"Sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... havin' our Celia go so much with Sallie Morton—though her mother does say that Sallie puts crazy notions into our Celia's head. But I reckon all gals is kinder crazy, ain't they?" pursued the farmer, with one of his sly ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... came up with them near a large log lying upon the ground, and felt much surprised to find them taking a circuit of a few rods without an object, every trace of the game seeming to have been lost, while they kept still yelping. On looking about him, he discovered sly Reynard stretched upon the log, apparently lifeless. The master made several efforts to direct the attention of his dogs towards the fox but failed; at length he approached so near the artful object of his pursuit as to see him breathe. Even then no alarm was exhibited; and the gentleman ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... seat on the stove-couch, and quietly, in the course of their conversation on one thing and another, she managed to ascertain her age, her native village and other such particulars, and then setting her mind diligently to put, on the sly, her conversation and mental capacity to the test, she discovered how deeply worthy she was to be respected and loved. But in a while Pao-y arrived, and Pao-ch'ai at once quitted ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... contending passions.' It should never be forgotten that Lamb's vocation was his life. Literature was but his byplay, his avocation in the true sense of that much-abused word. He was not a fisherman, but an angler in the lake of letters; an author by chance and on the sly. He had a right to disport himself on paper, to play the frolic with his own fancies, to give the decalogue the slip, whose life was made up of the sternest stuff, of self-sacrifice, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... were satisfied when Jeff Bucknor told them he would run for the office of county attorney if they so wished it. At the same time he broke to them the news of his engagement. The veterans exchanged sly glances and laughed delightedly. Little did the young man dream that they had planned this political coup for the sole purpose of bringing to the county the person they considered the most suitable as a ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... Ann. Her mother could only hear the voice, which was dry and commonplace enough. Julia thought she detected something peculiar in Cynthy's manner. She would as soon have thought of the big oak gate-posts with their round ball-like heads telegraphing her in a sly way, as to have suspected any such craft on the part of Cynthy Ann, who was a good, pious, simple-hearted, Methodist old maid, strict with herself, and censorious toward others. But there stood Cynthy making some sort of gesture, which Julia took to mean that she was to go ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... teeth when jealous; Truly the lieutenant's sly; Loves with furtive sports to vary ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was against the rules," said Gladys, "but I don't intend to have any one dictate to me whether or not I shall eat candy. I've eaten candy all my life and it's never hurt me. If I can't eat it openly I'll eat it on the sly, but I will ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... seamen were talking together as I passed, with nudges and winks and sly laughs, not natives of the place but from farther up the loch, yet old frequenters with every chance to know the full ins and outs of what they discoursed upon. I heard but three sentences as I passed; they ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... this is, in truth, good luck. I shall revel in dainties, and I will take good care to lay in an ample stock to-night, for I may have nothing to eat to-morrow." As he said this to himself, he wagged his tail, and gave a sly look at his friend who had incited him. But his tail wagging to and fro caught the cook's eye, who, seeing a stranger, straightway seized him by the legs, and threw him out the window to the street below. When he reached ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... chief, 'my worthy arch and patron.'—King Lear; or from the Teutonic 'arg,' a rogue. It usually denotes roguish, knavish, sly, artful.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... old Ayrshire farmer had the portraits of himself and his wife painted. When that of her husband, in an elegant frame, was hung over the fireplace, the gudewife remarked in a sly manner: "I think, gudeman, noo that ye've gotten your picture hung up there, we should just put in below't, for a motto, like, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Ben, "as soon as I have been home, I must go and see my particular friend, Mrs. Mudge. I'm a great favorite of hers," he added, with a sly wink. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... Wylie had no time to lose in his wooing, being on shore for a limited period. And this absence of superfluous delicacy on his part gave him an unfair advantage over the tallow-chandler's foreman, his only rival at present. Many a sly thrust, and many a hearty laugh, from his female auditors, greeted his amorous eloquence. But, for all that, they sided with him, and Nancy felt her importance, and brightened along with her mates at the sailor's approach, which ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... cry after wild Love; for now, even now in the morning dusk, he flew away from his bed and was gone. This boy is full of sweet tears, ever talking, swift, fearless, sly-laughing, winged on the back, and carries a quiver. But whose son he is I may not say, for Heaven denies having borne this ruffler, and so Earth and so Sea. Everywhere and by all he is hated; but look you to it lest haply even now he is laying more springes ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... what he meant in a minute; and soon her hair was flying in the wind, as she ran into the house for her handled mop. She looked first in the parlor, and then in the front hall; but at last she found it in the wash-room. She was very sly about it, for she was not sure Ruthie would approve of this kind of housework. Then Charlie tugged out a pail of water, and dipped in the mop; and between them both they thrust it through the opening of the pen, upon piggy's back. But ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... and I voted for him, drummed for him, fifed and blowed; that was no reason for my thinking him the best man we had for the office. He's a demagogue, an ambitious, sly, selfish feller, as we could skeer up; but, he was in our way, we couldn't get shut of him; I proposed the nomination, and tried to elect him, so that we should get him out of the way of our local affairs, and more deserving and less pretendin' men could get a chance, don't you see? Now, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... developing into the complete figure of a human being. It was the patient. He had apparently been standing there in front of the fire all the time. A second eye had followed the first, and both of them stared steadily at the spy-hole, sharply concentrated, yet with a sly twinkle of humour and amusement that made it impossible for the doctor to maintain ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... downright sly of John Kynaston!" she exclaims, angrily; "picking out a nobody like that behind all our backs, and keeping it so quiet, too; he ought to be ashamed of himself for such ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... attempted to work up a kind of sly significant wheedling expression into his eye, as he stole a half timid, half confidant glance at the priest—but it would not do—the effort was a failure, and no wonder—for there before him sat the terrible catechist like an embodied thunder cloud—red, lurid, and ready to explode ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... a bit o' chaze, right afore the missus, wrap, 'em into bits o' paper, an' I spacheless wid shurprise, an' he the next minute up wid the ironin'-blanket, an' pullin' out me box wid a show o' bein sly to put them in. Och! the Lord forgive me, but I clutched it, an' missus sayin' "O Kitty!" in a way that 'ud cruddle yer blood. "He's a haythen nager," says I. "I've found yer out," says she, "I'll arrist him," says I. "It's yerself ought to be arristid," says she. "Yer won't," ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... her visit, for it partook of the nature of concern. The old man was afraid of his nephew, physically and morally, and he began to regard Anne as a fellow- sufferer under the same despot. After this sly and curious gaze at her he withdrew his eye again, so that when she casually lifted her own there was nothing visible but his ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... Anstice," Mr. Flint answered. "I am afraid the person to whom you are really indebted is old Marsden, for I knew if I offered him anything like the real value of the picture, he would hold it for the price of a Raphael. So I made him set his own price, which the sly old dog thought a staggering one, and which I found so absurdly low that I shall feel bound to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... understand you," said the Senator, turning a sly look upon his companion, "it was the beautiful eyes of the daughter that attracted ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... struck out, but Jackie Bow Wow made a nice home run, and Jimmie Wibblewobble almost did, only he got put out at the home plate, and then Johnnie Bushytail, he got put out, trying to steal to second base, which means getting there on the sly, you know; and then it came the turn of Buddy and his friends to bat the ball all ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... open this one as a matter of course, when glancing at the superscription she saw, or fancied she saw, that it was in a woman's hand. She looked at it again. It was sealed plainly with a woman's seal; and she looked up at Martin Lightfoot. She had remarked as he gave her the letter a sly significant look in ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... water to quench thirst, but when they are dirty they take a dust bath and are at once cleansed. Of course, birds are often seen in the water, but they go there to catch fish and not to wash. I have often fancied that fish are a dirty, sly, and unintelligent people—this is due to their staying so much in the water, and it has been observed that on being removed from this element they at once expire through sheer ecstasy at escaping from ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... That did your best to spill Lord S-L-SB-RY? Gave the Old Tory party quite a turn, And office with snug perquisites did spurn? And now you'd make Strong Drink to bear no barm (Or proper profit.) You would do us harm. Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sly PUCK, Are right; you always bring your friends bad luck. Are you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... in Nellie's eye, Sitting in the corner, Peeping out so sly; Now he's crossed the snow-ground And in chamber blue, Thinking he is ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... if it is so, poets must be weaker still; for Misses R. and K. and Miss G. M'K., with their flattering attentions, and artful compliments, absolutely turned my head. I own they did not lard me over as many a poet does his patron, but they so intoxicated me with their sly insinuations and delicate innuendos of compliment, that if it had not been for a lucky recollection, how much additional weight and lustre your good opinion and friendship must give me in that circle, I had certainly looked upon myself as a ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... is a mink sign, plain as daylight, where Cheokhes sat down a little while after his breakfast of frogs. And here, clinging to a stub, touching my elbow as I sit with heels dangling idly over the lazy brook, is a crinkly yellow hair, which tells me that Eleemos the Sly One, as Simmo calls him, hates to wet his feet and so uses a fallen tree or a stone in the brook for a bridge, like his ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... with a sly look). Mercy, my dinner! You can't depend upon these girls! First thing, it'll be burned. (She hastens ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... resembled the body of a woman. The women rushed out of the river, when the crocodile made a second dash at them, and seized another water-skin that a woman had dropped in her flight. They believe this to be the same monster that took a woman a few months ago. Few creatures are so sly and wary as the crocodile. I watch them continually as they attack the dense flocks of small birds that throng the bushes at the water's edge. These birds are perfectly aware of the danger, and they fly from the attack, if possible. The crocodile then quietly and innocently lies upon the surface, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... distance with pleasure, and while Keraunus stepped out into the street to call a litter for himself, the old woman hastily cut the two finest roses from her bush, and pressing her fingers to her lips with a sly smile, put them into the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... together to keep 'em frum growin' up to do mean things. I use chawin' tobacco myself; but I've told 'em, I don't know how many times, that ef they chaw it'll stunt 'em in their growth. And I've got several of 'em that was smokin' cigarettes on the sly to promise me they'd quit. So I don't figger ez I've done them boys any real harm by goin' round with 'em. And I believe ef you was to ast 'em they'd all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... saw far down in its depths. Their bodies were as great as sunshades, and of the same shape, and the legs they jerked out from under were spangled with stars of blue and red. Once a huge shark swam up to the boat, leered at them with his sly and evil eyes, then, turning on his back, showed a mouth that could have swallowed them all. Poor Pansy drew nearer to the professor with a cry ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... the King wished to see her. At this summons Talia went that very instant, longing to see the light of her eyes, and not knowing that only the smoke awaited her. But when she came before the Queen, the latter said to her, with the face of a Nero, and full of poison as a viper, "Welcome, Madam Sly-cheat! Are you indeed the pretty mischief-maker? Are you the weed that has caught my son's eye and given ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... that the Appetites are sooner moved than the Passions: A sly Expression which alludes to Bawdry, puts a whole Row into a pleasing Smirk; when a good Sentence that describes an inward Sentiment of the Soul, is received with the greatest Coldness and Indifference. A Correspondent of mine, upon this Subject, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... him as if it had been a nunnery; nor could he get a word or even a note from her. The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... run out and greet her. (In a sly undertone.) Agnes is coming up. (He goes out laughing. Donagh hangs up harness on some pegs. Agnes Deely, wearing a shawl over her head and carrying a basket on ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... he said. "Your mug is too ugly to forget easy! You are the big, cussing pirate the savages gave the name of skipper to, along on that devilish coast to the south where we lost the Durham Castle. You are a sly fellow, and a daring one; but it will not help you a mite to sit there and talk about your happy home in ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... when Gerard said anything, wished anything or threatened anything, that imported always a fear-exciting event, and he was finally sly enough to seize and use this halo to the limit. That a man like Gerard has been able through all these years to win and keep such a position and such an influence over German affairs ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... their own, such as cleaning out a well, or putting up a fowl-house. Then, if somebody gets splashed, or knocks his knuckles, and softly swears, his wrath turns to a grin as the little dry chuckle or the sly remark from the others reminds him that his feelings are understood. It is well worth while to be present at these times. I laugh now to think of some of them that I have enjoyed; but I will not risk almost certain failure in trying to describe them, for their flavour depends on minute ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... "Let's go up sly. Everything seems terrible still, and I'd like to take a peek through that back window 'fore we ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... afterwards; I did not see it any more; I had no time. I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. When you have to ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... paper.... And I read where one "Spike" Frazer had been shot to death in a hand-to-hand fight with the police who were raiding a dive suspected of being the rendezvous of drug-fiends. Long wanted and at last cornered, Frazer had fought tigerishly and died in his tracks, preferring death to capture. A sly and secretive creature, he had had a checkered career in the depths. It was his one boast that more than anybody else he had known and been a sort of protege of the once notorious Slippy McGee, that King of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... "hello girl." The mountains here are from six to seven thousand feet above sea level, with scanty vegetable growth. The country is still almost a solitude, save as here and there a sheep herder or his wagon may be discerned. The sly coyote, the simple antelope, and the cunning sage hen still hold sway as they did when I first traversed the country. The old trail is there in all ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... wig with safety worn: High on the shoulders in a basket borne Lurks the sly boy, whose hand, to rapine bred, Plucks off the ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... us lived forward with the men, some of whom were a little jealous of the favour I received, and not only played me tricks, ordered me to do all sorts of disagreeable jobs, and gave me a taste of the rope's-end on the sly, but tried hard to set Jim against me. They soon, however, found out that they were not likely to succeed, for though Jim did not mind how they treated him, he was always ready to stick up ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... unheard-of forces were at work, that the Russians had advanced close to us, that the English had deep and secret policies, that confusion among the native chiefs had come to a head. But our newly-acquired friend said with a sly smile: "There happen more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are reported in your newspapers." As we had never stirred out of our homes before, the demeanour of the man struck us dumb with wonder. Be the topic ever so trivial, he would quote science, or comment on the Vedas, or ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... sly glances when I was a very little boy at an old Culpepper's Herbal, heavily bound in leather and curiously illustrated. It was so deliciously wicked to read about the poisons; and I thought perhaps it was a book like that, only in papyrus rolls, that was used ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... dangers. His modesty has, for these sixteen years past, ascribed to his talents all the glory and prosperity of France, and all her misery and misfortunes to the disregard of his counsels, and to the neglect of his advice. Bonaparte knows it; and that he is one of those crafty, sly, and dark conspirators, more dangerous than the bold assassin, who, by sophistry, art, and perseverance insinuate into the minds of the unwary and daring the ideas of their plots, in such an insidious manner ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... the colloquy the sly rogue having mustered all his energies, fairly grasped the grog-kid in his arms, and, making a clean spring from the deck, placed himself, at the first bound, beyond the reach of the horror-stricken seaman. This exploit was not ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... a place where they have all kinds of freaks," the hedgehog answered with a sly smile—"giants and dwarfs, and ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and was pulling it carefully out. Well, well, well, well! Not so bad! A dark brown tail, a glossy body, and what fine over-hair! For once Arni of Bali had some luck! The fox was dead; it had been shot in the belly and just crept in there to die. Sly devil! Poor beast! Blessed creature! Arni ended by feeling quite tenderly towards the fox. He hardly knew how to give utterance ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... sly and silent. Some of the children here adore her; but they MUST have something to love, you ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... That sly individual was a strong-bodied, middle-aged Turk of commanding presence but sinister countenance, which latter was damaged by the loss of an eye and a sabre-cut ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Between those people and me. But somehow, As time went on, there came queer glances Out of their eyes, and the shame that stung me Harassed my pride with a crazed impression That every face in the surging city Was turned to me; and I saw sly whispers, Now and then, as I walked and wearied My wasted life twice over in bearing With all my sorrow the sorrows of others, — Till I found myself their fool. Then I trembled, — A poor scared thing, — and their ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... scare sly tell how the hours went by. At length darkness came on, and I began to doze. It was the best thing I could do, as it prevented me from feeling either hunger or thirst. I was, however, quickly awakened by the thongs cutting my limbs as I bent forward. I then tried to ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... tragedy of "the spider and the fly" enacted over again. We would but shudder to watch that wicked, sly, patient tarantula, coaxing, flattering, urging the poor little fly, whose bright wings are singed with his hot breath, and whose wonderful eyes are held fast by the fascination of ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... spider turned him round about, and went into his den, For well he knew the silly fly would soon come back again: So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner, sly, And set his table ready to dine upon the fly. Then he went out to his door again, and merrily did sing, "Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing; Your robes are green and purple—there's a crest upon your head— Your eyes are like the diamond bright, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... made inquiries, but satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For himself, he was a man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to question him even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than usual delicacy: besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, not without its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, and deter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a kind of Melchizedek, without father or mother of any kind; sometimes, with reference ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... exceptions,' said I, with a sly glance at the owner of the jockey.' On which the old gentleman laughed again, and was about to reply; when arrival of the train at its destination brought our conversation to a sudden stop, and the motley assemblage, whether crowned with hat or cap, bonnet or 'jockey,' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his whistle, And the goodwife scolds the child; And the girls exclaim convulsively, "Have done, or I'll be riled!" When the loafer sitting next them Attempts a sly caress, And whispers, "Oh, you 'possum, You've fixed my heart, I guess!" With laughter and with weeping, Then shall they tell the tale, How Colt his foeman quartered, And died within ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... wound was making him light-headed. At intervals he imagined that it was Ailsa seated behind him, her arms around his waist, her breath cool and fragrant on his neck; and still he knew she was a phantom born of fever, and dared not speak—became sly, pretending he did not know her lest the spell break and she ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... won't have any one but me,' I told him. 'He is used to me, and I am used to him.' So he said no more. A nurse, indeed! They are all thieves; I hate that sort of woman, I do. Here is a tale that will show you how sly they are. There was once an old gentleman—it was Dr. Poulain himself, mind you, who told me this—well, a Mme. Sabatier, a woman of thirty-six that used to sell slippers at the Palais Royal—you remember the Galerie at the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... expression, his very nature, seemed to have undergone a fundamental change. Gondremark at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty. He had an air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside his sly and sinister expression. He lolled there, sunning his bulk before the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... treasure with proboscis-bill; 505 Fair CYPREPEDIA with successful guile Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile; A Spiders bloated paunch and jointed arms Hide her fine form, and mask her blushing charms; In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies, 510 And on quick wing the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... attempts were devoted to evade the detection of other people's eyes, it happened again that, while least expected, several sly lads discovered the real state of affairs, with the result that the whole school stealthily frowned their eyebrows at them, winked their eyes at them, or coughed at them, or raised their voices at them; and these proceedings ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... is not so. No. He is sly, Mr. Skidder, like there never has been in my experience a man more sly. What is it he desires? I ask. I do not know. But all the time he inquire about my business if it pays, and is there much money in it. Also, I hear, by channels, that he makes everywhere inquiries ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... not that it's any partickler pleasure to me, seeing a balloon, though we did get our tea done early to be in time for it—it's the sly deceitfulness of your conduck, MARIA, which is all the satisfaction I get for coming out with you,—it's the feeling that—well, there, I won't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... humour. The three shepherds, after talking awhile about their shrewish wives, are on the point of striking up a song, when an old acquaintance of theirs named Mak, whose character is none of the best, comes among them. They suspect him of meditating some sly trick; so, on going to bed, they take care to have him lie between them, lest he play the wolf among their woolly subjects. While they are snoring, he steals out, helps himself to a fat sheep, and makes off. His wife, fearing he may be snatched up and hanged, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Susan, bridling a little; then suddenly, she gave a sly chuckle. "That's all very well an' good, Master Keith Burton, but there's one more thing I would have said if I ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... simplicity and dulness entirely into the shade. Had not Griffin and his associates been implicated in the affair, it is probable the vice-governatore and the podesta would have been still more obnoxious to censure; but as things were, the sly looks, open jests, and oblique innuendoes of all they met in the ship, had determined the honest magistrates to retire to their proper pursuits on terra firma, at the earliest occasion. In the mean time, to escape persecution, and to obtain a modicum of the glory that was now to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... chanted the words out to the others and smiled her smile... she had not asked her to write her name... was it unsociable to dislike so many of the girls.... Ellen's people were in the Indian... her thoughts hesitated.... Sivvle... something grand—All the grand girls were horrid... somehow mean and sly... Sivvle... Sivvle ... ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... the roughness, and the egoism that lie at the base of their nature: they honoured the mater familias because she bore children and kept the slaves from stealing the flour from the bin and drinking the wine from the amphore on the sly. They despised the woman who made of her beauty and vivacity an adornment of social life, a prize sought after and disputed by the men. However, in this virile history there does appear, on a sudden, the figure of a woman, strange and wonderful, a kind of living Venus. Plutarch thus describes ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... continue doing good work. It is like the breaths of air drawn into his lungs by the swimmer in a race, who, to get pace, keeps his head low, his mouth under water half the time. I've simply got to win this race. And if anything helps, even lies from Madame Sennier, and the sly deceit of Gillier, I mean to welcome it. That's the only thing to do. Crayford is right. I didn't see it at first, but I see it now. It's no earthly use the artist trying to keep himself and his talent in cotton wool in these days. If you've got anything to give the public ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... of three winters, expended a month's salary buying geese to feed Leo and he grew fat and slick, the sly, old fox, on hot-baked goose for dinner and cold roast goose for supper. Every time he sneezed she pressed upon him the gift of a jar of goose grease with which to anoint his chest, and he blackened and sold it to ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... regretted bitterly that I had not been more hard-hearted. I managed to communicate with L—— that same day through R——, and explained to him as well as I could the whole affair. I found the Russian Commander-in-Chief a sly old fox, for his first idea was to thank me for the information and have the whole Treasury searched; if necessary, to dig down to a depth of twenty feet or so with the help of a regiment or two of infantry. That was his idea. In the end we managed to convince him that ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... year or two before, and that this was a first step to it. It was hard to have to plead, that, for what I knew, my doubts would vanish, if the newspapers would be so good as to give me time and let me alone. Who would ever dream of making the world his confidant? yet I was considered insidious, sly, dishonest, if I would not open my heart to the tender mercies of the world. But they persisted: "What was I doing at Littlemore?" Doing there! have I not retreated from you? have I not given up my position and my place? am I alone, of Englishmen, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... we talked of these: And I (with inward purpose sly To shield my purse from Christmas trees And stockings and ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... ascended to the aerial conning-tower, and all was in readiness to repeat the trial of the night before. Vicious and sly the Z99 looked in the daytime as she slipped off, under the unseen guidance of the wireless, with death hidden under her nose. Just as during the first trial we had witnessed, she began by fulfilling the highest expectations. Straight as an arrow she ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... had throwed off her black as a reasonable widder should, I never approved of mournin' for one man whilst weddin' another, that is mournin' in public in crape and weeds. I don't believe she had a black rag on her, she might you know if she had been sly have put a black bindin' on her petticoat or a black pocket. I remember the Widder Doodle did, but I never approved of it. No, mournin' weeds are right in their place, and orange blossoms in theirn, but I never believed in ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... in this opera, but which is not to be mistaken for frivolity, Rosina loves her nice lover {24} and is willing to be his own. Figaro has told her of Almaviva's love, and in return she gives him a note, which she has written in secret. But the old Doctor is a sly fox, he has seen the inky little finger, and determines ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... of his master and friend. No—it was preposterous; there was no evil in this man. There was no trace of malice in this face, the face of a prophet or an inspired madman, a poet. And yet, as he scrutinised the picture closely a curious transformation seemed to take place in the features; a sly little line appeared insinuatingly about Reginald's well-formed mouth, and the serene calm of his Jupiter-head seemed to turn into the sneak smile of a thief. Nevertheless, Ernest was not afraid. His anxieties had at last assumed definite shape; it was possible now to be on his guard. ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... held in high esteem in Greece. To be sure, barbaric Sparta made a bold stand for equality, and almost instituted a gynecocracy, but the usual idea was that a woman's opinion was not worth considering. Hence the caricaturists of the day made sly sport of the love of Pericles and Aspasia. These two were intellectual equals, comrades; and that all of Pericles' public speeches were rehearsed to her, as his enemies averred, is probably true. "Aspasia has no time for society; she is busy writing a speech for her lord," said Aristophanes. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... pity of her sisters, mill-hands in West Adams still, or married to mill-hands, men who got drunk on the sly and didn't work regular, and wanted a full half of all they made for themselves. 'Gene and his mother were always scolding about the money they could have had if they'd kept that wood-land on the mountain. They'd ought to ha' been really poor the way she had been, so's you didn't know where the ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the real animal, but in a subtle way goes a step further and through the features or the attitude suggests the characteristics attributed in the fable. Thus unconsciously the little reader gets from the picture an increased conception of the sly, clever, crafty ways of the fox or the slow, plodding, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... of a general who had been neither over-wise nor over-industrious in his life. He had received only one star and a buckle as a reward for fifty years' service. She was a Little Russian, intriguing and sly, endowed, like many of her countrywomen, with a very simple and even stupid exterior, from which she knew how to extract the maximum of advantage. Valentina Mihailovna's parents were not rich, but they had managed to educate her at the Smolny Convent, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... Where the full moon has lain, Greengages bright as grass, Melons as cold as glass Piled on each gilded booth Feel their cheeks growing smooth; Apes in plumed head-dresses Whence the bright heat hisses, Nubian faces sly, Pursing mouth, slanting eye, Feel the Arabian Winds floating from that fan: See how each gilded face Paler grows, nods apace: "Oh, the fan's blowing Cold ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... D. Sly, the eminent clergyman of this city, announced today that he has received a call from the Lord to take up his work in another field. He will leave at once for New York City, where he will take charge of a fashionable Fifth Avenue pastorate. Reverend Sly's salary ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... every day, as they do in New York, to be sure I come all right. Did you ever?" "That 's because it came out that Carrie used to forge excuses in her mamma's name, and go promenading with her Oreste, when they thought her safe at school. Oh, was n't she a sly minx?" cried Belle, as if she rather ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... of the near presence of love and death. In truth, Anita had forgotten nothing, but had suddenly become a woman in those few days. Always Broussard had wakened her girlish admiration by his charm of manner, his sly impudence, his way of singing love songs; and her eyes followed him, while she turned away from him. But she knew exactly what Broussard had said to her while they stood on the tanbark and she blushed ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... alluded to was a respectable churchwarden, with a sly chink to one eyelid—possibly the result of an accident—and a regular attendant at the Club meetings. He replied that his looks had been mainly caused by his interest in the two ladies of the last ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Ah wuz awful sly. Ah wanted tuh learn tuh read so ah hung eroun ole mistess when she wuz teachin huh chillun tuh read. Ah listened an when she put de book down an went out ah got de book. Ah kep' hit up till ah learnt tuh read. Ah been teachin ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... him nothing, and John Rebstock who, though still young, was a sly fox in crooked ways, contented himself with a philosophical denial of everything alleged against him, adding only in an injured tone that nobody would ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... church when these shepherds stand up, and hold debate about a stolen sheep. Tom Lie-a-bed has nothing to remark but that he is very sleepy, and does not want to go in search of it to-night; Colin cuts jokes, and throws out shrewd suspicions that Dick knows something of the matter; but Dick is sly, and keeps them off the scent, although a few of his asides reveal to the audience that he is the real thief. While they are thus talking, silence falls upon the shepherds. Soft music from the church organ breathes, and they ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... I have a jug here that holds exactly three pints and a half. The girls fill this for me unknown to my master, and the purveyor brings me on the sly a bottle holding a good gallon, which makes up for the deficiency ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dream. I think, somehow, that it will; for he seems true, and, darling, you are worthy. But you know it does not always happen in the way that you have fashioned it in your dear head. Some other girl does sometimes come with sly, soft feet and steal away hearts from trusting and adoring wives, and they have no remorse either in doing the cruel deed. Indeed, believe me, I have known them in their heart to glory that they had done this thing. You will, therefore, have ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... that. They always 'figure', as they call it, that the other fellow is going to play some trick on them. Half the time Jeff bets against his own horse, on the sly. They all do, unless they feel sure that ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... a brother and sister, and he had taken it as a matter of course. He resented the idea of a break in their relations. Yet why should he? What rights had he over her life? Absolutely none, of course. He wondered vaguely if she were sly enough to have a sweetheart and let nobody know? Who was that fellow? Where had he met ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... this "we." But, after all, why not? Had not the children watched her scald and squeeze the currants, and stir and skim? Had not May wielded the big wooden spoon for at least three minutes? Had not Lulu eaten a mouthful of skimmings on the sly? Were they not testing the product now? The little ones had surely a right to say "we," and Dinah accepted the partnership willingly. She lifted the preserving kettle on to the table; and the junior (not silent!) members of the firm mounted on their chairs, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... mean? Had Arkwright given up his fight? Was he playing false to himself and to Bertram by trying thus, on the sly, to win the love of his friend's wife? Was this man, whom she had so admired for his brave stand, and to whom all unasked she had given her heart's best love (more the pity of it!)—was this idol of hers to show feet of clay, after all? She could ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... literary, professional, and scientific men at Somerset House, but, if they meet them in Park Lane, look as if they never saw them before; they are very peevish, have something to say against every man, and always say the worst first; they are very quiet in their manner, almost sly, and never use any of the colloquialisms of the fast fellows; they treat their inferiors with great consideration, addressing them, "honest friend," "my good man," and so on, but have very little ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... seemed magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette. He took it, still seated, still without a word; staring with all his eyes upon that apparition. Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so rare in our more northern climates; her eyes were large, starry, and visited by changing lights; her hair was partly covered by a lace mantilla, through which her arms, bare to the shoulder, gleamed white; her figure, full and soft in all the womanly contours, was yet ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... to disturb the pleasant relation which exists between us at present. That is to say—now, here is a witticism—I prefer the outside relation to the inside intimacy. Ha, ha, ha! I knew you'd laugh at that, you sly old rogue! What a very sly, patient old shark you are! Don't you know that if you didn't have those clumsy fins, and that dreadfully homely mouth away down somewhere on the under side of your body, and eyes so grotesquely wide apart, and should go on land ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... it fell to Rasâlu's lot to make the first move. Now he, forgetful of the dead man's warning, played with the dice given him by Raja Sarkap; then, in addition, Sarkap let loose his famous rat, Dhol Raja, and it ran about the board, upsetting the chaupur pieces on the sly, so that Rasâlu lost the first game, and gave up his ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... Restoration, a grain-dealer and money-lender in the commune of Isere, of which Doctor Benassis was mayor. He was a thin man, very wrinkled, bent almost double, with thin lips, and a hooked chin that almost made connection with his nose, little gray eyes spotted with black, and as sly as a ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... nice spring o' cold water up by my cabin. Well, some days ago Ham Spink an' thet Dudder boy came up there, an' on the sly caved the spring in on me. I caught 'em coming away. I had my shotgun with me, an' I was mad, good an' proper. I said they must fix the spring or somebuddy'd git shot. They got scart, I kin tell ye, an' they got on their hands an' knees in the ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... Dorry joined the merry line, wondering what was about to happen—when to their great surprise (ah, that sly Uncle George! and that innocent Liddy!) the double doors leading into the dining-room were flung open, and there, sparkling in the light of a hundred wax-candles, was a collation fit for Cinderella and all her royal court. I shall not attempt ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... mean that!' she said, blushing; 'but sometimes I could cry over the poor plants which she neglects. I daresay you will think me very ridiculous, but I do cry sometimes, and sometimes I cannot resist taking them out on the sly, and giving them a thoroughly good syringing,—only you must not tell her; we have agreed not to touch each other's flowers. But I cannot bear to see the poor things dying. How do we know that they do ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... Gyldenlove? Nay, that I can scarce say for certain; (with a sly smile) but there might be some ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... pig. He would not have been seen, on any account, and lifted an apprehensive head in the darkness of the morning if a bird rustled past. This performance he called a mortification of his frame; but when this sly churchman slipped up and put on his capote again, his thin visage bore the same gratified lines which may be seen on the face of a ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... immediateness of narration, Laurence Sterne may, perhaps, be pointed out as an example. But he is not immediate in the true sense; he is abrupt, and this too frequently for his own sly purposes—which have nothing to do with either technique or ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... to the subject, it might seem as if the mass of material should have revealed very clearly what is the ideal illustration for children. But "children" is a collective term, ranging from the tastes of the baby to the precocious youngsters who dip into Mudie books on the sly, and hold conversations thereon which astonish their elders when by chance they get wind of the fact. Perhaps the belief that children can be educated by the eye is more plausible than well supported. In any case, it is good that the illustration should be well drawn, well coloured; given that, ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... moonlight, but nevertheless still sympathetic to her driver, who, with both hands, supports her from behind on her saddle, with a touching solicitude that is peculiar to the country. Ah! these little donkeys of Egypt, so observant, so philosophical and sly, why cannot they write their memoirs! What a number of droll things they must have seen at night in the outskirts ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... her name linked as lover to that dead man; the chuckles, the sly lifting of eyebrow and pursing of lips when it should be known that the other man, the dead man's greatest friend, had come upon them unawares, alone in the tent ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... was very sleek and sly: Timidly we passed him by. He did not seem at all to care: So, thinking we were safely past, We ventured to look back at last. O, dreadful blank!—He was not there! He must have hid behind his chest: We did not stay to ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... not tell what they had read, or what sort of people the Apostles were, of whom they had just been reading. After he had asked them all one after the other about the Apostles without securing a single correct answer, one sly-looking little fellow, with great glee, called out: "I know, mister; they were the lepers!" {113c} From the pottery districts and from ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was. 'Aha!'—said I to myself—'that's your line of country, is it? You want to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars, it's no go, though; I sha'n't break cover in that direction.' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... ever believe," she said,—and spoke a truthful word then, at least,—"what a sly, cunning, deceitful boy that is, and what a life he has led me these four years. He will turn out a regular vagabond, ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri |
