citizen. The tragedy all arose from that bitter joke which the stork is always playing: sending commonplace children to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... Duncan noticed that she had turned a little pale,—"Mrs. Penrose wired me news of all this only a few hours ago. She is half frantic at the idea that she must go on tomorrow afternoon and evening; yet the understudy is ill, and she felt it was too short notice to ask you to make a change now. But it occurred to me to come to see you about it. I want to ask you a favor. I want you to let me play Mrs. Penrose's part tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night. I've played Mabel Vane a hundred times; ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... 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 be clearly ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... 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 which made a great success. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... fallen down and sprained her ankle. Who was to play her 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 Fanny's ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... 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 I ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain and willing feet; for to see any ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... 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

... 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 ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... revived 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 enough ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... think I should 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 for ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... launch swung around the neighboring island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around within easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking understudy stepped ashore—alone. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... cordial as the lady had been, and proffered any assistance which I might need during my sojourn on the island. When they took their leave, the Sand Lady urged me to inhabit her island as long as I pleased, and hoped that I and the Understudy would sometimes sail over to them, and see what it was to be on a Tangent. At this I shook my head, and they all laughed at me; but it was easy to see that they were people of ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... has often 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 that of ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... and a flexible diamond tiara, into a 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

... 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 ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... for a understudy?" he ses, laughing. "They all thought it was you. There wasn't one of 'em 'ad the slightest ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs

... had come to his coffers, in trying to keep his little estates intact; but now it was all gone, and long ago he had died of grief and bitter disappointment; the Hereditary Grand Duchy of Baumenburg-Drippe was ruled by a cousinly understudy of the German Emperor William the Second; the one son of the marriage had been adopted, as heir to his crown, by the childless King of Hungaria; the handsome and lamentably extravagant old Duke of Northmoreland was dead; his title and vast estates had passed ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... 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 ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... 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 ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... 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 ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... 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

... in supreme charge—nominally, I mean; of course Mrs. Berry was in actual charge—and, therefore, I confess to a natural feeling of—shall I say surprise, on learning that the judge had appointed another person, an understudy, as ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... 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 ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... 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, where the gifts of God, bland ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... ashamed of in this stolen ride never even occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' understudy,—who can tell? ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... 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 ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... is awarded his diploma; a lawyer is admitted to the bar; a preacher is given a pulpit; an actor rises from understudy to the leading role; a newspaper reporter is given a "by-line" and sees his name over a story ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... of Psyche sorting 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 ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... 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

... Lucien's card represented a signpost at the cross-roads where many a girl, pretty but not exceptionally talented, had hesitated with beating heart. It was no longer a question of remaining a member of the chorus (and understudy for a small part) or of accepting promotion to "lead" in a new production; it was that of accepting whatever Sir Lucien chose to offer—or of retiring from the profession so far as this ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... 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 throughout the walk home, but she was never left till ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... Wilkins' Mephisto when the piece was first produced before these Gaiety people brought their 'Faust up-to-date' from London. You remember how, as Wilkins was given to late dinners and too much ale, he made me understudy his Mephisto, and if the piece had run more'n two weeks, I'd probably had a chance to play it. Well, Hexter said, as everything was ready to put on the piece, if I thought I was up in the part, he'd let me try it. So we went to Renshaw's room and got the part and here ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... 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 various Cabinets ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... thick bill to talk with a 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 budget ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this early in the morning, with Alexandria still in the distance; for you said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... leave it 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? It's part ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... walk from Hornville," said Dillingford, grinning. "Twenty-five cents by train. We merely resume a tour interrupted by the serious illness of Mr. Rushcroft. Rather than impose upon our audiences by inflicting them with an understudy, the popular star temporarily abandons his tour. We ought to sell out in Crowndale, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... August; he never played first-class cricket after July, when, a scholastic understudy took his place in the Middlesex eleven. And in vain did I scour my Field and my Sportsman for the country-house matches with which he wilfully preferred to wind up the season; the matches were there, but ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... but at the end of five 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 ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... father never could get on. I 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. Lawrence on ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... he snarled in a foolish sarcastic way. 'And who may this be that I have the honour of addressing?—Captain Macnaughten's ghost? or his next-of-kin, belike? Or may be his deputy understudy?—with your One moment, please? . . . You sit down on that thwart there, and don't you dare open your face again until I give you leave. . . . That was the old fool's way with me—hey? And now you ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... interview with the detective-inspector (whom I showed over the entire house, including the museum and laboratory), I took a cab to Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials, where resided a well-known dealer in osteology. I did not, of course, inform him that I had come to buy an understudy for a deceased burglar. I merely asked for an articulated skeleton, to stand and not to hang (hanging involves an unsightly suspension ring attached to the skull). I looked over his stock with a steel measuring-tape in my hand, for a skeleton of about the right ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... 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 fluting in ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... heavy loads of fur long ago—grass-grown now and broken with badger 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

... 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 ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... "Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work," I suggested. "You cannot go to the theatre in ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... 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 a ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... counter in the railroad eating- house, where he had boarded for ten years, and watch a stranger taking cash. He had watched Donna's mother so long that the vigil had become a part of his being—a sort of religious ceremony—and in this little tragedy of life no understudy could ever star for Harley P. Her beautiful sad eyes were closed forever now and the tri-daily joy of his sordid ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... her wedding rehearsal, but never herself takes part in it, as it is supposed to be bad luck. Some one else—anyone who happens to be present—is appointed understudy. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... young friend," said his father, "although the interview will be private, you have really no cause for jealousy. At present, remember, I am but the second string in the bow-case, the understudy who has learnt the part, a humble position, but one which ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... not be in a running play, you may be an understudy for one or two of the ladies who are. You will study their parts, be rehearsed in their "business," and will then hold yourself in readiness to take, on an instant's notice, either of their places, in case of sickness, ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... must 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... 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 ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... cosy Flat, far away, she had him propped up on the Piano in a Silver-Gilt Frame and featured to beat the Cars. Any one who dropped in to see her was made to understand that he was merely an Understudy, who was being used as ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... in my composition 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 ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... to all outward appearance," he said composedly, "but I fancy you will find, on closer investigation, that it is an angel understudy of the ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... embroidery on a gray suede bag which lay on the table. She had got it the other day to serve as understudy for the gold bag which was "taboo" for public use at present. She was glad that the forest creature did not know, and never would know, that she had secretly bought back his gold bag. If he found out, it might be his ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... man, past fifty years of age, joined the group. This was John Fairfield, the only gentleman farmer in the community, and one of the few men whose wife was not implicated in the Woman's Movement. She was an invalid, nearly blind. Fairfield had been the understudy of Prim in controlling the political affairs of the community. He was ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... "I have been Madame's understudy too long not to read. Forgive me. I was to keep you apart; I have done so. The evil can not now be repaired. Your hope is that Madame has not ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... Sophocles. In the fifth 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 ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... 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 ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Times were 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

... 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



Words linked to "Understudy" :   actor, standby, learn, alternate, role player, player, memorize, con, histrion



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