"Offhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... menu, hurriedly. The Exclusive Room was ostentatious to the point of menus and waiters. "What'll you have, Nadine?" He still wasn't quite at ease with her first name. Offhand, he could never remember having been on a first name basis with a Mid-Upper, certainly not ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... beautiful countenance, and a very intellectual one, but he has some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers already a little gray. This is a very offhand portrait of so ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the surprise of a man who in a moment of expansion has made a sacred confidence only to find it crop up lightly in subsequent conversation. He was obliged to employ some self-control in order to say, with a manner sufficiently offhand, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... steak-eater—tastes best when eaten with those tools of Nature's own providing, both hands and your teeth. An hour passed—busy, yet pleasant—and we were both gorged to the gills and had reared back with our cigars lit to enjoy a third jorum of black coffee apiece, when Johnny, speaking in an offhand way to Bill, who was still hiding away biscuits inside of himself ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... address and mentioned his receiving hours. As I held back, he repeated the invitation, but in vain. Broechner's influence was too strong. A few years later, in some dramatic articles, I had expressed myself in a somewhat satirical, offhand manner about Goldschmidt, when one day an attempt was made to bring the poet and myself into exceedingly ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays Only or a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... one of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is very ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... became interested in the work of an obscure chemist over in Brooklyn, Morgan Prescott. Prescott claims, as I understand, to be able to transmute copper into gold. Whatever you think of it offhand, you should visit his laboratory yourselves, gentlemen. I am told it is wonderful, though I have never seen it and can't explain it. I have met Prescott several times while he was trying to persuade Mr. Haswell to back him in his scheme, but he was never disposed to talk to ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... del Toboso named, I was struck with surprise and amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he told me it meant, "History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian." It required great caution to hide the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and snatching it from the silk mercer, I bought all the papers ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... turns to his mate with "It gets a bit late," His mate, he just answers offhand— "It's the same soon or late, we'll camp 't any rate In the ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... be very rich," I said. "I wonder," I asked, "if I could sell him an automobile?" The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must have imposed upon her, and perhaps, ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... I had seen several of the men snip the head from a rattlesnake with a single offhand shot—yes, they all carried their weapons easily and wontedly. But the target of an immobile can lacked in stimulation to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... golf course mystery. Jack had obeyed the colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand, informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for the same period was 66,255 bushels. ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... Nimmo tells me that you are not only a critic but a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerable offhand jeu d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo or you, if they were worth house-room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... importance. Only when that is done is it imbued with life. But how among countless suggestions is a "cause" to know the difference between a true invention and a pipe-dream? There is, of course, no infallible touchstone by which we can tell offhand. No one need hope for an easy certainty either here or anywhere else in human affairs. No one is absolved from experiment and constant revision. Yet there are some hypotheses that prima facie deserve more attention ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... perceive it, and he sailed without showing me any preference. In six months he returned, and whether it was that he was told of by others, or at last perceived, my feelings towards him, he joined the crowd of suitors, made a proposal in his offhand manner, as if he was indifferent as to my reply, and was accepted. My father, to whom he communicated the intelligence as carelessly as if he were talking about freight, did not approve of the match. 'Very well,' replied he, 'I shall say no more; as long as a man has a ship he does not want ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... carpenter began, with a ponderous air of weighing his words. "I ain't the man to judge a feller offhand like. I 'lows I know suthin' o' the blind man o' Skitter Bend, seein' I wus workin' contract fer him all last summer. An' wot I knows is—nasty. I've see'd things on that ranch as made me git a tight ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... has at least one serious drawback. In times of great public excitement it might lead to hasty legislation, unless the House of Lords should be able to interpose and procure the further consideration of questions of vital importance which it would be dangerous to attempt to settle offhand (S631). ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... creed of a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without a precedent was produced offhand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of this obscure democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the face of a free people and pronounce the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the Sun of the tropics is not to be claimed offhand. The imperious luminary does not grant his letters-patent to all. Very few does he permit to wanton in his presence without exacting probation. He is a rare respecter of persons. Though there are faces, like King Henry V.'s, which the sun will not condescend to burn, sometimes he smites savagely. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... luck," answered the watery-eyed young man with an offhand attempt at familiarity. "I'm his Assistant—name ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... in particular—nothing except that he would like to put them up for me. I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-houses all my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to appear (to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in an offhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eight lightning-rods put up, but—The stranger started, and looked inquiringly at me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bovine monarch, black and glossy, with eyes of fire, dilating nostrils, and wicked-looking horns. The picadores attacked him warily, hurling their banderillos (small, dart-like javelins ornamented with ribbons, and intended to jade and infuriate). The bull had killed three horses offhand, and had received eight banderillos in his neck and shoulders, when, upon a given signal, the picadores and matadores suddenly withdrew leaving the infuriated beast alone in his wild paroxysm of wrath. Presently a soft musical note, like the piping of a lark, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... provided by the flower. Here the Pieris surpasses us. She does not consult the seed-vessel, to see if it be long or short, nor yet the petals, four in number and arranged in a cross, because the plant, as a rule, is not in flower; and still she recognizes offhand what suits her caterpillars, in spite of profound differences that would embarrass any but a ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... were discussed by Socrates in a striking manner, and by a method peculiarly his own. "Professing ignorance, he put perhaps this question: What is law? It was familiar, and was answered offhand. Socrates, having got the answer, then put fresh questions applicable to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showing that the definition was too ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... this state of affairs for some time simply because the woman did the essential work in her offhand, slapdash style, and left him unmolested to his brooding as long as he did not interfere with her ideas of domestic economy. But his impatience and the sense of being wronged were producing a feeling akin to desperation. Every week there was less and less to sell from the dairy; chickens ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... and saving money for a practical purpose—that of keeping a wife, who, if she chose, might conduct one of the girls' schools adjoining his own; for which purpose he had advised her to go into training, since she would not marry him offhand. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the possibility that it is his accusation which they are answering. So multiple are the threads of influence leading from the Republic through succeeding literatures and civilizations that it is unsafe to assert, offhand, that any modern expression of hostility to poetry may not be traced, by a patient untangler of evidence, to a source in the Republic. But even this is aside from the point. One might concede that the wide-spread modern antagonism ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... his hosts, there and then put McAndrew's Hymn into vigorous idiomatic French—an extraordinary feat, as it seemed to M. Bourget. Something similar, it will be remembered, is told of Tennyson. "One evening," says F. T. Palgrave of the poet, "he read out, offhand, Pindar's great picture of the life of Heaven, in the Second Olympian, into pure modern prose splendidly lucid and musical." Let who will decide which tour de force was ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my way down the stream, little elated at my solution of what at first had seemed a mystery, for I felt that Nick would have told me offhand all ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Reginald; "and it is a somewhat difficult question to answer: very much too difficult to answer offhand. We ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... short; and the bear wouldn't wait for me to examine the thermometer, and note the direction of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor method, therefore, had to be abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of offhand shooting. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... departure from France, it took the other American delegates by surprise and they disclaimed all knowledge of any such decision. On inquiry, however, they learned that the venue had in truth been fixed in this offhand way.[95] ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... limit set. I informed the gentlemen that I could make my bid considerably higher if I was granted more time in which to remove the debris. President Francis asked me how much more I could bid, and I told him I could not state offhand. The conditions as to the removal of the wreckage in the specified time, namely, three months, were somewhat prohibitive, as it would be impossible to fulfill the requirements without an enormous expense. It would be well-nigh ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... not to be fully explained offhand; as Griggs says, there are many problems to work out. The steam vents appear to be very recent. They did not exist when Spurr crossed the valley in 1898, and Martin heard nothing of them when he was in the near neighborhood in 1903 and 1904. The same volcanic impulse which ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... evening he would come over to my bungalow in a friendly way; he would "just drop in," as he used to say, in his pleasant offhand fashion, and he would irrigate himself with my brandy and soda, amid genial smiles and a brandishing of his long cheroot, playfully indicating his recognition of a stimulant with which he had been ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... Chia consort had expressed her desire that no more than a single stanza should be written on each tablet, so that unable, after all, to disregard her directions by writing anything in excess, she had no help but to compose a pentameter stanza, in an offhand way, merely with the intent of complying with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... responsible position. Still," he continued, surveying himself critically, "I might make a more favourable impression if I had that 'well-groomed' look the papers lay so much stress on nowadays, and I could mention in a careless, offhand way something about having ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... his own native land, the scandals of the court and the cloister, the petty struggle for the primacy of Wales, and the great tragedy of the fall of the Angevin Empire - is all alike dealt with in the bold, dashing, offhand style of a modern newspaper or magazine article. His first important work, the 'Topography of Ireland,' is, with due allowance for the difference between the tastes of the twelfth century and those of the nineteenth, just such ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... disappointed at this offhand response to her more earnest speech, but she only smiled gaily, and ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... around the soda fount of a Kansas drug store; and I want you to feel as free to talk back as though we had gotten into this difficulty by accident instead of design. Ask me all the questions you want to, and if I'm unable to answer offhand I'll look the matter up later and telegraph you—at your expense. With such unbounded liberty there's really no telling whither we will drift, what subjects we may touch upon; but should I inadvertently trample upon any of your social idols or political ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... to," laughed Whitcomb, "but you'd better not let him know that I said so. He'll be more likely to give you information if you ask him offhand." ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... a step to enquire after your wants; you must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any notice is taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an unconventional courtesy of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... surprised at the apt wit and the subtlety with which these gentlemen formulated their replies, he felt bewildered with epigram and repartee, and, most of all, by their offhand way of talking and their ease of manner. The material luxury of Paris had alarmed him that morning; at night he saw the same lavish expenditure of intellect. By what mysterious means, he asked himself, did these people ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... under discussion," said the Attorney. "One cannot affirm offhand that we are floating on the battered hull. One must not forget to take the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... own, sometimes using Latin words and making the changes which regularly would have occurred, and when words failed, making signs, and in extreme cases drawing pictures of what he wanted. This versatility with the pencil, for many of his offhand sketches had humorous touches that almost carried them into the cartoon class, interested officers and passengers, so that the young student had the freedom of the ship and a voyage far ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... banker. "No, I never sign them offhand—not any more. I used to do so—once to my sorrow and to the amusement of my friends. Leave yours with me till day after to-morrow and I'll consider it. I have at least four more now on the waiting 5 list, ranging in subject ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... replied the Colonel, solemnly; "certainly I will think it over. Of course, there are pros and cons, but, on the whole, speaking offhand, I don't see why the young people should not make a match. Also you have always been a good relative, and, what is better, a good friend to me, so, of course, if possible I should like to fall ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... think," said poor Anne, the remembrance of her errand quelling her resentment. She couldn't afford to snub Mr. Harrison under the circumstances, that was certain. When you had just sold a man's Jersey cow offhand, without his knowledge or consent you must not mind if his parrot repeated uncomplimentary things. Nevertheless, the "redheaded snippet" was not quite so meek as she might ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of different parts of the hairy scalp, so little variation exists in the relative density and structure of the skin, that, in spite of the want of external support at the aperture of exit, it is often difficult to discriminate offhand the two apertures, if neither bone nor brain debris occupies ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... quietly, to train the growth of English verse; and proved himself, in everything he wrote, an artist to the bottom of his conscience. As certainly as Spenser, he was a "poet's poet" while he lived. A couple of pages might be filled almost offhand with the genuine compliments of his contemporaries, and he will probably remain a "poet's poet" as long as poets write in English. But the average reader of culture—the person who is honestly moved by good poetry and goes from time to time to his bookshelves for an antidote ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to be supposed that in the darkness the Comanches below would grasp the situation offhand, and, before they could do so, Dinah scurried over the peak of the roof to the scuttle, which of course was still open, and descended. In her haste, she stepped upon the back of the chair, which tripped over, and she went down with a crash that ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... seemed to suggest du Croisier's name in this predicament. He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the man's real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of exchange on him for ten thousand francs, adding that the amount would be repaid on receipt of the letter either by M. Chesnel or by Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon. Then ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... of May, and the singing summer birds easily espied amongst the young leaves and sprouting brushwood; the long days and warm nights of June, when the wild rose is a beauty to be admired, and the distant masses of elder have a fine foamy appearance. These extracts settled Belinda offhand, and she and Lamia laid their heads together and read the book faithfully. They are good girls, spite of the names selected for them by a fanciful parent, and if they are not proud of those names, and prefer being called by their intimates Blind (with a short "i") and Lammy, there is, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... before I took it off. He wouldn't have so much as a rag on me. 'What's this?' says he. 'A little trouble I had a year or so ago, with a gland that swelled,' says I. 'It had to be cut, and has been as right as rain ever since.' Just in that offhand way, Cicely. Quite brisk and cheerful. 'Tubercular, eh?' says he, very soft and thoughtful-like. And I knew it was all ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... very simple offhand manner. If, however, you take into consideration the fact that it is highly probable that nothing exists, that even ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... write, however, 'Laverick Wells' was in great feather—it had never known such times. Every house, every lodging, every hole and corner was full, and the great hotels, which more resemble Lancashire cotton-mills than English hostelries, were sending away applicants in the most offhand, indifferent way. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... he said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires her more than ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... is seemingly a moderately easy task to lay out a suburb in so far as its exterior appointments are concerned, the rub comes in the getting of citizens. A Standard Oil magnate can build a city if he is willing to spend the money, but all the powers of heaven and earth combined cannot manufacture offhand a citizenship. In an emergency of this nature most land improvement companies would have issued pretty little pamphlets, gotten up in exquisite taste, full of beautiful pictures and bubbling over with enthusiastic text, all based upon possibilities rather than upon realities. But the Acre Hill Land ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... their game. But from this admitted fact to the inference that it is "affection" that makes the husband defend his wife, there is a tremendous logical skip not warranted by the situation. Instead of making such an assumption offhand, the scientific method requires us to ask if there is not some other way of accounting for the facts more in accordance with the selfish disposition and habits of savages. The solution of the problem is easily ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the mate. However, the argument was settled offhand by Ben Boltrope, who had clambered up to a higher ledge of rock from whence he could see further out to seaward over the fog, which hung low on the water and did not extend to the upper regions ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... ITA's expedition had cleaned out the burrows beneath the Dome and sealed them up—were midgets, the tallest not more than two feet in height. Whatever he was, why was the stranger trying to destroy the Dome? Apparently Thomas himself was not to be killed offhand: the jolting journey was continuing interminably. With enforced patience the Earthman resigned himself to wait for the next scene in this ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... appearing a second time among her favorite haunts hinted of more than the fortuitous. Daylight was made to feel that she suspected him, and he, remembering that he had seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park, stated offhand that he was thinking of buying it. His one-time investment in a brickyard had put the idea into his head—an idea that he decided was a good one, for it enabled him to suggest that she ride along with him to inspect ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... by two ladies, he again appeared. Between two violent blushes, and with an air which would have been light and offhand if it could, Mr. Ransome presented to his friend, the foreman, his mother—and Miss Usher. And as if the foreman had not sufficiently divined her, Miss Usher's averted shoulders, burning cheeks, and lowered eyelids made it impossible for him to forget that she was the Lady whose ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... make her an offer for the ranch—for yourself, you understand. She doesn't know you, and she may have become tired of mooning around here by now, and there's just a chance that she'll take you—that is, if you handle the cards right. No eagerness, you understand—just sort of offhand and careless, as if you didn't care much whether ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... easy matter to reform these rich people offhand. Just to call at their houses and advise them, when you aren't too busy—that would be a kindness, of course, but quite far from a cure. Besides, they might even resent your little calls as intrusions. A good-hearted reformer would ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... spasms for a minute, the salts spillin' out over her face, but when the accident evaporated, an' she opened her eyes, rational, I thought to myself, 'Maybe she don't know she's keeled an' would be humiliated if she did,' so I acted callous, an' I says, offhand like, I says, pushin' her apron around behind her over its vice versa, so's to cover up the eggs, which I thought had better be broke to her gently, I says, 'I just called in, Mis' Morris, to borry your recipe for angel-cake—or maybe ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... "I dunno 