"Offhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two men greeted each other in their offhand British way. As we couldn't well, under the circumstances, maintain a fiction of mutual invisibility, Mr. Shaw, with a certain ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... give you an historical disquisition in the Titmarsh manner upon this, but reserve it for Punch—for whom, on Thursday [I have written] an article that I think is quite unexampled for dulness, even in that Journal, and that beats the dullest Jerrold. What a jaunty, offhand, satiric rogue I am, to be sure—and a gay young dog!" But he did not think his work half so uninteresting as he pretended; he even regarded with satisfaction that which he produced when greatly out of the vein. "It is ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Mother Graham's demand to know what Dicky had written to me had been appeased by Lillian's offhand remark that country mails were never reliable, and that my letter would probably arrive later, the elder woman went to her own room to puzzle anew over her son's letter, which simply said over again what he had told her ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... course. I shall have to compare the marks that I have found here with those I have collected, following out the method of the immortal Bertillon. Every make of shoes has its own peculiarities, both in the number and the arrangement of the nails. Offhand, however, I should say that these shoes were American-made—though that, of course, does not necessarily mean that an American wore them. I may even be able to determine which of a number of individual pairs of shoes made the marks. I cannot tell that yet, ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... inner pocket of the enveloping coat, he took a compact roll of bank-bills from a drawer in the desk and gave it to Gryson, saying tersely: "That isn't a bribe, you understand; it's merely to help you make your getaway. Can you manage to ride on Transcontinental trains without being recognized offhand?" ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... similar return. The distribution of seats, as any one must know who has ever considered the subject deeply and with a sense of responsibility towards the country, is one of the most profound and difficult questions that can be brought before the house. It is all very well to treat it in an easy, offhand manner; but how are you to reconcile the case of North Cheshire, of North Durham, of West Kent, and many other counties, where you find four or six great towns, with a population, perhaps, of 100,000, returning six members to this house, while the rest of the population of the county, though ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Killdeers, with a puzzled expression on his deeply wrinkled, tough old face, which Sewall said "looked like the instep of an old boot that had lain out in the weather for years,"—"what I can't make out is why you make all this fuss instead of hanging 'em offhand." ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... 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. Returning on July 2, the feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... stopped suddenly and looked at me, half alarmed. This made me laugh more heartily, and he grasped my hand with the serious air of a physician feeling the pulse of his patient. Being assured there was no danger, he indulged in a little offhand cachinnation himself and was, I judged, well pleased with the trial, for he repeated it frequently afterward, and greatly ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... quite that much ef you put it on the scales," explained His Honour painstakingly. "I mean pounds sterlin'—English money. Near ez I kin figger offhand, it comes in our money to somewheres between thirty-five and forty thousand dollars—nearer forty than thirty-five. And it's all yours, Peep—every red ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... thought of Luck Lindsay just then, they replied politely, and did not tell him offhand that there was no possible opening for him in their companies. Three of them made appointments with him at their offices. One promised to call him up just as soon as he "had a line on anything." One said that, with the rainy ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... was to enter the laundry and pass over his parcel, as though it were his week's washing. He would be gone before they had discovered its contents. He merely needed to be offhand and nonchalant. More than once he had seen dilapidated actors carrying a limited wardrobe to the laundry at equally small hours of the night. And the sloe-eyed iron-thumpers would never again ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... function of his Emperor. He was too wise to insist on a uniformity of political institutions a priori,[218] for he seems to have divined that the surest stay of order, as of practical wisdom, is habit, which is a growth, and cannot be made offhand. He believed with Aristotle that vigorous minds were intended by nature to rule,[219] and that certain races, like certain men, are born to leadership.[220] He calls democracies, oligarchies, and petty princedoms (tyrannides) "oblique policies which drive the human ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... 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 certainly endanger his comfort, and he might risk his life, trying ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... her neighbor on the south, "this is rather an offhand soiree, and we may as well cut out proper names. But I will put you wise to the fact that I am the Magazine Lion. I got away from Roosevelt in Africa. He called me 'Mucky,' and I made tracks. Here he cannot hurt me, for they will never ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... he, with an attempt at offhand swagger, in response to the demand. "It's a comic song, ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... find somebody," continued Zack, in his offhand, familiar way. "I don't know—gently! we're not walking for a wager—I don't know whether you're married or not?" (Mat still made no answer, and walked faster than ever.) "But if you havn't got wife or child, every fellow's got a father and mother, you ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... Garfield was one of them. Indeed, the faculty for organization seems innate in the American people, so that when it became necessary to raise and equip so large a body of men at a few weeks' notice, the task was undertaken offhand by lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, and schoolmasters, without a minute's hesitation, and was performed on the whole with ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... 