"Odds" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clear up various odds and ends of his diplomatic experience resulted in an interview with President Jackson, which he reported in a letter to Peter Irving, now living alone in Paris: "I have been most kindly received by the old general, with whom I am much pleased as well as amused. As his admirers say, he is truly an ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... there be to induce me to appear on this public arena, opposed by such powerful odds? Nothing, sir, nothing but a strong sense of duty, and a deep conviction that the cause I advocate is just; that the petitioners whom I represent are honest, upright, intelligent and respectable citizens; men who ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Sneed and his men had unexpectedly taken the quarrel out of his hands, and that he had fired exactly five shots at the men who had killed Panhandle and it had been close work, and easy. Panhandle had put up a game fight. The odds had been heavily against him. He had been standing in the light of the gambling-hall doorway while the men who had killed him had been in the shadow. "He didn't ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... acquaintances as she met by the way. She had put on her best gown, and a little ruff round her neck: her aunt would not let her wear such "gewgaws" in a general way, but the girl loved to fabricate them out of odds and ends, in imitation of the ladies she saw passing in the street. She wore the gray cloak and hood she had had on when first Cuthbert had come to her assistance by the river, and her rosy laughing face peeped roguishly out from the warm and becoming head gear. But ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... between them. Carr roared out in blind rage and in awful fear for the girl. He struck out viciously into the first grinning face that pressed near. Something in his brain seemed to snap then, and he became a snarling, fighting animal, battling against overwhelming odds in defence of his mate. A dart buried itself in his arm and a stone hatchet bit into his shoulder, but he scarcely felt the hurts. All that mattered now was Ora; they were taking her away—taking her to the folds of that incredible ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... not cricket,' said Bude, and really he seemed much more depressed than elated by the reduction of the odds against him from 6 to 1 to 2 ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... a little touch,' said he, 'just a little lift with the toe of my boot—but what's the odds?—that blamed mule would have died if I had only dusted his ribs with a powder puff. It was my luck. Well, Captain, I would have liked to be in that little fight with you over in Aguas Frias. Success ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... uneasiness had begun to creep over him—not yet a definite presentiment of disaster, but rather a subconscious feeling that the odds against ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... perseverance, of calculated ingenuity, to secure to him the position which he now felt to be assured—that of being able to cope with the man who had been his adversary, and so overwhelmingly his superior. The fight was on at last,—a fight in which the odds were not only equal, but, if anything, in favor of the former mill-hand, thus become one of the most powerful men in Alleghenia; a fight to be fought to the bitter finish, with an almost certain triumph as ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... realm of enchantment, all the accessories served to maintain the illusion. The simple natives, with their defenceless bodies and rude weapons, were no match for the European warrior armed to the teeth in mail. The odds were as great as those found in any legend of chivalry, where the lance of the good knight overturned hundreds at a touch. The perils that lay in the discoverer's path, and the sufferings he had to sustain, were scarcely inferior to ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... objections against his designs with sufficient calmness to give them fair play, or allow his heroic followers a practical opportunity of crowning his enterprises with success. He had so often succeeded against desperate, and apparently hopeless, odds, that he thought himself invincible, and rushed headlong into the most dreadful perils, with no other preparation to ward them off but his own calmness in danger, his inexhaustible fecundity of resources, and the undaunted courage, as well as patience of fatigue and privation, with which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... door opened into the dining-room already mentioned. A stairway facing the front entrance, conducted you to the upper story, which consisted of several bed-rooms and a large apartment in front. This latter must have been by long odds the pleasantest room in the house. It was of comfortable dimensions, well lighted, and cheerful as to its outlook. Two front windows commanded a prospect of the bay and the peninsula, while a third window on the eastern side overlooked the valley of the Don, which was by no means the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... that dress without any back breadth while she was living," argued Flora, "but now it don't make any odds. It ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... defense for all its objectives, while the Twenty-seventh pushed on impetuously through the main line until some of its elements reached Gouy. In the midst of the maze of trenches and shell craters and under cross-fire from machine guns the other elements fought desperately against odds. In this and in later actions, from October 6th to October 19th, our Second Corps captured over 6,000 prisoners and advanced over thirteen miles. The spirit and aggressiveness of these divisions have been highly praised by the British army commander ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... hellish uproar, we could see that the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds, the superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal. The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black captain. Just at this moment, the cutter's ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... now satisfied. His stomach was full of boiled cabbage, and his soul was full of peace. He clambered back into the dry-goods box and renewed his guileless operations on the baby. By all odds the baby was the most astonishing thing that had ever come under Bootsey's observation, and the only time during which Bootsey was afforded a fair and uninterrupted opportunity of examining the baby was that period ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... Fizzer feels "a bit knocked out with the sun," and the water for his perishing horses ninety feet below the surface; or "things go wrong" with the old windlass, and everything depends on the Fizzer's ingenuity. The odds are very uneven when this happens—a man's ingenuity against a man's life, and death playing with loaded dice. And every letter the Fizzer carries past that well costs the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... what they were to have for dinner. Without any exertion on their part— without the wasting of a single shot, or the spending of an arrow, they were provided with meat; and in quantity sufficient, not only for that day's dinner, but to ration them for a whole week, with odds and ends falling to the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... three miles from here," went on Constans, "I have in store a dozen similar weapons, together with as many of a larger pattern—rifles as they were anciently called. Also abundance of ammunition. Put them in the hands of brave men, and would not the odds be in our favor, even if the Doomsmen ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... surface of pieces of bamboo is done very simply, but none the less effectively. Among the bamboo articles generally decorated in the way to be described are the native drinking-cup, the tobacco-box, and tubes for carrying flint and steel and all sorts of odds ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... dream of prey to size Aspired; so she could nigh despise The puny specks the breezes round Supplied, and let them shake unwound; Assured of her fat fly to come; Perhaps a blue, the spider's plum; Who takes the fatal odds in fight, And gives repast an appetite, By plunging, whizzing, till his wings Are webbed, and in the lists he swings, A shrouded lump, for her to see Her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bolt of Lee-Metford). And who's fault's that? I've left my property in the Free State, and odds are I shall lose every penny I've got—what part? all over—and come here on to British soil, and what do I find? With fifty men I'd ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... But the odds against them were too great. Dense masses of the Germans swooped down upon them, engulfing them, overpowering them. Hal, engaged with a big German officer, had just succeeded in parrying a thrust of the other's sword, when someone from behind struck him a heavy blow over the ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... you have some Dutch blood,—and you know the Dutch never fight harder than when the odds are against them." ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... length of the route to Ernee. Choose a position where the road is not flanked by woods, and where the sergeant can overlook the country. Take Clef-des-Coeurs; he is very intelligent. This is no laughing matter; I wouldn't give a farthing for our skins if we don't turn the odds in ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... I have already been, I must still further entreat the reader's patience, as I am about to string together, without any attempt at order, a few odds and ends of things not hitherto mentioned, but which are either curious in themselves or peculiar to ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... faithful in home preparation; very attentive at lectures; very industrious in discharging any set duty. But they have not yet learned the true secret of all economy, whether of time, money, or any other good,—namely, the knowing how to use well the odds and ends. Take care of the pence, was Franklin's motto. If you once have the secret of occupying usefully, in studious preparation, or in wise repetition, all those little intervals of interrupted instruction, which necessarily occur throughout the day, you will in the ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... his powers and see him, as it were, learning to fly. To read him is again and again to be reminded of Donne. Like Donne, he is largely self-occupied, examining the horrors of his own soul, overburdened at times with thought, an intellect at odds with the spirit. Like Donne, he will have none of the merely poetic, either in music or in imagery. He beats out a music of his own and he beats out an imagery of his own. In his early work, this sometimes resulted in his poems being ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... the kinds of brushes that the painters would need, and there were great bundles of cloth, which the painters would spread over the floors, so that the nice clean floors shouldn't get all spattered with paint; and there were some odds and ends besides. ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... an illustrator, has written travels, criticism, and even fiction, has acted as an expert on old pictures, raised carnations, and even, in time of need, performed surgical operations on wounded soldiers—all of it, not as an amateur, but as a professional asking no odds of anyone. In addition to which, he has been a painter, and a painter whose work has shown no sign of haste or distraction. The quiet, human side of English life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is what has most appealed to him, the country parlors and white-washed kitchens, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... somewhat changed; he sent polite, but evasive and unsatisfactory replies to all messages on the subject. The Chief Magistrate was at his wits' end. Of course the law had to be vindicated, but were an armed force to be sent against Sololo, the odds were ten to one that within twenty-four hours signal fires would be blazing on every hill, and the war-cry sounding from one end of Pondoland to the other. The Chief Magistrate's native name was "Indabeni," which means "The ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... Scriptures. And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt: Nay, had but a single face of my neighbours Appeared to suspect that the preacher's labours Were help which the world could be saved without, 'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet A qualm or two at my spiritual diet, Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon: But the flock sat on, divinely flustered, Sniffing, methought, its dew ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... Satan! I'll back my rapier, an' thou wilt fight, Brewer! Curse on thy muddy veins, thou hast no honourable desperation in thee. Come, if thou beest a man, give up thy odds. What, ho! Excalibur! ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... your gracious reply, I dare to give expression to our request, which is not only ours, but that of all the officers of the army of France. Sire, we implore you, give up this bold plan of operations; do not vainly shed the blood of thousands! The odds are too great, not only in numbers, but in warlike ardor. The enemy is struggling against us with the fanaticism of hatred, and his threefold superiority seems to secure victory to him. Our army, on the contrary, is exhausted ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... then, has this dog any wings? No. Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium? Maybe so, maybe not; but without ever having seen him, and judging only by his illegal and spectacular parentage, I will bet the odds of a bale of hay to a bran mash that he looks it. Finally, is he uncertain? That is the point—is he uncertain? I will leave it to you if you have ever heard of a more uncertainer dog than ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... during the terrible morning of conflict which opened that eventful day. The English were all but overpowered, although they fought as Englishmen—as probably no men ever before fought—with a tenacious obstinacy that yielded to no force, with a chivalrous dash and daring which contemned all odds. The Duke of Cambridge, probably, escaped greater danger than any British officer on the field. For a time he rode along the line encouraging his men, the fire of the advancing columns of the Russians ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... on his burial-sod Harebells bloom, and golden-rod, While the soul's dark horoscope Holds no starry sign of hope! Is the Unseen with sight at odds? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... have some left. Maybe seven hundred dollars or some such matter. If I had my legs left it would be enough, or more than enough. I wouldn't ask odds of anybody if I was the way I was before that train went off the track. I'd lost every shot I had in the locker, but I'm not very old yet—some years to leeward of forty—there was more money to be had where that came from and I meant ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... not acknowledge that this was true. But he felt it, and almost repented of his trust in Tifto. But still Prime Minister stood very well for the Derby. He was second favourite, the odds against him being only four to one. The glory of being part owner of a probable winner of the Derby was so much to him that he could not bring himself to be altogether angry with Tifto. There was no doubt that the horse's present condition ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... care of nursery-maids and of such relations as may choose, from time to time, to burden themselves with the olive-branches of others. Her husband has long since retired from all competition with her, and leaves her free to follow her own devices, whilst he himself follows the odds. She is often supposed to be riding for a fall. It is certain that her pace is fast. Yet, though many whisper, it is quite possible that she will ride to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... hate the latter. As may be supposed, she was very poor, and I was often without a meal. I know, too, that she frequently stinted herself to give me food. She lived on the banks of the Thames somewhere below London, and I very soon found my way down to the mud, where I now and then used to pick up odds and ends, bits of iron and copper, and sometimes even coin, and chips of wood. The first my mother used to sell, and I often got enough in the week to buy us a hearty meal; the last served to boil our kettle when we had any food to cook in it. Few rich people know how the poor live; ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... admire it and play with it and finally hide it. If I didn't know that it isn't so, because it couldn't possibly be so, I should think that Blacky was some relation to certain small boys I know. Always their pockets are filled with all sorts of useless odds and ends which they have picked up here and there. Blacky has no pockets, so he keeps his treasures of this kind in a secret hiding-place, a sort of treasure storehouse. He visits this secretly every day, uncovers his treasures, and gloats over them and plays with them, then carefully covers them ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... of history. The sails of their rare ships might be seen in the Egyptian waters; the camels of their caravans might thread the sands of Baalbec, or wind through the date-groves of Damascus; their flag was raised, not ingloriously, in many wars, against mighty odds; but 'twas a small people, and on one dark night the Lion of Judah went down before Vespasian's Eagles, and in flame, and death, and struggle, Jerusalem agonized and died. . . . Yes, the Jewish city is lost to Jewish men; but have they not ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of things. Muslin petticoats, tossed down haphazard, pieces of lace, a cardboard helmet covered with gilt paper, open jewel-cases, bows of ribbon; curling-tongs, half hidden in the ashes; and on every side little pots, paint-brushes, odds and ends of all kinds. Behind two screens, which ran across the room, I could hear whisperings, and the buzzing sound peculiar to women dressing themselves. In one corner Silvani—the illustrious Silvani, still wearing the large white ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... Sangster, and here the musing thought must for ever conjure up De Salaberry, McDonell, the 800 waiting behind their breastworks in the gloom of the woods, the touching scene of Captain Longtin and his Beauharnois men, and the stubborn onset of Daly against overwhelming odds. The meaning of it all is: that given a good cause, and the defence of our homes against wanton aggression, we can dare odds that otherwise would seem hopeless; that it is in the future, as in the past, the spirits of men, and not their material resources, ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... a minute—I said I'd come clean with you, and I will. The odds are all against us, no matter what we do. If that unknown radio won't work—and it probably won't—there are several other things we can try, but they're all pretty slim chances. Even if we get away, it'll probably be about the same thing as though you were to be marooned ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... never gained applause; If they exceed our count in arms and men, It is not just to think that odds, because One ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... vikings descended. So prompt and silent were they, that the men of the place had barely time to seize their arms and defend their homes. They fought like lions, for well they knew that there was no hope of mercy if they should be beaten. But the odds against them were overwhelming. They fell in heaps, with many of their foes underneath them. The few who remained to the last retreated fighting, step by step, each man towards his own dwelling, where he fell dead ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... the ordinary travelling requisites and provisions, included about 90 yards of printed stuffs of bright colours, six dozen common handkerchiefs, and some 12 pounds' weight of beads on strings, with a few odds and ends of trinkets; whilst my native bearers were provided with rice, dried fish, betel-nut, tobacco, etc., for a week or more. We set out on foot the next day, and in three days and a half ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... room was a chest filled with forgotten odds and ends that had come back with me years before. I ran to it, and from under bundles of letters, old family trinkets, a canteen, a pair of rusty pistols, and other such matters, I brought forth an ambrotype—the kind that was mounted in a black case of pressed rubber and ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... this wicked husband of mine! odds bodikins and pins! I heard his voice; you've hid him somewhere! you ought to be ashamed of yourselves to inveigle a husband from a tender, loving spouse; but I'm put upon by all, because they know the mildness of my temper.—[They laugh.]—Odds ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds and ends which Time has accumulated. On p. 201 is a representation of a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious person named Parson in 1610. It is constructed on the same principle as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... of the estuaries, and practised ourselves in threading the network of channels; holding no communication with the land and rarely approaching it. It was a life of toil, exposure, and peril; a struggle against odds, too; for wild autumnal weather was the rule, with the wind backing and veering between the south-west and north-west, and only for two placid days blowing gently from the east, the safe quarter for this region. Its force and direction determined each ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... they had little enough chance to win at a straight game of roulette. But this wheel wasn't even straight with all the odds in favor of the bank, as they are naturally. This game was electrically controlled. Others are mechanically controlled by what are called the 'mule's ear,' and other devices. You CAN'T win. These wires and magnets can be made to attract the little ball ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... draw six feet. They have two decks and an awning, and there was just room for our 200 men to lie about. Altogether there were on board—in the order of the amount of room they took up—two brass hats, 220 men (four Hants drafts and some odds and ends), a dozen officers, four horses and a dozen ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... better educated than Cathelineau. He was as ardent in the cause as they were; why else had he undertaken it? but he understood better than they did the fearful chances which were against them: the odds against which they had to fight, the almost insuperable difficulties in their way. He knew that the peasantry around them would be brave and enthusiastic followers, but he also knew that it would be long before they were disciplined soldiers. He was sure that they would fight stoutly round their ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... A handkerchief, some odds and ends of string—oh, and a paper with some gibberish ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... There were considerable odds against him, and Slade, perceiving this, turned off, muttering something that his wife did not hear, and she went on her way. A hurried walk brought her to the wretched home of the poor drunkard, whose wife met her ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... exception to this statement in your pages.' 'Sir, I refer you to Junius Brutus. Answer, Roman!' Never a sound from Limbo!—'Sir, Decius has grossly misrepresented. Where shall I send my challenge?' 'To Hades, no less! Not the least use in knocking up John Randolph of Roanoke.'—'Sir, I am at odds with Aurelius. Pray favour me with the gentleman's address.' 'Sir, he left no name. You see, he ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... pastures new as someone somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was really no secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... little warning shout and hurled it back at Siward, who shot forward like an arrow, his opponents gathering about him in full cry, amid laughter and excited applause from the gallery, where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher were wildly offering odds on the blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether were thriftily ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... complicated, and when she at length made her way to the right department the suave assistant regretted that the trimming was sold out. It was Cecilia's face of blank dismay that made him suddenly remember that there was possibly an odd length somewhere, and a search revealed it, put away in a box of odds and ends. Cecilia's thanks were so heartfelt that ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... of the gap between expectation and realization—they close their eyes to the new disillusionment they are heading for, and think only to shut out their sense of inadequacy in their present association by steering full steam ahead for another encounter, in which the odds are ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... ragged odds and ends of clothing, and they made a long journey to No. 14, Acacia Grove, where Christine had taken two furnished rooms and a scullery, which served also as kitchen and bath-room. Acacia Grove was the ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... far as public questions are concerned, and be merely left to matters of minor importance, or private affairs, as with all other nations. But that concentrated energy which has marked the race throughout that long fight of centuries against such overwhelming odds, will still continue as their distinguishing characteristic, but turned now to the question of their own national welfare, and no longer to the aversion ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... make a vigorous effort to crush the Protestant religion. He raised large armies, and gave the command to the Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Guise, and to the brother of the Duke of Guise, the Duke of Mayenne. Henry of Navarre, encountering fearful odds, was welcomed by acclamation to head the small but indomitable band of Protestants, now struggling, not for liberty only, but for life. The king was very anxious to get Henry of Navarre again in his power, and sent most flattering messages and most ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... their minds to like some friend of the family, they commonly besiege him for a story. The same demand is made by the public of authors, and accordingly it was made of Dr. Holmes. The odds were heavy against him; but here again he triumphed. Like a good Bostonian, he took for his heroine a schoolma'am, the Puritan Pallas Athene of the American Athens, and made her so lovely that everybody was looking about for a schoolmistress to despair after. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... general admiration. The public took a lively though impartial interest in the contest. To critical outsiders it seemed not unlikely that the Professor (a word of good- humoured contempt) might "whip" even "old man Gulmore." Bets were made on the result and short odds accepted. Even Mr. Hutchings allowed himself to ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... said he; "for your sake I'll peril my carcass; I have done that for many a one that was not worth your forefinger. It is no such mighty risk either. I'll but step into the skirts of the forest here. It is odds but they drive a hare or a fawn within reach of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "What's the odds, anyhow?" she muttered, as it fell with a soft little swish on the top of the pile inside. "It's too late to write another now." And she hurried after ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... with your work,' he said, opening his book again. 'You've got about as long odds as anyone ever got. But you'll lose all ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... then brought to light a human head and some odds and ends of clothing, from which they recognized the count whom all the town believed to have died at Java, and whose loss had been bitterly deplored by ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... she was surrounded by a mixed-up jumble of books, papers, paint-boxes, music, chalks, pencils, foreign stamps, picture post-cards, crests, balls of knitting wool, skeins of embroidery silk, and odds and ends of all kinds. She groaned as the circle grew wider, yet the apparently inexhaustible cupboards were ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... if less productive, source of life exists in another burrower and mound-builder, the crawfish. Unlike the ant, which likes to drain, he is an advocate of irrigation. In this art he can give our well-diggers odds in the game. His genius for striking water is wonderful. On the dryest parts of the prairie, miles from any permanent stream, his ejections of mud may be found. Shallow or deep, his borings always reach water. He is always ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... blood. All the issues of the Rue Le Peletier were closed almost immediately after the explosions, and a prompt descent was made on the restaurant and little garden, immediately opposite the Opera-house, which was kept by an Italian named Broggi. Here those of his companions who were at odds with fortune were in the habit of assembling, and here a waiter named Diot found on a table a pistol and beside it a man who was ostentatiously weeping. When questioned, he gave his name as Swiney, declared he was the servant of an Englishman named Allsop, a brewer, who lived at ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... individuals took advantage of this favorable change of feeling to expostulate with the Moors on the folly and desperation of their conduct, which must involve them in a struggle with such overwhelming odds as that of the whole Spanish monarchy. They implored them to lay down their arms and return to their duty, in which event they pledged themselves, as far as in their power, to allow no further repetition of the grievances complained of, and to intercede for their pardon with ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... however, and allowed the girls to take their choice of the various odds and ends which it contained. They selected a piece of rough, hair-brown serge; then, fetching their work-baskets, they retired to a remote part of the garden, where they were not likely to be disturbed. If Mrs. Wilson had imagined they were about ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... his present master as a young man, and was perfectly familiar with all the events of his career. From various conversations, at odds and ends of spare time, I discovered that Doctor Dulcifer had begun life as a footman in a gentleman's family; that his young mistress had eloped with him, taking away with her every article of value that was her own ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... Russia, was that Germany might accomplish it and, owing to her many advantages, might secure a privileged position in the country and use it as a stepping-stone to material prosperity, military strength, and political ascendancy. This feat she could accomplish against considerable odds. She would achieve it easily if the Allies unwittingly helped her, as they ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Mediterranean. She was a stanch frigate carrying forty guns and a crew of 375 men and boys; but she was at this time in a distressing state of unreadiness, owing to the dilatoriness and incompetence of the naval authorities at Washington. The gundeck was littered with lumber and odds and ends of rigging; the guns, though loaded, were not all fitted to their carriages; and the crew was untrained. As the guns had to be fired by slow matches or by loggerheads heated red-hot, and the ammunition was stored in the magazine, the frigate was totally unprepared ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... spear aside, strode across the room, and raised the girl to her feet. "The Sangraal," he said, forgetting in his agitation the few odds and ends of Old English he ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... determined upon, so as to make a junction with Grant before Richmond, and end the war by one final and tremendous stroke. The "Campaign of the Carolinas," as this northward march was called, was a really greater achievement than the march to the sea, for it was against more formidable natural odds, and was done in midwinter. The distance covered, from Savannah to Goldsboro, in North Carolina, was four hundred and twenty-five miles; five large rivers were crossed, three important cities were captured, and the Stars and Stripes were ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... household furniture—bed, blankets, pots, kettles and frying pan, plates, dishes and wash-basin, coffee-pots and coffee, tea, sugar and butter, salt, pickles, rice, bread and wine, pepper and curry powder, and half a hundred more odds and ends, the constant looking after which, packing and repacking, calculating and contriving, have been the standing plague of my life for the last seven years. You will better understand this when I tell you that I have made in that time about eighty movements, averaging one a month, at every ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Lyons is clean swept, spick and span as a toy town; Bordeaux is coquettish as her charming Bordelaise; Nantes, certainly, is not particularly careful of appearances. But Marseilles is dirty, unswept, littered from end to end; you might suppose that every householder had just moved, leaving their odds and ends in the streets, if, indeed, these beautifully-shaded walks can be so called. The city in its development has laid out alleys and boulevards instead of merely making ways, with the result that in spite of brilliant sky and burning ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... length, amidst the fire and smoke and hellish uproar, we could see that the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds; the superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal. The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... more remarkable in these fine descendants of our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is less true to herself in peace than she was in war? I ask you, who will not recognise ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... left with the hay-yard man where his partners would stop when they arrived. Mounted on Suvy, his outlaw of the day before, he rode from Goldite joyously. After all, what was the odds? He had been no better off than now at least a hundred times. At the worst he still had his partners and his horse, a breakfast aboard, and a mountain ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... than Madame Vauthier does; she sent me word to hurry if I hoped to be paid," he said. "Neither she nor I can make out why folks who eat nothing but bread and the odds and ends of vegetables, bits of carrots, turnips, and such things, which they get at the back-doors of restaurants,—yes, monsieur, I assure you I came one day on the little fellow filling an old handbag,—well, I want to know why such persons spend nearly forty ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... for the next round with fortune. And Dicky, in his attitude of enthusiastic but not uninterested spectator, cheered him on, secretly exultant. Dicky was now serenely sure of his odds. It was war-time; and Rickman could not hold out long after such ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... bring home to him the futility of watchfulness. The Arab was obviously resigned to his particular fate, whatever that might be, and, since sleep had become a necessity to him, it seemed useless to combat it. What, after all, could vigilance do for him in that world of hostility? The odds were so strongly against him that it had become almost a fight against the inevitable. And he was too tired to keep it up. With a sigh, he suffered his limbs to relax and lay ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... not awry. Fate and man are not altogether at odds. Yet there is a perpetual combat going on between man and nature, and between the power of character and the tyranny of circumstance, death, and sin. The great soul is tossed into the midst of the strife, the longing, and the aspirations of the world. He rises Victor ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... go on trying to match her eyes as if you were a draper, and they a bit of ribbon; say at once "her eyes are loadstars," and have done with it! I set up Molly's grey eyes and curling black lashes, long odds above the other young woman's; but, of course, it's all a ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... proper bishop, himself not averse to taking a breather with sword and battle-axe should fighting matters become serious, had his vice dominus to lead his forces in the field—is an old-school country gentleman who is amiably at odds with modern times. While tolerant of those who have yielded to the new order, he himself is a great stickler for the preservation of antique forms and ceremonies: sometimes, indeed, pushing his fancies to lengths that fairly ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... safety, but common sense told him that the certain noise of doing such a thing would be heard and perhaps his effort defeated, with great danger to himself, and Tony, too. If there had been but one guard or even two—but three were too great odds. ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... action has started between Chattanooga and Corinth means that our task is additionally hazardous. The odds we must overcome are greater than I expected. If we have made a mistake in delaying a day, we must work the harder to keep that mistake from costing Mitchel his victory. The train we are to capture leaves Marietta at six o'clock tomorrow morning. I will see that ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... collar with care into a large copper bowl on the centre table, instead of flinging it against the Japanese umbrella in the fireplace. (A grave disadvantage of radiators is that you cannot throw odds and ends into them.) He chose the most expensive cigar because he wanted comfort and peace. The ham was ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... and followed some of them, but although I succeeded in getting close enough to hustle two of the wanderers out of a leisurely walk into a lope, I never saw hair through my rifle sight. Having no dogs, of course, it was all still-hunting and trailing, with the long-odds chance of jumping a bear in the brush ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... with the undrilled minute-men along the dusty roads leading from Lexington and Concord to Boston, against the skilled redcoats of boastful Britain. They were among the faithful little band that held Bunker Hill against overwhelming odds; at Long Island, Newport, and Monmouth, they had held their ground against the stubborn columns of the Ministerial army. They had journeyed with the Pilgrim Fathers through eight years of despair and hope, of defeat and victory; had shared their sufferings and divided their glory. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... South Carolina, organizer of the "wool hats" against the "silk hats" and the "kid gloves"—Governor of the state and later member of the federal Senate. Although a Democrat, he was thoroughly at odds with Cleveland, and publicly declared it was his ambition to stick his pitchfork into the President's sides.[3] Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, had the disadvantage of having been one of the earliest of the silver supporters, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... thing stirring. If the meeting could end in a brawl the odds would be in favor of Tillotson. The effect of O-liver's uplift would be lost. Even his friends couldn't sway a ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... one could eat another bite, Mother and Grandmother folded up the cloth and put the sandwiches left over in one box. All the odds and ends were put down on a paper plate for Bruce to eat, and then Grandpa dug a hole in the ground and he and Sunny Boy buried the papers out ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... person—possibly, as you suggest, Mr. Jacks—is willing to give fifty pounds to discover your whereabouts. I, on the other hand, am giving a thousand guineas to keep you here as my guest. The odds do not seem even, ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... way of life; I think My brothers, who administer the means, Live better for my comfort—that's good too; 800 And God, if he pronounce upon such life, Approves my service, which is better still. If he keep silence—why, for you or me Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times," What odds is 't, save to ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... is there to do? Now, listen! One day for trunks, one day for boxes and barrels, one day for closets, that's three, one for curtains, four, one day for—for the garret, that's five. Well—one day for odds and ends that I haven't thought of. That's liberal, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... a bank cashier were admittedly allowed to take the money out of the till, and put it loose in his pocket, more or less mixed up with his own money; afterwards laying some of both (at different odds) on "Blue Murder" for the Derby. Suppose when some depositor asked mildly what day the accountants came, he smote that astonished inquirer on the nose, crying: "Slanderer! Mud-slinger!" and suppose he then resigned his position. Suppose ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... th' strap, until ther worn't a place near whear they'd trust em onny mooar. They'd selled as much o' ther furnitur as they could till they'd nowt else left at onnybody wod buy; an they'd popt bits o' things, sich as books an odds an ends, till they'd nowt else left to pop. An nah th' rent day wor next mornin, an barrin abaat hawf a soverin they hadn't onnythin ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... reached the other bank, but dropped dead in the water. Those of the Indians who were guarding the horses, seeing what was going on at the camp, came rushing to the rescue of their friends. I now counted thirteen braves, but as we had already disposed of two, we had only eleven to take care of. The odds were nearly two to one ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... to proceed in that direction, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there was any foundation for the alarm, and accompanied them himself; he was rather astonished on perceiving the enemy debouching from the hills in great force; the odds were fearfully against him in numbers, but, like a good soldier, he at once decided upon attacking without delay. He immediately opened a fire on them from his two guns, under the able superintendence of Lieut. McKenzie, and then dashing forward, drove them ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... have of your Majesty or your viceroys. This has been observed during all these past years, especially among the Japonese—who, being arrogant, proud, and warlike, think that everything depends upon them, and ask odds of no one. They, judging by the great number who go to Japon from Felipinas that they are necessary to the latter, have ever thought of making war upon these islands in order to conquer them for themselves. [In the margin: "And now ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... superb charge of the Light Brigade. Less than a fortnight later, on November 5, the Russians renewed the attack, and took the English by surprise. A desperate hand-to-hand struggle against overwhelming odds ensued. Then the French came to the aid of the English troops, and the ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... the sole responsibility of the most important public acts, but, in the execution of them, seldom condescended to calculate the obstacles or the odds arrayed against him. He was thus brought into collision, at the same time, with three of the most powerful grandees of Castile; the dukes of Alva and Infantado, and the count of Urena. Don Pedro Giron, the son of the latter, with several other young noblemen, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... dropping her bridle-rein into the hands of a waiting groom, "'t was my race to-day, was it not? Odds fish, man!" she cried out sharply to the attendant groom; "be ye easier with Roland's bridle there. One beast of his gentle mettle were worth a score of clumsy varlets like to you! Well, said I not right, my Lord Admiral; is not the race fairly mine, I ask?" and, careless in ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... With man and ghost, I have always felt the same: give me my back to the wall, and I could pluck up valour enough for the occasion, but there's a spot between the shoulders that would be coward flesh in Hector himself. That, I'm thinking, is what keeps some armies from turning tail to heavy odds. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... fear that the mate had his suspicions, at least in regard to Peters, and that he would let slip no opportunity of getting rid of him. It was clear, indeed, that what we should determine to do could not be done too soon. Still the odds were too much against us to allow of our ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and he had certainly a talent of campaigning which has hardly ever been equalled. They fought like devils against any odds of number; and before battle they have been known to march six days together without food, except, perhaps, the inner barks of trees, and in such clothing and shoeing as mere birch bark:—at one time, somewhere in the ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... by chalks:" wagers were sometimes determined by he who could reach furthest or highest, and there make a chalk-mark.—Long chalks, great odds. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... I, but he was below me in class, and though he was bigger, he was not a very great deal bigger; and if there is any truth in the stories I have so often told, our family has been used to fight against odds for many generations. ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... non-coincidental hallucinations known to him, Mr. Gurney is said to have decided that the chances against a death coinciding with a hallucination, were forty to one,—long odds. {194a} But it is clear that only a very large collection of facts would give us any materials for a decision. Suppose that some 20,000 people ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... came into this case I knew that we were up against tremendous odds. Terror was loose in Centralia; prejudice and hatred against the I.W.W. was being systematically and sweepingly spread in Grays Harbor county and throughout the whole Northwest; and intimidation or influence of some sort was being ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... If the odds are so much against the insane gambler who, secure in an infallible system, hastens to place his foot on the neck of chance in what is called a "square" game, how must he inevitably fare in a "skin" operation. And the stranger who comes within our gates, bent ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... father, Bill, and Jim, the two latter being my younger brothers, arrived from their offices, each in succession declaring, with many "whews" and "ughs," that it was by all odds the coldest night yet. Undeniably we all felt proud of it, too. A spirited man rather welcomes ten or fifteen degrees extra, if so be they make the temperature superlatively low; while he would very likely grumble at a much less positive chilliness coupled with ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... successful in securing a good fit in ready-made clothing. He bought several street suits, evening clothes, overcoats and hats, much silk underwear—a luxury he had always promised himself in that ghost future—and an extravagant supply of cravats, gloves, socks, and odds and ends. He omitted nothing necessary to make him feel a well-dressed man so far as he could find it ready made. There was nothing conceited about Donaldson, nothing of the fop, but he enjoyed both the feeling and the appearance of rich garments. He hired a messenger boy who ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... that all chance is but "direction which thou canst not see," and certainly we all occasionally come across remarkable coincidences—little things against the probability of the occurrence of which the odds are immense—that fill us with bewilderment. One of the three motor men in the illustration has just happened on one of these queer coincidences. He is pointing out to his two friends that the three ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Boshman glided like a serpent among us, picked up the paper-knife, and triumphantly performed the very miracle in which the wizard had failed. A harsh cackle of laughter announced his success. But the mage was even with him, or rather he was 'odds and evens.' Rapidly he drew his forefinger across the Boshman's ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... Gables' in my opinion, is better than 'The Scarlet Letter:' but I should not wonder if I had refined upon the principal character a little too much for popular appreciation, nor if the romance of the book should be somewhat at odds with the humble and familiar scenery in which I invest it. But I feel that portions of it are as good as anything I can hope to write, and the publisher speaks encouragingly of ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mend her husband's clothes. Indeed, it's not unusual for her to mend for the hired man too. Besides that, there are always odds and ends of tasks, but the time when you feel the strain most is in the winter. Then you sit at night, shivering, as a rule, beside the stove in an almost empty log-walled room, reading a book you have probably read three or four times before. Outside, the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... day, I bethought myself of teaching my companion piquet (no purely transatlantic game is in the least interesting, if the stakes are nominal); he acquired it with the ready aptitude that seems natural to Americans, and I soon had to drop the odds of the deal. We played many hundred parties for imaginary eagles; eventually I got a run, and left off a good winner, which, as my opponent had not money enough to buy tobacco, was highly satisfactory to ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence |