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried. "Every canyon 's got a trail that runs up a ways, and there's canyons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Anglo-maniac, shot at us a look fierce as any bonassus; while he asked, abruptly, what we thought in England of one whom he styled the "Demosthenes of Ireland"—looked at us for an answer. As it would have been unsafe to have answered him in the downright, offhand manner, in which we like both to deal and to be dealt by, we professed that we knew but one Demosthenes, and he not an Irishman, but a Greek; which, by securing us his contempt, kept us safe from the danger of something worse; but, our Demosthenic friend excepted, it was a pleasant, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... precisely as the work of a beginner, though it has a freshness and sense of enjoyment about it that might well belong to a first book rather than to—I doubt whether even Mr. NORRIS himself could say offhand what its number is. Sara and her circle are eminently characteristic of their creator. You have here the same well-bred well-to-do persons, pleasantly true to their decorous type, retaining always, despite modernity of clothes and circumstance, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... "Wa-al, offhand I'd say it was consid'able better 'n a will. Ya-as.... Wills kin be busted, but this here docyment—I calc'late it would take mighty powerful hammerin' to ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... the directors had been studying Bryce on ultra vires, and he went round to the Bar library to take advice from his friends there. Sir Charles Paul and Mr. Hill said offhand: But you agreed to pay, how can you get out of it? To this Mr. Tremearne (the director in question) replied: Yes, but it was an extortion, the Municipality is the creature of a statute, they have only ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... dance, ride, play tennis. She laughed with her eyes; she talked with a savouring vivacity. She never seemed tired or bored. She was, in one hackneyed word, attractive. And Vaness, the connoisseur, was quite obviously attracted. Of men who professionally admire beauty one can never tell offhand whether they definitely design to add a pretty woman to their collection, or whether their dalliance is just matter of habit. But he stood and sat about her, he drove and rode, listened to music, and played cards with her; he did all but dance with her, and ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... could I explain, offhand, to this stranger, the big boss, the little boss, the State boss, the ward boss, the county boss, all burrowing underneath our theoretical government! How could I explain to him that Fidele's department in the custom-house had been allotted to a Congressman about to run ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... from the Hudson's Bay Company departed for Saginaw, at seven o'clock A.M. The adverb "fiducially" first brought to my notice, as the synonym of confidently, steadily. Finished the perusal of Mr. F.'s manuscript lectures, on the Romish Church. Think them an offhand practical appeal to truth, clear in method, forcible in illustration. Learning and research, such as are to be drawn from books other than the Bible, have not been evidently relied on. They might not do to print without ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and the brother-in-law each took a cigar with that careless yet deferential manner which always distinguishes the treatee from the treator; and then the box was protruded in an offhand way toward Harry Covare, the personal clerk of the Registrar; but this young man declined, saying that he preferred cigarettes, a package of which he drew from his pocket. He had very often seen that cigar-box with a Havana ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... misrepresented, and then it was either unintentional or to brighten a story or to exaggerate a fact. I recall one interview in respect to courts of arbitration and the universal labor question. My opinions were expressed offhand, and, although not taken down at the time by the interviewer, my words uttered during a half hour's interview were quoted with great exactness. I know this is not the common opinion in respect to the interviewer, and in some cases gross misrepresentations are made, but in the very few instances where ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... offhand, or regarded as Bibles—it all depends upon your point of view. Speaker Cannon may be right in his estimate of the newly annexed sixty volumes of history that now grace his library-shelves in Danville, proudly shown to constituents, or he may be wrong; but anyway, Cannon's judgment about books ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... day back in April, as I'm drivin' home from the station with Sadie, who should step to the curb and hold me up but Mr. Bayne. Does it offhand, friendly, mind you. Course I stops sudden. Sadie bows and smiles. I lifts my lid. Mr. Bayne holds his square-topped derby against his white shirt front. We shakes hands cordial. And I'm most gaspin' for breath ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... few others, I have picked out from hundreds of atrocity tales which I heard during four months spent in England, Belgium, Germany, and Holland. It will serve as an example, not only because it has the earmarks of truth,—having been told in an offhand way merely as an explanation of the private's insanity,—but because it is typical of the kind of incident which in the telling is, nine times out of ten, twisted into ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... Madge," he replied, in cordial, offhand tones, "we are friends. There's nothing else for us to be. I don't pretend to understand your scruples. Even if a woman refused to be my wife I should be none the less friendly, unless she had trifled with me. To my man's reason a natural tie does not count for so much as the years we spent ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... go so easily. Assuming charge in a simple, offhand manner, he found a taxicab which took them to the South Station, led her to the ticket-office, secured a chair, and put her ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... was educated regardless of expense or anything else and was returned a few years ago a finished product, sublime, though a little terrifying to look at, and reeking with knowledge of one kind or another. I have heard it said that DeLancey can tell offhand what has been the correct thing in dress for each of the last thirty-five years, and that he can handle as many as fifteen articles of cutlery and forkery at a dinner ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... pleasure. He could be at once the most reckless of rakes and the leading spirit in the Cabinet or the House of Commons. He seems to have thought that philosophical eminence was obtainable in the same offhand fashion, and that a brilliant style would justify a man in laying down the law to metaphysicians as well as to diplomatists and politicians. His philosophical writings are equally superficial and arrogant, though they show here and there the ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... "Offhand, I'd say today was your day to be cautious, quiet and respectful to your betters, namely me. However," she added in a conciliatory tone, "since you put it on a Budget Control basis, I'll ask the Cow to give you a real, mathematicked-out, ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... the first morsel in his mouth he turned round on my father and asked for some salt, rather surprised that no salt cellar had been presented to him offhand. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... behind his authors. Consequently, this sudden development of capacity on the part of the poet is liable to take him unprepared, and the mere apparition of a poet who can add up a pounds shillings and pence column offhand might well induce apoplexy. Yet it is to be feared that that providence which arms every evil thing with its fang has so protected the publisher with an instinctive dread of verse in any form, and especially in manuscript, that he ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... attached to the deep structures, and when it is so moved it is not tender or sore. Any little lump which ulcerates located on the genitals must be regarded with suspicion. Boys and men should not be satisfied with any offhand statement that, "it is nothing." It may be a chancre, and it may be exceedingly ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... suspect in the end that there was often a method in her skipping. She now talked of the day's journey, of the weather, of Mary's good cooking, of a dozen minor matters. After a long time, when he might naturally be supposed to have forgotten what they had started with, she said offhand: ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... my ears. As you may observe, Mr. Holmes, my hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of sacrificing it in this offhand fashion. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... all I could say; and mother seemed nearly as pleased as I was. As for Uncle Geoffrey and Allan, they took it in an offhand and masculine fashion. ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... when he takes up some philosophic dilemma, or some quaint abstraction (viz., Certainty, Predestination, Idleness, Uxoricide, Prohibition, Compromise, or Cornutation) and sets the idea spinning. Beginning slowly, carelessly, in a deceptive, offhand manner, he lets the toy revolve as it will. Gradually the rotation accelerates; faster and faster he twirls the thought (sometimes losing a few spectators whose centripetal powers are not starch enough) until, chuckling, he holds up the flashing, shimmering conceit, whirling at top speed and ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... not to be answered offhand. Mr. Grey, advancing, laid a finger on the man's shoulder. "Come," said he, "we will have our conversation ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr. Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Bird, at all events. Offhand I would say that a huge cavern had been washed in the earth and the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Plenty of witnesses were forthcoming to give evidence against them; such can be purchased outside any cutcherry in India for a few rupees. The men were convicted. Some were given a choice between execution and service in the Nawab's army; others were sentenced offhand to a term of imprisonment, and these considered themselves lucky in escaping with their lives. In vain they protested their innocence and pleaded that a messenger might be sent to Calcutta; the Nawab was known to be ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... it would be," said she, offhand and careless, just as if two thousand a year, more or less, mattered ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... ain't that of anybody I know," said the veteran, "and I can't, offhand, recall anybody whose initials are S.T. But Tim Mellick, who keeps the store over at Palmo, has paper bags of the same kind ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... a simple citizen in the "Pantagruel" of Rabelais, who seats himself judge-wise on the first stump that offers, and passes offhand a sentence in any matter of litigation; a character who figures similarly in a comedy of Racine's, and in a fable of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... untenable—almost repulsive," he said, "but the law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand. You see, the question of consideration intervenes. And—and—where is ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... In an offhand manner and with slight embarrassment he touched his cap and said that he was Victor Pratteler. When Spiele did not immediately reply, he asked with some discomfort, whether he was at the Hoeflingers', and frowned. With laughing eyes Spiele answered that he was right and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... up to some devilry with some fool of a girl," he said in an offhand tone. "I know the type of man. They have a keen scent for impressionable women, of whom a fellow of that sort has always half-a-dozen in tow. No doubt that is what he came down here for—a tender adventure. That's the only kind ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... offhand. We'd have to figure that. That's another reason for filling the boat up, though. The more we have the less everyone's share of the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... is, that when once a group of sacred books has been evolved—even though the group really be a great library of most dissimilar works, ranging in matter from the hundredth Psalm to the Song of Songs, and in manner from the sublimity of Isaiah to the offhand story-telling of Jonah—all come to be thought one inseparable mass of interpenetrating parts; every statement in each fitting exactly and miraculously into each statement in every other; and each and every ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of the soul, the greater is the task and the more gigantic the creative power which such a task may develop. It has been said that, in this scene, Goethe revealed leanings towards Catholicism. I do not pretend to deny it offhand, but I must insist on these leanings being understood in the sense of my premises. Goethe took from tradition those elements which were able to materialise his spiritual life and gave them a new interpretation. We are justified in believing that ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... like to answer such a question positively, offhand, but I don't, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... interesting residents of the precinct. I had even seen him more than once on the avenue, but I had never before been brought face to face with him, and consequently had much too superficial a knowledge of his countenance to determine offhand whether the uneasy light in his small gray eyes was natural to them, or simply the result of present excitement. But when he began to talk I detected an unmistakable tremor in his tones, and decided that he was ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... hundredweight in that district. I made a few quid out of mine—and saved carriage too, for I could take them out on the waggon. Then Mary began to hear (through James) of a buggy that some one had for sale cheap, or a dogcart that somebody else wanted to get rid of—and let me know about it, in an offhand way. ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... not have risen—not because he was snobbish, but because, being a sensitive, high-strung person, he instinctively adopted the manner that would put the person before him at ease. He glanced at Mildred, rose, and thrust back forthwith the slangy, offhand personality that was perhaps the most natural—or was it merely the most used?—of his many personalities. It was Crossley the man of the world, the man of the artistic world, who delighted Mildred with a courteous bow and offer of a chair, as ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... was something in the quiet man that had effectually prevented any development of roughness in Norah. Boyish and offhand to a certain extent, the solid foundation of womanliness in her nature was never far below the surface. She was perfectly aware that while Daddy wanted a mate he also wanted a daughter; and there was never any real danger of her losing that gentler attribute—there was ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... his presence, and absolutely regardless of his wish. In truth, the texture of that salmon-coloured skin could be seen to be aristocratic without a microscope, and the exceptious artizan has an offhand way when contrasts are made painfully strong by an idler of this kind coming, gloved and brushed, into the very den where he is sweating and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... it wonderful that the forester could offhand select such a strategic point. He felt more certain than ever that Mr. Marlin must have an intimate knowledge of the territory over which he had jurisdiction. Could Charley have known how intimate that knowledge was, he would have been amazed. And what he ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... youth, with an air of offhand gravity, "I shall be obliged to sit up working well into the morning, so you may have a cup of strong coffee ready for me. Wait until I ring for it—perhaps about two in the morning. I shall sit in the dining-room, but ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... Suddenly and offhand he was hurried into a most momentous decision. Towards the end of June 1505, when several Church festivals fall together, he paid a visit to his home at Mansfeld, in quest, very possibly, of rest and comfort to his mind. ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... this book the reader will find a summary of the theories of hypnotism. There is no doubt that hypnotism is a complex state which cannot be explained in an offhand way in a sentence or two. There are, however, certain aspects of hypnotism which we may suppose sufficiently explained by certain scientific writers on ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... his offhand manner. "Such an array of reasons cannot be gainsaid; and, indeed, I shouldn't feel comfortable in leaving you down here with no champion but little Spira, so let us be off at once. Head the van, you see, by crossing this Slough of ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... speaking should be made one operation. The principles of composition for the public speech belong to a separate work. A few hints only can be given here, and these will be concerned with the informal, offhand speech rather than ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Hills, "there's nothing in it. My land, he's as offhand about 'em as if they were circulars, and I don't believe he ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... search of him. Royal societies, scientific associations, and the British government were debating what steps should be taken to find him. But they were very slow in coming to any conclusion, and while they were weighing questions and discussing measures, an energetic American settled the matter offhand. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden |
