"Hands down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the two cadets and picked them up, one in each hand. "I made it—hands down—I handled those rocket motors like they were babes in arms! I told you that all I had to do was touch them and I'd know! ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... agitation for a strike. These comrades took no stock whatever in the talk about "German gold"; but on the other hand they were keenly on the alert for the influence of Russian gold, which they knew was being openly distributed by old Abel Granitch. And so they put their hands down into their pockets and dug out their scanty wages, so that the demand for social justice might be kept alive ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... and Colonel Sober came there with a whole lot of pretty good information, and people to back up what he said, and the Department put up a mighty poor show, I tell you. I was ashamed of what the Department men had to say, and Colonel Sober won out hands down. Now, if this question comes up again, it will be referred, no doubt, to the Federal Horticultural Board, and you will need a good, strong representation, with plenty of facts back of you, and if you can put up a strong enough case there is no doubt but what you can establish this quarantine. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... extended, thumbs elevated, and the feet forming a square. TOKEN.—Take reciprocally the right elbow with the right hand, the thumb on the outside, the fingers joined, and on the inside; press the elbow thus four times, slip the hands down to the wrists, raising the three last fingers, and press the index on the wrist. SACRED WORD.—"Razabassi," or "Razahaz Betzi-Yah." PASS-WORDS.—"Jechson," "Jubellum," "Zanabosan." Some, however, give Jehovah as the sacred word, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... which ascended from the slave-deck soon drew our attention towards it, and Mr Hallton sent Charley with four hands down to ascertain their condition. I accompanied him, having procured a brace of pistols and a hanger, without which I should not have liked to venture among them. A dreadful sight met our eyes. Three or four of the frigate's shot had entered and swept right across the deck, taking off the heads ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... the ground, Darius groaned and his limbs relaxed. Instantly Zoroaster threw him on his back and kneeled with his whole weight upon his chest,—the gilded scales of the corselet cracking beneath the burden, and he held the king's hands down on either side, pinioned to the floor. Darius struggled desperately twice and then lay quite still. Zoroaster gazed down ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... occasion. The old man looked about him at the company with a fatherly smile, and, sitting down to his instrument, waited pointedly until all the cheerful hum of conversation had died away. The room was profoundly silent as he brought his hands down on the keys in a startling, thrilling chord. Lydia's heart began to beat fast. She felt a chill run among the roots of her hair. She was so moved she could have wept aloud, and yet, almost at once, as the musician passed on to the rich elaboration of his theme, she ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... call him "Bub.") He was a man of not a few accomplishments, many habits and some deeds: for instance, he made a grand-stand play when he started out for Jerusalem with twelve hundred chariots, sixty thousand horsemen and four hundred thousand footmen. He took it hands down in a canter—and took a whole lot of other things, too, when he got his hands in the bags of Solomon's temple. This was a "classy" performance and gave him some small change for the evening of his days. Thebes was his home town and he was as well known ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love, who, seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust his hands down into his breeches' pockets, buried his chin in his cravat, elevated his eyebrows, screwed in his eyes, and puffed out his cheeks, so that the astonished Monsieur Goupille really thought himself bewitched, and literally did not recognise ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that unless both parties cooeperate in good faith and in the right spirit to make the experiment a success, no mechanism of preferential organization, however cunningly contrived, will survive the jar and clash of hostile feeling or warring interests. It hands down and publishes these decisions therefore in the hope that with the needed cooeperation they may help to give the workers a strong, loyal, constructive organization, and the Company a period of peaceful, harmonious and efficient administration and production which will compensate for any ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... gentleman from Oregon." The Oregon delegate, in a far-reaching voice, shouted: "Mr. Chairman, I nominate for vice-president Calvin Coolidge, a one-hundred-per-cent American." The convention went off its feet with a whoop and Coolidge was nominated hands down. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... take your hands down," said the officer. "Unarmed, I don't believe you'd be a match for our rifles. ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Enoch. He took her hands down, gently. Diana's eyes were dry. Her cheeks were burning. Enoch looked at her steadily, his breath coming a little quickly, then he rose and with both her hands in his lifted her ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... this." Morrison's voice had a tinge of patronage. "You see, I want to get a few of the level-headed men in the camp worked up to the idea; the rest will come in, hands down." ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... the trick right enough, but don't flatter yourself that you did it. If it hadn't been for a sheer accident that no man alive could foresee or prevent, I'd have won hands down. I haven't been beaten by you, and so I don't bear grudge. And I've no intention of bringing a libel action to gratify your longing for the limelight. I'll just sit tight and let the Hudson Bay scheme flatten ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... saving, and knotting and splicing rigging, leaving the Dutch crew to look after their wounded comrades and convey them below to the surgeon. At length, after I had been aboard about half-an-hour, I was ready to return to our own ship; I therefore ordered two hands down into the boat alongside, and shoved off for the Europa, noting, with great satisfaction as I did so, that the breeze was fast dropping, and that the two Indiamen were still hull-up, not having made very much progress to windward during the time ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... replied, putting out his hand to her. They went thus with clasped hands down the cliff path ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... it clear through you if you give me a chance. Drop your hands down behind you." He spent a busy minute with the rope before he pushed Buck Olney ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... the company officers and their wives—went to the company barracks to see the men's dinner tables. When we entered the dining hall we found the entire company standing in two lines, one down each side, every man in his best inspection uniform, and every button shining. With eyes to the front and hands down their sides they looked absurdly like wax figures waiting to be "wound up," and I did want so much to tell the little son of General Phillips to pinch one and make him jump. He would have done it, too, and then put all the blame ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... breath and brought her plump hands down on her plump knees, her body rocking as she did so. "Oh, is that it? What a start ye give me! I thought ye and Kling had quarrelled. Sure, I'll take your tramp if ye say so. We want a man to wash the wagons, and help Mike clean up. John fired the macaroni we ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the scarred limb and passed her hands down it, and knew it by the touch and let the foot drop suddenly, so that the knee fell into the bath, and the brazen vessel rang, being turned over on the other side, and behold, the water was spilled on the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... Ellins is going to cut loose. Course, being on the inside, with my desk right next to the door of the private office, I can generally forecast an eruption an hour or so before it takes place. But it's apt to catch the rest of the force with their hands down ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... walk towards him, quite slow, and my hands down; only there was trouble in my eye, if anybody ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to see if she couldn't find out, leaning her hands down on the dresser-top. But the pretty white-enamel-framed mirror showed her just the same Joy as ever. Her heavy bronze-gold braids swung forward, and their ends coiled down on the dresser-top. Between them her little pointed face looked straight at her, blue-eyed, ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... some understanding with those fellows now they had the upper hand. Here he interrupted himself to swear freely, while the child, who had been diligently fumbling about his neck, had found his whistle and blew a loud blast now and then close to his ear—which made him wince and laugh as he put her hands down, scolding her lovingly. Yes—that would be easily settled. He was a man to be reckoned with yet. Nobody knew that better than Almayer. Very well. Then he must patiently try and keep some little trade together. It would be all right. But the great thing—and here Lingard spoke ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... heroine, especially to me. Hold your head high and make it known that I am right." She was still silent, merely pressed both hands to her temples and stared into the glowing hearth. Then he drew one of her hands down softly from her hair, seized it and went with her over the vestibule, through the door communicating with the front of the house. She followed him passively, her eyes upon the ground and the other hand ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... by the designation given to this or that object in life's treasure-house: it is the skiff wherein they keep afloat for a brief while. A patch of lichen on the bark of an old tree, a blade of grass, a puny beastie: any one of these hands down a man's name to posterity as effectively as a new comet. For all its abuses, this manner of honouring the departed is eminently respectable. If we would carve an epitaph of some duration, what could we find better than a Beetle's wing-case, a Snail's shell or a Spider's web? Granite is ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... corn cobs for the chickens," said the hired man. "But be careful not to put your hands down the spout where I drop the ears ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... Then he stood upright, and slowly rubbing his hands together looked at Julia with the humorous twinkle lurking in his eye and its companion dimple twitching in his lean cheek. Then he began to feel his pockets, passing his hands down ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... one thrust he gave to his hat, And two to the flanks of the brown, And still as a statue of old he sat, And he shot to the front, hands down; I remember the snort and the stag-like bound Of the steed six lengths to the fore, And the laugh of the rider while, landing sound, He turned in his saddle and glanced around; I remember—but little more, Save a bird's-eye gleam of the dashing stream, A jarring thud on the wall, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... it's of some practical use, moreover," she answered listlessly. She drew her hands down her face, threw up her arms, and breathed a fatigued, shuddering sigh. The conversation had begun to seem to her intolerably insipid because they were not ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... more. But them as went would sing! Oh they'd sing! I remember two of 'em specially. One was a man and he'd sing bass. Oh, he'd roll it down! The other was a woman, and she'd sing soprano! They had colored preachers to preach to de field hands down in de quarters. Dey'd preach in de street. Meet next day to de marsa's and turn in de report. How many pray, how many ready for baptism and all like dat. Used to have Sabbath School in de white people's house, in de porch, on Sunday evening. De porch was big and dey'd ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... muscles for a jump, and then as Marie stood ready to beat down the ball, as it rose in the air, Sahwah would suddenly relax, twist into some inconceivable position, shoot the ball low to center and be a dozen feet away before Marie could get her hands down from ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... it; for if there was a place where the earth was loose I dug with my own hands down to the very rock, and neither man nor woman ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of the side which has not the coin now calls: "Jenkins says hands up," and all the hands come up, closed; then "Jenkins says hands down," and all the hands fall, palms downward, on the table. There should be much noise to drown the clink of the piece as it falls ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... of it or not. There is a story, which is credible enough, though it may not be true, of a practical joker, who, seeing a discharged veteran carrying home his dinner, suddenly called out 'Attention!' whereupon the man instantly brought his hands down, and lost his mutton and potatoes in the gutter. The drill had been gone through, and its effects had become embodied ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... in a low tone, running his hands down her legs. "Guess you wouldn't care to part with ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... must be our conclusion about war? Had we ten thousand voices, surely every one would be in honor bound to declare war an immorality. Every incident of war declares it such. Every result of battle hands down the same decree. In the words of a famous Russian battle painter, we too may define war as ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... love me," he whispered, his voice trembling with joy. He drew her hands down from her eyes and held them tight in his own. "Say you do, Viola,—speak ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... her head at the sight of the fifty-dollar note. She rubbed her hands down her dress and took it. Jim had grabbed the heavy bag and was half-way down the stairs before she could summon enough breath to murmur the incessant refrain, ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... day heard a queer growling sound in the grass: on approaching the spot he saw two weasels contending over a mouse; both held the mouse, pulling in opposite directions, and they were so absorbed in the struggle that the farmer cautiously put his hands down and grabbed them both by the back of the neck. He put them in a cage, and offered them bread and other food. This they refused to eat, but in a few days one of them had eaten the other up, picking his bones clean, and leaving ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... not speak either, but he pressed both hands down on the arms of his chair, and half rose; but he fell back as if the effort were too much, and with one faint struggle sat still, with the tears of a long-buried grief stealing ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... down. Yet, you see, here I am! And I assure you I shouldn't be willing to change places with my grandfather." With a shy friendliness he laid his fingers for a moment on his host's arm. "Your grandson won't be willing to change, either, because he'll be the right sort. That's what your kind hands down." He spoke diffidently, but with a certain authority. Each man is a sieve through which life sifts experiences, leaving the garnering of grain and the blowing away of chaff to the man himself. Peter had garnered courage to face with a quiet heart things as they are. He had never accepted ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... week ago," he went on, leaning back easily against the tall building and thrusting his hands down deep into his well worn pockets, "about a week ago, as I was cleaning out the storeroom, I came on three big boxes with broken dolls in 'em. Beauties they were, I kin tell you, the Lady Jane in a blue silk dress, the Lady Clarabel in pink, and the Lady Matilda ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... a cinch to fool the troopers. They stopped us only once on the way into town. When we got there, I switched again from the driver's uniform into one of the suits from the racks. We had it made, hands down." ...
— Take the Reason Prisoner • John Joseph McGuire
... everything. One run was nine miles long and I was the only man in at the finish except the professional wolf hunter Abernethy, who is a really wonderful fellow, catching the wolves alive by thrusting his gloved hands down between their jaws so that they cannot bite. He caught one wolf alive, tied up this wolf, and then held it on the saddle, followed his dogs in a seven-mile run and helped kill another wolf. He has a pretty wife and five cunning children of whom he is very proud, and introduced ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... rheumatism in every home, the malaria-stricken infants constantly crying,—nothing can save them. How is it possible for men to live in such unlovely, unhealthy, squalid, neglected surroundings? The fact is we are so used to bear everything, hands down,—the ravages of Nature, the oppression of rulers, the pressure of our shastras to which we have not a word to say, while they keep ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... one of his hands down and pressed a hearty kiss on it, and now the colonel tenderly stroked her hair and said: "Such good friends ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... the display of his skill. The peacock that struts about in imperial pride under the eyes of his attentive hens, is really contributing to the future beauty and strength of his race by collecting to himself a harem through whom he hands down to posterity the valuable qualities which have gained the admiration of his mates in his own person. Mr. Wallace has shown that to be beautiful is to be efficient; and sexual selection is thus, as it were, a mere lateral form of natural selection—a ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... beside him: I came where called, and eyed him By meanwhiles; making my play 15 Turn most on tender byplay. For, wrung all on love's rack, My lad, and lost in Jack, Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip; Or drove, with a diver's dip, 20 Clutched hands down through clasped knees— Truth's tokens tricks like these, Old telltales, with what stress He hung on the imp's success. Now the other was brass-bold: 25 He had no work to hold His heart up at the strain; Nay, roguish ran ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... nose into its softness and kissing it; kisses the gloves one after another; kisses the fan: gasps a long shuddering sigh of ecstasy; sits down on the stool and presses his hands to his eyes to shut out reality and dream a little; takes his hands down and shakes his head with a little smile of rebuke for his folly; catches sight of a speck of dust on his shoes and hastily and carefully brushes it off with his handkerchief; rises and takes the hand mirror from the table to make sure ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... hard times after the war. We went to Georgia to work on Armstrongs farm. We didn't stay there long. We went to Atlanta and met a fellar huntin' hands down at Sardis, Mississippi. We come on there. Rob Richardson brought the family out here. I been here round Biscoe 58 years when it was sho nuf ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... not whom, for it is an old faded yellow manuscript scrap in our drawer—thus rebukes an Englishman's aspiration to be independent of foreigners: A French cook dresses his dinner for him, and a Swiss valet dresses him for his dinner. He hands down his lady, decked with pearls that never grew in the shell of a British oyster, and her waving plume of ostrich-feathers certainly never formed the tail of a barn-door fowl. The viands of his table are from all countries of the world; his wines are from the banks of the Rhine ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... brilliantly. The world rewarded them as richly as any graduate of any university who went to his life's work from the very head of his class. For you know this, don't you, that the world hands down success to any man who pays the price. Very well, the price is not a college education. The price is effectiveness, and the college is valuable only as it helps ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... ears, his hair fell across his forehead, his face was flushed, his lip bled. He had either bitten it himself or Dickie had struck it. But he seemed quite calm, only a little breathless. He was neither snarling nor smiling now. He took Sheila very gently by the wrists, drawing her hands down from her face, and he put her arms at their full length behind her, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... are no more wars with the Cardinal, no Field of the Cloth of Gold. You, Comte d'Esgrignon, in short, are supping in the company of one Blondet, younger son of a miserable provincial magistrate, with whom you would not shake hands down yonder; and in ten years' time you may sit beside him among peers of the realm. Believe in yourself after that, if ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... slowly drawing his hands down from his face, and looking as though this itself might be a dream. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... laughed at her; and, at the contempt in his mirth, she rose, no longer flushed, but white with wrath. "I won't have it!" Her voice was almost a scream, and she brought her hands down so violently on the table that, as she momentarily broke the circuit of the electric lamp, there was a flash of greenish light. It was exactly as though her fury, a generated incandescence of rage, had burned into a perceptible flare. This, he realized, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... I've had my eye on the midshipmen. I've never trusted them. They're a hard lot; but if the rest of the ship is with me, I'll deal with them promptly. They're not clever or bold enough to do their job skilfully. They've got some old hands down there— hammock-men, old stagers of the sea that act as servants to them. What ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... long sigh, like one that lifts a weight she raised her young arms above her head, and then brought her hands down slowly upon her eyes, shutting out sight and sense. There was ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... While thus he mused The day-dawn reaching to his pallet showed That Discipline, wire-woven, in ancient days Guest of monastic bed. He snatched it thence: Around his bending neck and shoulders lean In dire revenge he hurled it. Spent at last, Though late, those bleeding hands down dropped: the cheek Sank on the stony pillow. Little birds, Low-chirping ere their songs began, attuned Slumber unbroken. In a single hour He slept a long night's sleep. The rising sun Woke him: but in his heart another sun, New-risen serene with healing on its wings, Outshone that ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... and imploring look in Amy's face, she brought the four hands down, and laid only ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... ladder in his hand; a knock-kneed waiter, with a dirty duster, to count noses, while the neat landlady, in a spruce black silk gown and clean white apron, stands smirking, smiling, and rubbing her hands down her sides, inveigling the passengers into the house, where she will turn them over to the waiters to take their chance the instant she gets them in. About the door the usual idlers are assembled.—A coachman out of place, a beggar out at the elbows, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... him on to the poop and sounding over the taffrail at the deepest part. "We can't do nuthin', though, I reckon, till daylight, an' ez we're hard an' fast, an' not likely to float off, I'll go below an' turn in till then. Mister Steenbock, ye'd better pipe the hands down an' do ditter, I guess, fur thaar's no use, I ken see, in stoppin' up hyar an' ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... enough has been done, brother, in the affair of the old woman; I have, moreover, tried what you are able to do, and find you as I thought, less apt with the naked morleys than the stuffed gloves; nay, brother, put your hands down; I'm satisfied; blood has been shed, which is all that can be reasonably expected for an old woman, who carried so much brimstone ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Joe said. "Now this is the way I'll do it. I'll get a good momentum, swinging back and forth. You stand upon the high platform, holding your trapeze and waiting. When I give the word and start on my final swing, you jump off, hang by your knees, hands down. I'll leap toward you, turn over three times, and grab your hands. Do you ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... twenty-sixth chapter—a dissertation larded with illustrative extracts from Galen Celsus, Avicenna, Antonius Musa, Oribasius Salvus and about fifty others of the ancients who professed the healing art—Monsignor Perrelli condenses for his readers the results of these classical experiments; he hands down the names of these springs ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... "could have gone to Congress if he had cared to. The Democrats were after him only year before last. Their man won out hands down. Sammy declined the nomination. And that's the only thing I have against Sammy Ridley. He is a Democrat. It's born in him, just as some folks inherit a taste for liquor, and others come into the world plumb crazy, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... she put up her hands to her face, and burst into tears. She could not bear that reminder. Her father took one of her hands down, and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... "Put those hands down," snapped Don. "And listen closely. I want you to have full recall on this. You remember this man who was bitten, how he sobbed for breath—how his legs stretched out and his back arched, till the muscles tore from the bones with their effort. ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... getting that trouble uttered. She would take her own time, he could not go half-way to meet her. He must stand by and wait. When had he ever done anything else at Craven Towers? His eyes glistened curiously in the firelight, and he rammed his hands down into his jacket pockets with abrupt jerkiness. Suddenly ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... know," Jacky went on thoughtfully. "Lablache means to put this marriage with me right through. I see it all. But say," bringing one of her brown hands down forcibly upon that of her companion, which was concealed in the foot of the woolen sock, and gripping it with nervous strength, "I guess he's reckoned without his bride. I'm not going to marry Lablache, auntie, dear, and ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... chucking the stick which he held in his hands down to the ground and then stooping ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... on their line of progress. "This kissing is your strong point. The Lyre is backing you up on the strength of it. So is the Benevolent Assimilation Trust, Limited. In every city and town the girls have turned out, and you've captured them hands down. If you stop now it will upset the whole business. The Convention delegates are coming out for you by the dozen. Our committee is working it up so that it will be nearly unanimous. There won't be another serious candidate, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... Harran," asked Presley as the two young men rode out of the stable yard, "how is it the Railroad gang can do anything before the Supreme Court hands down a decision?" ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... of it is," Fred went on, "that we thought we had the whole thing 'hands down,' and that was what made my father go in so deep. Only the death of one of the M.W. directors, who held eight thousand shares of K. & A., got us in this hole, for the G.S. put up a relation to contest the will, and so delayed the obtaining of letters of administration, blocking his ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of the house, Edna found herself alone, face to face with the object of her aversion, and she almost wished that the earth would open and swallow her. Mr. Murray came close to her, held her hands down with one of his, and placing the other under her chin, forced ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... was glad you gave it to 'em the way you did, and when you sailed into that snivelling old Hard-shell deacon, I just put my hands down under my petticoats and clapped them for joy. There isn't anybody running anything up here. They don't have to pay for this lecture course. It was given to them by a man who is dead. All they think they've got to do is to dress themselves up. They're all officers; there's a ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... constrained to let the incident rest there, but he comforted himself by fighting the battle over again in fancy. In this wise he beat the champion of the afternoon hands down, and came ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... written in the chronicles of their beloved calling and upon the hearts of myriads of sufferers whom their beneficent labors have relieved. They may or may not have felt that their work was durable. But durable it is, and it hands down to posterity a monumentum aere perennius, the absolute worth of which passes computation. No present or future modification of this work can rob its authors of that glory which crowns the head of the ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... apparently dressed in the old-fashioned uniform that is sometimes still seen on the stage. Really, their black and white plumage exactly resembled the white buckskin breeches and black three-cornered hats of the whilom mousquetaires; while their drooping flappers seemed like hands down their sides in the attitude of "attention!"—the upper portions of the wings, projecting in front, representing those horrible cross-belts that used to make the men look as if ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dust cloth and bringing his huge hands down upon the table with a smash that almost wrecked the dishes. "You have eat, an' now you lissen. You have never hear' before of Concombre Bateese. An' zat ees me. See! Wit' these two hands I have choke' ze polar bear to deat'. I am strongest man w'at ees in all ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... his shoulders. "It really doesn't matter. Just so we get close enough to the Sun so we can load those accumulators and jam the photo-cells full. With a load like that we can beat him hands down." ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... audiences were becoming smaller every Sunday, a Minister of the Gospel broke off in the midst of a sermon, descended the pulpit stairs, and walked on his hands down the central aisle of the church. He then remounted his feet, ascended to the pulpit, and resumed his discourse, making ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... every white man in the room, but he never addressed a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence by a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawling there in the chair, he would, now and again, draw the palms of both his hands down his face, giving at the same time a slight, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... come in now!" he said, with a chuckle, as he rubbed his hands down his sides before proceeding to the greatest bit of enjoyment he had in his lonely life at ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... trick is absolutely safe. And it's a good one, a money-maker. Straighten up a moment." With his hands he began feeling out her shoulders and back under her jacket. "The apparatus is all right." He ran his hands down her arms. "Now! Drop the hooks." He shook each arm, and from under each of the fluffy lace cuffs fell out an iron hook fast to a thin cable of steel that evidently ran up her sleeves. "Not that way! Nobody must see. Put them back. Try it again. They must ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Major, thank you, I couldn't think of it," exclaimed Phoebe. "I'm lunching on a glass of malted milk and a raw egg these days. I lost a pound and three-quarters last week and I feel so slim and graceful." As she spoke she ran her hands down the charming lines of her tall figure and turned slowly around for him to get the full effect of her loss. She was most beautifully set up and the long lines melted into curves where gracious curves ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Baltic at Kiel. As you know, I had been running for the Elbe, but yesterday's muck-up put me off, and I changed my mind—I'll tell you why presently—and decided to sail to the Eider along with the Johannes and get through that way. It cleared from the east next day, and I raced him there, winning hands down, left him at Tnning, and in three days was in the Baltic. It was just a week after I ran ashore that I wired to you. You see, I had come to the conclusion that that ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... how many have had success and how many have had failures with the Surprise plum. All those who have been successful in raising Surprise plums will please raise their hands. (Certain hands raised.) Now, hands down. Those who have been unsuccessful will please raise their right hands. (Other hands raised.) It seems there ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... were speedy craft, the Capella left them behind "hands down". Fortunately there were no search-lights to baffle her quartermaster, for those of both Hurst and the batteries on the Isle of Wight shore had been previously switched off. Since the Needle Channel was closed to all mercantile shipping, the Capella could, and did, without ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... brought both hands down upon the keys, educing a jangled, startled crash from the tortured wires, and swinging round, glanced up at Amber with quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... home, had no longer the force they had at first. In one round, after a severe struggle, he threw Crawley heavily, but the exertion told more upon himself than upon the one thrown. And he began to flinch from the body blows, and keep his hands down. Loafing, beer-drinking, and smoking began to tell their tale, in fact, and at last Buller said, "Now you may try to give him one or ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... could, even before the flattened foaming sea rose from its level rush and began to come on board. All round were vessels in distress; the scare caused many of the seamen to forget their lights, and the ships lumbered on, first to collision, and then to that crashing plunge which takes all hands down. The little schooner was actually obliged to offer assistance to a big mail-steamer—and yet she might have been rather easily carried by that same steamer. But the little vessel's lights were watched with ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the Robinson twins looked alternately at one another, and then at the figure of the frail girl on the bed. She seemed to be weeping, but when she took her hands down from her eyes, there was no trace of tears in them—only a wild, and rather haunting look ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... or other in the cell division this splitting of the chromosomes takes place. The significance of the splitting is especially noteworthy. We shall soon find reason for believing that the chromosomes contain all the hereditary traits which the cell hands down from generation to generation, and indeed that the chromosomes of the egg contain all the traits which the parent hands down to the child. Now, if this chromatin thread consists of a series of units, each representing certain ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... shook violently, her teeth chattered, and the sharp words seemed to rattle out like hail-stones. Horace had never seen her in such a mood, and was half inclined to run away; but when she took her hands down from her face, and he saw how pale she was, his ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... which made the escapade but the more electric, while his daughter had imagined that he was getting himself sedately into his long-tailed, sedate nightgown, he was beaming warmly upon the highly entertained group of ranch hands down in the men's bunk-house, whither, by the way, he had been ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... land; but just then the curve of a huge wave rose up as high as a hill, and this I had no strength to keep from, so it took me back to the sea. I did my best to float on the top, and held my breath to do so. The next wave was quite as high, and shut me up in its bulk. I held my hands down tight to my side, and then my head shot out at the top of the waves. This gave me heart and breath too, and soon ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... of the hole. It was still searingly hot, and he gasped with hurt as his palms and fingers clenched over it, but he did not let go. Levering himself rapidly up, he got a leg through and then his body. A second later he peered back in and lowered his hands down. ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... weeks in blank unmitigated isolation. The incomprehensible part of it was that every other woman in the hotel was plain, dowdy or elderly—and most of them all three. If there had been any competition on ordinary lines Undine would have won, as Van Degen said, "hands down." But there wasn't—the other "guests" simply formed a cold impenetrable group who walked, boated, played golf, and discussed Christian Science and the Subliminal, unaware of the tremulous organism drifting ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... declared Warrington, putting his hands down upon the glittering metals. Rupees and sovereigns never lose their luster in ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... consumption of economic goods. There a consciousness of mutual dependence is developed, and the value of co-operation is illustrated. There the mind ranges less fettered than in the town, yet is less inclined toward radical changes. There the family preserves and hands down from one generation to another the heritage of the past, and stimulates its members to further progress. In the family on the farm children learn how to live in association with their kin and with hired ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... broke out into a loud laugh. He brought his two hands down on the counter and gave himself up to ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... and wept And her live son plucked at her gown, "Oh, mother, long is the watch we've kept!" But she beat the small hands down. ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... blessed brief Of what is gallantest and best In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance. The Book of rocs, Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris, Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and Calenders, And ghouls, and genies—O so huge They might have overed the tall Minster Tower, Hands down, as schoolboys take a post; In truth the Book of Camaralzaman, Schemselnihar and Sinbad, Scheherezade The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour, Cairo and Serendib and Candahar, And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk— Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms— Of Kaf ... ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... limpid sky, a very limpid sea, a scattering of shipping gliding up and down, and the very silent hills a long way away. There was a large flavour of Spaniards among the crowd. I got into the middle of a knot of them, jammed against the wheels of one of the carriages, standing, hands down, on tiptoe, staring at the long scaffold. There were a great many false alarms, sudden outcries, hushing again rather slowly. In between I could hear someone behind me talk Spanish to the occupants of the carriage. I thought the voice was Ramon's, but I could not turn, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... a suddenness which took our breath away, apparently regardless that we were going straight as an arrow on the Island of Pentecost, the shore of which, in its topaz and emerald tints, was pretty enough to look at but not to attack, end on. He pushed both hands down deep into his pockets ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Nothing-At-All, rigged out in an exceedingly shabby old ulster and an excessively homely black slouch hat. In a desperate attempt at tangible tom-boyish nonchalance she tossed her head and thrust her hands down deep into her big ulster pockets. That the bleak hat reflected no decent featherish consciousness of being tossed, that the big threadbare pockets had no bottoms to them, merely completed her startled sense ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott |