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. All of which information, useful in a way, no doubt, ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... who knew him far better than I did, seemed by her conduct to think so. Had I any reason or right to determine offhand that she was mistaken? Supposing I refused to go to the frontier with him, he would then most certainly depart by himself, to commit all sorts of errors, and perhaps to meet with all sorts of accidents; while I, an idle man, with my time entirely at my own disposal, was stopping at Naples, and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... finally, "there's no use of our discussing it any further now—that's certain, isn't it? I can't say what I'll do. I'll have to take time and think. I can't decide this offhand." ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... among educated people, can tell you offhand how an American President is elected, what is the difference between a Republican and Democrat, or what is the position of the Governor of a State? Well, it will not be Mr. Harris' fault if the reader does not know how to answer these and kindred questions at the same ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... memory, or offhand—Bonaparte never admitted any one to such secrets—instead of the proclamation he had dictated to Bourrienne two days earlier, he pronounced ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... 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 ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... fully to match it of the peculiar systems that he knows. They don't just cover HIS world. One will be too dapper, another too pedantic, a third too much of a job-lot of opinions, a fourth too morbid, and a fifth too artificial, or what not. At any rate he and we know offhand that such philosophies are out of plumb and out of key and out of 'whack,' and have no business to speak up in the universe's name. Plato, Locke, Spinoza, Mill, Caird, Hegel—I prudently avoid names nearer home!—I am sure that to many of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... 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 make such ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... 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 grip on my axe, an' long a'mighty hard to bust a few ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... be the culprit. Yet you tell me Millard did not contest her divorce and that it would have been very easy for him to file a counter-suit because everyone knew of her relationship with Manton. That, offhand, shows no ill-will on his part. And now we find this note from him, which at least is ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... large families lies not only in their injury to the members of those families but in their injury to society. If one were asked offhand to name the greatest evil of the day one might, in the light of one's education by the newspapers, or by agitators, make any one of a number of replies. One might say prostitution, the oppression of labor, child labor, or war. Yet the poverty and neglect which drives a girl into prostitution ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... as though we were seated in friendly converse 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 gods, I trust ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Hank Rowan and his partner," I returned briefly. I didn't much like his offhand way of asking; not that it wasn't a perfectly legitimate query. But I couldn't get rid of the notion that he would hand me out the same dose he had given MacRae if only he ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... studied for a year upon a lecture and made careful research, and then presented the lecture just once—never delivered it again. I put too much work on it. But this had no work on it—thrown together perfectly at random, spoken offhand without any special preparation, and it succeeds when the thing we study, work over, adjust to a plan, is ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... is quite obvious. By the process of elimination. Every owner except the one in fault will be able to prove an alibi. Yet, merely guessing offhand, I think it quite probable that there is only one number that fits the case. ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... property in the time 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 impossible to get sufficient ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... kind invitation to visit you and deliver a poem for the 333d Anniversary of founding Santa Fe has reach'd me so late that I have to decline, with sincere regret. But I will say a few words offhand. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... his hand on Gilbert's shoulder and whispered to him in a pleasant, offhand way, "Get through and come in the office, I want ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Eusebius, to enquire of very many real scholars, who have professed to keep up their Greek after leaving the universities, if they have re-read Homer in Greek, and almost all have confessed that they had not. They read him in Pope and Cowper. Let them read him offhand, and fluently, continuously, as they do Marmion, or the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and I cannot but think they will be struck with the Homeric resemblance in the poems of Sir Walter Scott. Both great poets had, too, the same relish for natural ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... oblige me," said the detective, deftly slipping half-a-sovereign into the hand of the guard, "by going to the window and informing them in an offhand casual sort of way that the tragedy took place in ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... Salisbury; Johnson, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund and Richard Burke, Hickey, with two or three others, constituted our party. At one of these meetings, an idea was suggested of extemporary epitaphs upon the parties present; pen and ink were called for, and Garrick, offhand, wrote an epitaph with a good deal of humour, upon poor Goldsmith, who was the first in jest, as he proved to be in reality, that we committed to the grave. The Dean also gave him an epitaph, and Sir Joshua illuminated the Dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in pen and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... demolished since. The worst of them all, the Mott Street Barracks, were taken into court by the owner; but all the judges and juries in the land had no power to put them back when it was decided upon a technicality that they should not have been destroyed offhand. It was a case of "They can't put you in jail for that."—"Yes, but I am in jail." They were gone, torn down under the referee's decision that they ought to go, before the Appellate Division called a halt. We were ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... unresponsive, shy, she would sometimes raise her eyes from her book in school and find him gazing steadily at her like a timid deer drinking thirstily at a spring. Nancy did not like Cyril, but she pitied him and was as friendly with him, in her offhand, boyish fashion, as she was with ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... been fiddling with his hat and staring hard at a pile of old ties just outside the window. He raised his head, and regarded her steadily. It was beginning to occur to him that there was a good deal to this Miss Georgie, under that offhand, breezy exterior. He felt himself drawn to her as a person whom he could ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... paper as the Scientific American, and then disappearing to buy a few sundries for experiments. Returning from the drug store with his chemicals, he would not be seen again until required by his duties, or until he had found out for himself, if possible, in this offhand manner, whether what he had read was correct or not. When he had completed his experiment all interest in it was lost, and the jars and wires would be left to any fate that might befall them. In like manner Edison would make free use of the watchmaker's tools that lay on the little table ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... 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 ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... secretary had the chance he wanted to watch him as carefully as one generally watches men who dispose of one's future. A slouching, slender figure; a head like a wise macaw; a beaked nose; shaggy eyebrows; unorderly hair and clothes; hoarse voice; offhand manner; free talk, and perpetual cigar, offered a new type — of western New York — to fathom; a type in one way simple because it was only double — political and personal; but complex because the political had ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the position of the soldier's head when aiming, the exercise should not be held with the sight adjusted for the longer ranges until the men have been practiced with the sights as the latter would generally be employed for offhand firing. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... 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 in with ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... let her 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 ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... considering JONES. "Well, I should say——But, stay; I am not entitled to give a professional opinion until to-morrow morning! Still, offhand I may observe, that such an illegal death would savour of positive suicide; but it would not matter very much, as under existing circumstances suicide in some form or other seems to me inevitable!" And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... observed, during my intercourse with him latterly, a listless melancholy in his manner, a circumstance that puzzled me a good deal in contrast with his powerful frame, and vigorous appearance, and blunt, offhand manner. I think I understand now, and can compassionate certain expressions in his last note to me, which, when I received it, made a painful and unfavorable impression upon me. I suppose he did not believe in a future state of existence, and have no doubt that, latterly, he had ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and traditions of 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 a series of sketches as a special correspondent in ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... capital and labour, the metayer system, and the ratio which should exist between an increase of population and the exhaustion of the soil by too frequent crops of wheat; and she wound up by propounding a series of hypothetical problems based on the doctrines she had set forth, for Austin to solve offhand. ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... of last season's debutantes. Given to tennis and all outdoor sports generally. Offhand but stanch. It was she who gave a woman's care to Mrs. Taylor when the latter fainted ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Luscombe would not yield an inch of his position. I can't say offhand how far history bears him out, but I fancy that he is right to this extent: the lower deck has less flexibility of mind. It cannot view a depressing situation from so many sides at once. It is not, for instance, ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... other States would still maintain their cohesion when they were no longer fighting units, and when the motives of conquest and defence were no longer in operation, is a question on which I should not like to dogmatize either way. Certainly we have no right to assume offhand that the unifying process which has given the nations the mass cohesion and efficiency they require for holding their own against enemy States would still remain in full power when there were no longer any ...
— Progress and History • Various
... was given with an offhand cordiality decidedly prepossessing. Expressing my thanks, I at once accepted it in the spirit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... magazine, which wanted airing, and was not in good order for rifles: in the evening, however, they were drawn out to show the gentlemen of the town their dexterity in shooting. A clap board with a mark the size of a dollar was put up; they began to fire offhand, and the bystanders were surprised. Few shots were made that were not close to, or into, the paper. When they had shot some time in this way, some lay on their backs, some on their breasts or sides, others ran twenty or thirty steps, and, firing ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... 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 ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... they looked like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in an offhand way: ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... very 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 her father; and she took a fixed resolve that she ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... drew into himself at this insolent and offhand definition. He was astonished and hurt at the tone of his friend. However, presently, he resolved to go through with ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... be a bother to me to know a lot of things offhand. To pass by a mountain and know how it was thrown up, what it is composed of, what its flora and fauna are; to get to a town and know its history in detail.... What things to be interested in! It's tiresome! I hate ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... he probably did not care what she thought. Very likely it was her vanity that whispered to her he had gone North with Win Beresford partly to please her. Still, since she was his friend, ought she not to just drop an offhand hint that he was a more useful citizen where he was than in the Mounted? He couldn't very well resent that, could he? Or think her ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... sale, eight of which were obviously unsuitable, and none in the very least like Peggy's ideal abode. This was a bitter disappointment to the expectant trio, and the disappointment was not softened by the offhand and independent manner in which they were treated, for the agent hinted at inordinate expectations, smiled openly at Peggy's inquiry about a moat, and floated off to attend to another inquirer, as if any other subject were worth considering when the question ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then, seeing that Mr. Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the story he had just ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... and giving her a share of 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 found. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... 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 ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... in a good-sized field. Woods horizoned the field on three of its edges and a sunken road bounded it on the fourth. She measured, I should say at an offhand guess, seventy-five feet from tip to tip lengthwise, and she was perhaps twenty feet in diameter through her middle. She was a bright yellow in color—a varnished, oily-looking yellow—and in shape suggestive of ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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
... to be avoided when the place was swarming with old women. And, after all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of course, he couldn't undertake to say—offhand—whether she was or wasn't any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... takes an act of God to keep her goin', but He does it offhand an' casual, same as He makes three-year-old steers ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... long sort of riband," thought the drummer to himself in his amazement. They were in a great hurry, too, to get him under the yoke, he thought; but they should find that a soldier on his way to the manoeuvres is not to be betrothed and married offhand. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... in appearance, was certainly taken on Mazzini's advice, and the immediate purpose was doubtless to make converts for 'Young Italy' among the marines. Had Garibaldi been caught when the ruthless persecution of all connected with 'Young Italy' set in, he would have been shot offhand, as were all those who were found dabbling with politics in the army and navy. He escaped just in time, and sailed ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... and a half, trying to suggest some alternative that didn't look so silly. Kindly get the facts well into your head, will you? The man must pursue Mary's affection either there or here, mustn't he? He can't do it there because his wife won't let him. In order to do it here, one would say offhand that Mary would have to be here, and since her mother declines to bring her, it does look to me as if the job would have to be done by somebody else. However, if my logic is wrong, kindly ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... account; because when a man buys an article he buys it at the price of the day, and not at what the price of it may become. There is no doubt that would be a more satisfactory way of dealing if it could be done but I don't see how it could be adopted, because no curer could offer to buy fish offhand at a price that ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities—Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remark—flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any unwatchful person off ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... Mrs. Barton,' 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 ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... pity. I had not thought him great, but I had not suspected how small he was. His friends, the best, were confounded. One of them said to me the next day, 'It was not amazement that I felt, but consternation.' I spoke offhand and the report is horrible. Conkling's speech was carefully written out, and therefore you do not get all the venom, and no one can imagine the Mephistophelean ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Mrs. Mencke began, throwing herself into a chair and trying to speak in an offhand way, "that another little trip would do us all good. Will has business that calls him to Canada, and he thinks he would like company on the journey; so we have decided to combine business and pleasure, and take in all the sights on the way. He is to start a week from Wednesday, and we can ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... mob shouting, 'To Hell with the Pope'?" Witness, with great emphasis: "No. Certainly not. Jamie was never any ways a religious man." These bewildering corruptions of sense and sanity overwhelm you at every turn. Ask your neighbour offhand at a dinner in Dublin: "What is so-and-so, by the way?" He will reply that so-and-so is a doctor, or a government official, or a stockbroker, as it may happen. Ask him the same question at a dinner in Belfast, and he will automatically tell ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... the establishment, male or female, who did not say and believe that Mr Frederick was the best master, not only in Liverpool, but in the whole world. He did not by any means overdose the people with attentions; but he had a hearty offhand way of addressing them that was very attractive. He was a firm ruler. No skulker had a chance of escape from his sharp eye, but, on the other hand, no hard-working ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... morning Whitey restrained his impatience until breakfast-time, then strolled down to the bunk house, wearing the boots. Several of the men were there, just finishing the meal, and rolling their after-breakfast cigarettes. Whitey sat down, sort of offhand and careless-like, and to his pained surprise, no one noticed the boots. Then he crossed his legs and leaned back, with his hands clasped behind his head—and ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... this time by an immense advertising placard propped on the counter. It hymned the virtues of the Ajax Invigorator. To the left sagged a tormented male victim of many ailments meticulously catalogued below, but in too fine print for offhand reading by one in a hurry. The frame of the sufferer was bent, upheld by a cane, one hand poignantly resting on his back. The face was drawn with pain and despair. "For twenty years I suffered untold agonies," this ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... not know precisely how things stood, much less could he explain this sudden attack. Yet if the tall, lean man, serious and growing grey, represented one form of strength, the shorter, stouter man, with the mobile face and the quick brain, stood for another. Offhand he could think of no weak spot on his side; and if he must fight, he ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... his Majesty 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 ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... petition!" exclaimed the 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 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... 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 ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... answered it right offhand!" She gave a soft, cheerful laugh. "Oh, do you suppose I shall ever ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... 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
... That's what makes me discouraged with progress. Listen to that! I can name offhand over one hundred natural phenomena that have been changed by the will of man—a hundred instincts in man that have been wiped out or are now held in check by civilization. What this man here just said has ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... see the connection offhand, but it may well be that there is one. Can anybody think of any connection between King James and Balaklava and ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... regions, to which such definite words as "worlds" and "planets" seem inapplicable. And artificial constructions that I have called "super-constructions": one of them about the size of Brooklyn, I should say, offhand. And one or more of them wheel-shaped things a goodly number ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... of homosexuality put forward by Freud need not be dismissed offhand. Freud has often manifested the insight of genius, and he refrains from molding his conceptions in those inflexible shapes which have sometimes been adopted by the more dogmatic psychoanalysts who have followed him. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... In his heart he blamed Rhodes that the prisoner had not been let escape during the absence of the girl, and also resented the offhand manner of the young American concerning the duty of ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... totally unlike theirs. He could do nothing but sit still, remain physically inert while he was mentally in a state of extreme unrest. He ventured a banality about the weather. Carr smiled faintly. Tommy Ashe observed offhand that the heat was beastly, but not a patch to blizzards and frost. Then they ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Most illustrations, being definite, do but affront us. Usually, Shakespeare is illustrated by some Englishman overawed by the poet's repute, and incapable of treating him, as did Corot, vaguely and offhand. Shakespeare expressed himself through human and superhuman characters; therefore in England none but a painter of figures would dare illustrate him. Had Corot been an Englishman, this landscape would have had nothing to do with Shakespeare. Luckily, as an alien, he was ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... me a difficult question," she said. "Offhand I should say you must ride every morning, sleep some part of the early afternoon, and—oh, well, ride the next morning again, I reckon." And she smiled across at him. "Are you thinking of staying ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... they can all do everything; and an Irish gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for ploughing."—"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him accordingly at high wages—ten dollars a month ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... what was once his country house and garden in old Chelsea Village to the theological seminary of his professorship. How many people remember this, or his scholarship? But before that old rooftree was laid low, he wrote beneath it, quite offhand, a little poem, 'The Night Before Christmas,' that blends with childhood's dreams anew each Christmas Eve—a few short verses holding more vitality ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... it as a kind of a batty excursion at the start. You see, he'd asked me offhand would I come, and I'd said "Sure, Bo," careless like, not thinkin' any more about it until here Saturday afternoon I finds myself on the way to spend the week-end with J. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... favor of receiving her, and so everything displeased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom she thought very plain, affected, and dry. Natasha suddenly shrank into herself and involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated Princess Mary still more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Mary ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... he were meditating on her words. He does n't say much himself; it is she—she used to be so silent—who does the talking. She has plenty to say to him; she describes to him the charms that she discovers in the path of duty. He seldom speaks in the House, I believe, but when he does it's offhand, and amusing, and sensible, and every one likes it. He will never be a great statesman, but he will add to the softness of Dorsetshire, and remain, in short, a very gallant, pleasant, prosperous, typical English gentleman, with a name, a fortune, a perfect appearance, a devoted, ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... wayfarers, as they were, without formality or delay. At this court a great variety of cases came up, such as disputes as to debts, failure to perform contracts of sale or purchase, false measurements, theft, assault, defamation, and misdemeanors of all kinds. Sometimes the court decided offhand, sometimes compurgation was allowed immediately or on the next day, sometimes juries were formed and gave decisions. The law which the court of pie-powder administered was often referred to as the "law merchant," a somewhat ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... these styles develop by proximity—the nearest to French being Netherlandish. The next, as a result of immediate intercourse, Italian. Then German, Spanish, and the rest, as intercourse gave opportunity. It is not always an easy matter to say offhand whether a MS. is French or Flemish. In the earlier days it is not easy to say whether it be French or English, or even whether French or Italian. But the distinctness comes ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... have never known,—where the steamers like the Mariposa Belle come from. Whether they are built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast, or whether, on the other hand, they are not built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast, is more than one would like to say offhand. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... come into the room with a laugh when we go back, and say, in an offhand way, "By the way, Agnes, Willis and I made a remarkable discovery in my dressing-room; we found my watch there on the bureau. Ha, ha, ha!" Do you think you could ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... time, before one's time; in anticipation; unexpectedly &c. 508. suddenly &c. (instantaneously) 113; before one can say "Jack Robinson", at short notice, extempore; on the spur of the moment, on the spur of the occasion [Bacon]; at once; on the spot, on the instant; at sight; offhand, out of hand; a' vue d'oeil[Fr]; straight, straightway, straightforth[obs3]; forthwith, incontinently, summarily, immediately, briefly, shortly, quickly, speedily, apace, before the ink is dry, almost immediately, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to get out of it. She once dropped, to her daughter, in a moralising mood, the remark that it was astonishing how many of them one could know without its doing one any good. Fifty of them—even very clever ones—represented a value inferior to that of one stupid woman. Rose wondered at the offhand way in which her mother could talk of fifty clever men; it seemed to her that the whole world couldn't contain such a number. She had a sombre sense that mankind must be dull and mean. These cogitations took place in a cold hotel, in an eternal Swiss rain, ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... seem to prove it? He knew Riley's lines, and wrote them down. I doubt if the greatest poet that ever lived scribbled lines like that, offhand." ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... perceived the on-looking visitor, nor hinder the wink, the swiftly thrust-out tongue, as swiftly withdrawn, the egregious display of two rows of dishevelled jagged squirrel teeth, when once more, with an offhand toss of his tangled brown hair, he nimbly spelled a long twisted-tailed word, and leered capably at the grave intent face framed in the window. "Why, Abner!" Tyler Sudley would break out, addressing the teacher, all unmindful of scholastic etiquette, a ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... he must be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam, in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they, unless they are going to be Richard the ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... touch to make up her mind here, whether she realized it or not; and this touch the girl Corinne had given her. Now, too, impulse met convenient opportunity. For two weeks she had been thinking that if she did ever happen to go to the Works, she would make a point of going in some offhand, incidental sort of way, thus proving to herself and the public that she had not the slightest responsibility for whatever might be going on there. (How could she possibly have, no matter what Mr. V.V. thought, with his exaggerated ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Comte, Gumplowicz, some of them names she had never heard of and could not even spell without following her copy letter by letter. Holman Sommers seemed to have read all of them and to have weighed all of them and to be able to quote all of them offhand; whereas Schopenhauer was the only name in the lot that sounded in the least familiar to Helen May, and she had a guilty feeling that she had always connected the name with music instead of the sort of things Holman Sommers ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... 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 approval ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... a question to put to her!' said Berkeley, smiling. 'As if Oxford were a place to be appraised offhand, on three days' acquaintance. You remind me of the American who went to look at Niagara, and made an approving note in his memorandum book to say that he found it really a very ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... dripping grass to a new position behind a little bush. Cautiously raising my head, I found I could see plainly the sable's head and part of his shoulders. My position was cramped and out of balance for offhand shooting; but I did my best, and heard the loud plunk of the hit. The sable made off at a fast though rather awkward gallop, wheeled for an instant a hundred yards farther on, received another bullet in the shoulder, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. We raced over ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White |
