"Adroitly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wait for her, devising schemes for her entertainment, giving her presents, proposing to her periodically, and keeping her other admirers away with his perpetual presence. He had forgotten the day when, adroitly taking advantage of an acute phase of her dislike to her home surroundings, he crowned his labours with success. If he remembered anything, it was the dainty capriciousness with which the gold-haired, dark-eyed girl had treated him. He certainly did not remember the look ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... next room and this suite and your swell clothes to help put up a front! And your sickness that wouldn't let you go to the theater is just a fake, so that, not wanting to disappoint them entirely, you'd have an excuse for having supper here—and thus adroitly draw some person into the trap of a more intimate relationship. It's a clever and classy layout. Maggie, exactly what's ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... treatment of the same theme, every successive story-teller making it his own for the moment, assimilating it, handling it as he pleased, in accordance with his own instincts and his own principles. It would enable us to note how adroitly the artist in narrative could deal with a topic which he did not feel to be sympathetic or stimulating; and on the other hand, it would show us how much this author or that has been sustained by the signal good fortune which put into his hands once at least the one subject ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... meditatively whittling out on the porch, and, as the moment seemed propitious, I inquired adroitly:—"Did you have a good time in Chicago, ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Germany. But this exquisite fascination of an inner life in animals and in inanimate objects, which every child's mind produces from dolls and other puppets, and which makes fairies of flowers, is by Andersen adroitly turned very often to good moral and instructive purpose, without losing the original sweet and simple charm which blends the real and the imaginary. Here he surpasses all other tale writers, nearly all of whom, in their efforts ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... management, for he contrived to check his own cattle in such a way as to throw all the work on the recruits. This was not effected without suspicion; but he contrived to allay it, by giving his own beasts sundry punches in the sides, so adroitly bestowed as to render them too restive to work. By way of triumph, each poke was accompanied by a knowing leer at Francois, all whose sympathies, a tribute to his extraction, I have had frequent opportunities ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a woman who is three months pregnant and means to nurse her child herself may have some fears; but as I did not want to speak of this before those gentlemen, I talked a great deal of nonsense when you questioned me," said the generous creature, adroitly. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... wind just whither she would go, and her thoughts were much occupied with a handsome house in Lowick Gate which she hoped would by-and-by be vacant. She was quite determined, when she was married, to rid herself adroitly of all the visitors who were not agreeable to her at her father's; and she imagined the drawing-room in her favorite house with ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the subject as adroitly as a more worldly wise woman might have done—"you helped me make this home. I ain't ever going to let you forget that. These pictures," her loving glance took them all in, "and the books coming and going just fast enough to keep me nimble. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... yet, Bert," Mrs. Wade had evaded adroitly, "it's all happened so quickly. I have plenty of time and there are lots of things to be seen to." There had been that in her voice which had forbidden discussion, and it was a tone to which she was forced to have recourse more than once during ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... bright, humorous way related some amusing stories which she had heard from her ancestors, who were born in Berkshire, and adroitly turned them into an argument for woman suffrage. A beautiful poem was read, entitled "Pioneers," dedicated to Miss Anthony by her old friend John M. Thayer, of Rochester. Col. D. R. Anthony created great mirth by telling among other stories that eighty ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... old 'Erb, whose role was to lead the other authorities of the college into all kinds of disreputable haunts, to prompt them to absurd misdeeds, to take advantage of their ingenuousness, to make scapegoats of them, and to adroitly evade ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for you Janie," she declared adroitly, "and Mildred Manners has been whoo-hooing her lungs out across the campus. Come along girls, and see you don't waylay all the millionaires. I hear every garage in the village is bursting with classy cars, and the livery ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... operandi of a "squeeze." I asked for the bill, when, instead of giving it to me, the host ran upstairs and asked Ito how much it should be, the two dividing the overcharge. Your servant gets a "squeeze" on everything you buy, and on your hotel expenses, and, as it is managed very adroitly, and you cannot prevent it, it is best not to worry about it so long as it keeps within ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... far as to know which party was destined to prevail, and thus secure the important advantages that might be derived from shaping his present course accordingly, he at length resolved to keep aloof, at present, from both parties, believing he had so adroitly managed thus far, that whichever side might triumph, he could put in a specious claim of having acted with it, in reality, from ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... from that hell once for me to learn what they are like. They immediately addressed themselves to my neck below the occiput and thus entered my affections, not wanting to enter my thoughts, which they adroitly avoided. They altered my affections one by one with a mind to bend them imperceptibly into their opposites, which are lusts of evil; and as they did not touch my thought at all they would have bent and inverted my affections ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... had made her plans with thoughtful care, and proposed to carry them out with hardihood. She had determined to work so adroitly on the Saturday upon the curiosity and "poor strained heart" of Rust that he would be speeded up to run big risks. He did not know that, however judiciously frail her conduct might be, she was a very dragon of virtue in defence of her honour. "I gave ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... his anger knew no bounds. He railed at me as a trickster. He charged me with wishing to blackmail him. Then seeing that this was not the way to gain his point, he adroitly ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... that he had been under examination. And the sagacious doctor having gained some information, quite as much, indeed, as he had expected in the first interview, abstained from pushing the matter for the present, and adroitly changed the subject; but while he continued to converse easily with the young man, he felt assured that he was on the right track. And when, later, he was telling the bishop about it, he declared that he felt sure ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... The supremacy of Jesus Christ is yet disputed; His royal rights are yet usurped by mortals; His Bride, the Church, still halts amid many opinions; the ordinances of grace are unblushingly corrupted; the teachings of the Gospel are adroitly doctored. The attacking forces are active, determined, and numerous, as in the days of the martyrs. The tactics differ, but the fight goes on. Heavy, heavy are the moral obligations, that fall to the successors of those who gave their lives for the truth. To recede ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... terror that I fell insensible to the ground. When I recovered my enemy was still in his place, though he had released his hold enough to allow me breathing space, and seeing me revive he prodded me adroitly first with one foot and then with the other, until I was forced to get up and stagger about with him under the trees while he gathered and ate the choicest fruits. This went on all day, and even at night, when I threw myself down half dead with weariness, the terrible old man held on ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... at such duplicity in the child of her bosom. This was the simple creature for whose development into womanhood they had all been so tenderly waiting—a forward minx, old enough not only to have a lover, but to conceal his existence as adroitly as any woman of the world! Bitterly did the Squire's lady regret that Stephen Reynard had not been allowed to come to claim her at the time ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... her coachman, postilions, and footman are supposed to be respectfully bared in all weathers, but when it is very cold these men wind woolen shawls, of the nondescript, dirt color, which characterizes the hair of most peasants, adroitly round their heads, allowing the fringe to hang and simulate long locks. The large image of the Virgin, in its massive frame, occupies the seat of honor. A priest and a deacon, clad in crimson velvet and gold vestments, their heads unprotected, even in the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... for a successor while awaiting his turn—particularly for one who was not popular—would be the ministership to Great Britain; and Van Buren duly traveled to London to take up the duties of this position. But when the appointment was submitted to the Senate, Calhoun's friends adroitly managed matters so that the Vice President should have the satisfaction of preventing confirmation by his casting vote. "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead," declared the vengeful South Carolinian to a doubting friend. "He will never kick, sir, never kick." But no greater tactical ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... obstinately refused to fence. There was nothing apologetic in this man, no indirectness in his method of attack. Parry adroitly as she might, he beat down her guard. As the afternoon wore on there were silences, when Honora, by staring over the waters, tried to collect her thoughts. But the sea was his ally, and she turned her face appealingly toward the receding land. Fascination and fear ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... evidently the chief engineer of the sand pile and the other children looked to him for inspiration, whether it were turning out whole spice cakes by packing down the sand in buckets and adroitly inverting them or excavating marvelous tunnels that ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... addressed him as monseigneur, and shut up the crown in a drawer. It was the coin which the man in the black mantle had given to Phoebus. While her back was turned, the bushy-headed and ragged little boy who was playing in the ashes, adroitly approached the drawer, abstracted the crown, and put in its place a dry leaf which he had plucked from ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... august mother were received with great magnificence, and enthusiastically welcomed by all classes of the citizens, whom the Marechal de Roquelaure, lieutenant-general for the King in Guienne, and Mayor of Bordeaux, had adroitly gained, by his representations of the honour conferred upon them by the sovereign in selecting their city as the scene of his own marriage and that of his sister, the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... steadier ones. The courtesans made fun of those who looked unable to continue the boisterous festivity; but these wan forms revived all at once, stood in groups, and talked and smiled. Some servants quickly and adroitly set the furniture and everything else in its place, and a magnificent breakfast ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... the sheriff having become insolvent. There were five or six bondsmen, who employed as many different lawyers, who of course made a fierce fight to protect the pockets of their clients. The pleadings were difficult under the old practice, and the slightest technical defect in them would adroitly be taken advantage of by the defendants' attorneys. But so accurately had the pleadings been drawn, and so well had the case been worked up by the young lawyer, that no flaw could be found, and his suit ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... manner they kept in touch with her. Hunter had so adroitly wirepulled, and so deftly softened and toned down Inglesby's crudities, that Mrs. Eustis had become the latter's open champion. Condescending and patronizing, she liked the importance of lending a very rich man her social countenance. She insisted that he was ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... remember that a certain firm in Philadelphia made a special deposit of eighteen thousand dollars in gold in the Trust Company, and some expert thieves by means of a forged check obtained possession of the money. The manner of accomplishing the feat was peculiar and was most adroitly carried out. The thief drove so sharp a bargain for funds current in New Orleans that the cashier's mind was diverted from the genuineness of the check to the percentage of exchange to be realized by the operation. Many propositions were made on both sides which ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... so—exclusively for the time on the sender. Picpon was very quick, intelligent, and much liked by his superiors, so that he was often employed on errands; and the tricks he played in the execution thereof were so adroitly done that they were never detected. Picpon had chuckled to himself over this mission. It was but the work of an instant for the lithe, nimble fingers of the ex-gamin to undo the bag without touching the seal; to see that it contained a hundred Napoleons with a note; ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... frequently astonished at the peculiar sagacity of his dog, and at the more than common readiness and dexterity with which he managed the cattle; until at length he troubled himself very little about the matter, but, riding carelessly along, used to amuse himself with observing how adroitly the dog acquitted himself of his charge. At length, so convinced was he of his sagacity, as well as fidelity, that he laid a wager that he would intrust the dog with a number of sheep and oxen, and let him drive them alone and unattended to Alston market. It was stipulated that no one should be within ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the art found himself confused and overcome by this mode of attack. But Payton had met his man too often on the green to be taken by surprise. He parried the first thrust, the second he evaded by stepping adroitly aside. By the same movement he put the sun in ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... was the lunch of Mr. Nicholas Grips. Nickie had been given the meal half-an-hour earlier by a kind soul in one of the suburbs, to whom he had pitifully presented his urgent need of sustenance of an inviting kind. Very adroitly Nickie the Kid had dwelt upon his necessities, while impressing the lady's with the eccentricities of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... serape was of very brilliant colours, I bethought me of another plan which, when adroitly practised, rarely ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... Transvaal to direct the operations; the Brigade of Guards on its way to Capetown and home, was de-trained to hold the line of the Orange; Knox's columns hurried forward. De Wet, after a slight encounter with Knox, who was marching south, turned adroitly to the west and did not resume the original direction of his march until he had put a considerable distance between himself and the columns, which were "running heel" and pursuing him almost in the opposite ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... to him, but overwhelms her son in confusion, and causes his defeat: she cuts the cord of a canopy under which the knight has to pass, in the hope that it will fall in his way, and encumber his advance; but he adroitly catches it on the end of his spear, and Odon, in falling from his horse after the knight's attack, gets entangled in the garlands and drapery, and makes a very ridiculous figure. Of course the stranger-knight is made happy in the chaplet placed on his brow by Marie, and ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... rather strange. She knows that there are "several people at our house, but no room for more," and that our stay depends upon circumstances; but she had one important request to make, and she made it very adroitly. Seeing that I, like herself, was alone, at least sometimes, she had wondered, if it were possible, if I would not like to see the grounds by night. Her "mamma" did not care to come out after six o'clock, she feared ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and Atticus meet at Cumae (1). Cic., after adroitly reminding Varro that the promised dedication of the De Lingua Latina is too long delayed, turns the conversation towards philosophy, by asking Varro why he leaves this subject untouched (2, 3). Varro thinks philosophy ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... their own ends were anxious to prolong the period of internal dissension. China is not free in that respect: not only must she set her house in order, but she must deal with those foreign powers who do not wish her house in order, who are slily and adroitly using their enormous, subtle influence to defeat this end. During our reconstruction period in America we made mistakes; but after those mistakes we did not have to hear a chorus from European nations telling us that we were unfit to govern ourselves. Nor were we forced to have other nations ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... was within a dozen feet of the table he rose hastily, with a word of apology, and met the couple. It was adroitly done. He had taken the little Austrian's arm and led her by the table while he was still greeting her. He held her in conversation in his absurd German until they had reached the swinging doors, while her companion followed helplessly. And he bowed her out, protesting his undying admiration ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... upper too, for the surrounding country. This servant, greatly attached to his kind master, was forced off, very much against his will, by some of the British soldiery on their departure; but his whereabouts having been found out, Adam Reep, and one or two other noted Whigs, adroitly managed to recover him from the British camp, a few days afterward, and restored ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... foxhounds. He was very correctly dressed, with Roman collar and stock, and obviously had not long left a theological college. He had an engaging kind of courtesy, ecclesiastically cut features, and curly black hair. He sat balancing a delicate cup adroitly on his knee. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... correspond with his acts, as the aged sinner is actually detected stealing the knife of Seagriff himself, and from his person, too!—a feat of dexterity worthy the most accomplished master of legerdemain, the knife being adroitly abstracted from its sheath on the old sealer's hip during the exchange of salutations. Fortunately, the theft is discovered by young Chester, who is standing near by, and the thief caught in the very act. On the stolen article being taken from under the pilferer's ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... removing the cover from the soup-tureen which was placed before his mistress, and the little rogue had settled upon that moment as the most favourable for the execution of his purpose. He therefore secretly affixed a nicely crooked pin to the elbow of his sleeve, and, as he lifted the cover, adroitly hooked it into her cap, to which he knew the wig was fastened, and in a twinkling had it off her head, and before she could recover from her astonishment and lay down the soup-ladle he had left the room. The guests stared and tittered at the grotesque figure she presented,—her head being covered ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... soon their arms dropped and no longer menaced their victim. Seeing that he had attracted their eyes and minds, Nicias opened his purse and threw some pieces of gold and silver amongst the crowd. The more greedy of them stooped to pick it up. The philosopher, pleased at his first success, adroitly threw deniers and drachmas here and there. At the sound of the pieces of money rattling on the pavement, the persecutors of Paphnutius threw themselves on the ground. Beggars, slaves, and tradespeople scrambled after the money, whilst, grouped round Cerons, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... her part seemed to settle the question. Without more ado the rest of the salvage was loaded in, all except the handy-sized washing-tub, which by means of an adroitly taken up position Mrs. Massey contrived to have overlooked and left behind, when Mad Bell drove away with her newly ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... with his heels comfortably up on the table edge, "you see, I believe in faith all right—and that's no josh. But the trouble with faith is that it's about the scarcest article on earth—and I haven't got any more Floppers to lead the way." Madison adroitly sent the cigar ash through the window with a tap of his forefinger on the body of the cigar—he frowned, and for a long time sat musingly silent. Then he spoke again; this time addressing the toes of his boots: "With the house ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... ladies, who understood that the caliph meant to divert himself, answered by low bows, and then withdrew, every one preparing to contribute to the best of their power to perform their respective parts adroitly. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... overreached, but a bargain was a bargain, and therefore he concluded that the slave states should stand by their plighted faith until released by the free. That which the great Nullifier hesitated to counsel, his disciples and successors dared to do. The execution of the plot was adroitly committed to the hands of Douglas, under whose leadership the movement for repeal would appear to have been started by the section which was to be injured by it. Thus the South would be rescued from the moral and political consequences ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... activity, Flacius, in the heat of the controversy, exclaimed: "Originale peccatum non est accidens. Original sin is not an accident, for the Scriptures call it flesh, the evil heart," etc. Thus he fell into the pitfall which the wily Strigel had adroitly laid for him. Though Flacius seemed to be loath to enter upon the matter any further, and protested against the use of philosophical definitions in theology, Strigel now was eager to entangle him still further, plying him with the question: "An negas peccatum originis ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... ("moorgaroo") is manipulated by two men working in concert, principally for the capture of eels. They do not wait for the eel to come to them, but by shrewd scrutiny discover its whereabouts under the bank of the creek or among the weeds and roots. Then one silent man holds the net widespread, or adroitly dodges it into intercepting positions, while the other beats the luckless fish in its direction with more or less fluster. The persistency with which the creeks are patrolled by men with spears, netted and poisoned, invites ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... procedure had struck Bob as rather humorous. He was an ardent admirer of genius wherever lie saw it, and even this exhibition of evil genius, which so adroitly deprived him of his constitutional right to the public domain without the payment of a middleman's profit, rather aroused his admiration. At the time he was not financially equipped to argue the matter calmly, clearly—and judicially, and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... changes his addresses adroitly, and ticks off very carefully the names and addresses of people he has defrauded. In fact, he is so clever and slippery that the police and the Charity Organisation Society cannot locate him. So he thrives, a type of many, for every one of London's common lodging-houses can ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... proved,' said the Shamlegh man adroitly, 'that they are Sahibs of no account. Who ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or Yankling Sahib, or even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of nights to shoot serow—I say, who, ever heard of these Sahibs coming into the hills without a down-country cook, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... punctually paying the imposts levied by his ministers. If you are stingy, if you cheat, you run the risk of being severely chastised, but there are courtiers around the king who willingly render services. For a reasonable recompense they will seize a favorable moment to adroitly make away with the sentence of your condemnation or to slip before the prince a form of plenary absolution which in a moment of good humor he will ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... father, interrupting rather adroitly than quickly. "It was while we were standing together ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... made, by Mr. Darwin, to convey an altogether different meaning to his facts than what they will warrant, even as adroitly handled by him. No heath plants were "wholly changed" in characteristics, but only in proportional numbers; nor did the "twelve new species of plants" make their appearance by virtue of any law of variability or selection of ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... perceived, in a very little while, how fond both Christian and Pagan appeared of their own child; and how little notice was taken by any body of the poor Scotch gentleman's orphan. Accordingly, with a view to give her favourite all worldly advantages, she adroitly changed the children; and, while she was still kind and motherly to the little Tracy-Begum, she had the satisfaction to see her pet supposititiously brought up in all the splendours of an ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... coming," Lucile answered, vaguely. "Come on upstairs and get your things off," she added, guiding her guest past the living-room adroitly. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... everything fly before him. It was, however, scarcely necessary for Mr. Covey to be really present in the field, to have his work go on industriously. He had the faculty of making us feel that he was always present. By a series of adroitly managed surprises, which he practiced, I was prepared to expect him at any moment. His plan was, never to approach the spot where his hands were at work, in an open, manly and direct manner. No thief was ever more artful in his devices than this man Covey. He would creep and crawl, in ditches ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... unanimity of knowledge, boasted beforehand that the bill was killed and that this man was the instrument which they had used, and while they were boasting he was conferring with us and promising us his faithful support, hoping to conduct the filibustering so adroitly that we could not detect his hand ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... imposition. They hire large houses, and live in constant rioting on the means thus obtained. Among them are women who have or who hire the use of infant children; others, who are blind, or maimed, or deformed, or who can adroitly feign such infirmities; and, by these means of exciting pity, and by artful tales of woe, they collect alms, both in city and country, to spend in all manner of gross and guilty indulgences. Meantime many persons, finding themselves ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... out of the road, left us a clear passage, and resumed their former position behind the plantation and houses. I took off my hat, bowed to the officer, and politely thanked him, adding that it was a beautiful manoeuvre, well planned and most adroitly executed; this was said in such an ironical manner, that the officer burst into a loud laugh, in which he was heartily ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... getting lukewarm, as their non-attendance at important meetings led Mr. Parris to fear. At any rate, he felt it necessary to administer some rather significant rebukes to them. The meeting for prayer, preparatory to the ensuing communion service, was very adroitly converted into a business consultation to inaugurate a lawsuit. But the most characteristic thing, in this part of the church-book, is a marginal entry, against the first paragraph of the record of the 2d November, 1691. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... said Glover, stepping adroitly out of his difficulty. "Don't s'pose that nigger would a let on how he ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... A quiet, but close observer will frequently see a nod, or a smile, or a meaning glance pass between most respectable- looking persons of opposite sexes, and will sometimes see a note slyly sent by a waiter, or dropped adroitly into the hand of the woman as the man passes out. Some of these nominally respectable places are so largely patronized by this class, that a virtuous woman is in constant danger of being insulted should she chance to enter one ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... row of Dinkies with little gold harps tucked under their wings. And you think you're breathing air, but all you're breathing is Dinkies, millions and millions of etherealized Dinkies. And when you read about the famine in China you inevitably and adroitly hitch the death of seven thousand Chinks in Yangchow on to the interests of your immortal offspring. And I suppose Rome really came into being for the one ultimate end that an immortal young Dinkie might possess his full degree of ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... when breakfast was over, Senora adroitly arranged that Felipe should conduct the two girls for a morning's ramble to the pretty little canon of the river which lay but a mile distant from the town where the foothills began; a plan that suited Blanch perfectly. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... tried to love would soon have tired of me had I not played the game as adroitly as themselves, and if I had permitted them to feel sure of me. The last thing any of them wanted was depth of feeling, tragic passion. . . . My most desperate affair was my last—after a long interval. . . . I was in my early forties. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... I am doomed." But a new feeling now came over him. He was nearing Snag-Orchard. The old chimneys were seen among the tree-tops, and strange to himself, (for years had passed since he had cared for his personal appearance,) he found his right hand tucking up its brother's dirty wristband, and adroitly turning the torn part of his old hat-rim ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... to commence a round of gaieties." This with a smile; but, as Henry Duchesne knew well enough, with Lady Alice a smile sometimes covered a very serious purpose. His quick perceptions showed him that he was not wanted to call on Miss Brooke during her stay in London, and he adroitly changed the subject. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dissertations on the value of the discovery, coupled with careful comparisons of the style and sentiments of the verse with the acknowledged work of Watts. In the whole city only one of those interviewed was saved, by a sceptical analysis, from falling into the pit so adroitly prepared by Field. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and Lord Granville said that "it was a toss-up whether Gladstone resigned or not, and that if he did it would break up the Liberal party." Quiet was finally restored, and the following year Mr. Gladstone adroitly brought the same feature before the Lords in ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... having fallen into a sin deserving of very grievous punishment, adroitly reproaching the same fault to his abbot, quitteth himself of the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to discharge the bill," said Nelly, adroitly, and, thanking everybody effusively for the happiness afforded her, she hurried home to Oxbridge Terrace, to wash it all away in nursery tea. The young Lee Carters made a restful spectacle with their shining innocent faces, and she almost wished ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... There is nothing to jest about. Your prisoner chanced to possess himself of your sword—a thing no one could have anticipated. He did it adroitly, but then you were at the time unsuspecting. Disarmed, what else could you do but retreat from a man, armed, desperate, determined on taking your life. I'd like to see anyone who'd have acted otherwise. Under the circumstances only ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... their heads an immense quantity of arrows in huge quivers of leopard's skin came next, followed by two persons who, by their extraordinary antics and gestures, we concluded to be buffoons. These two last were employed in throwing sticks into the air as they went on, and adroitly catching them in falling, besides performing many whimsical and ridiculous feats. Behind these, and immediately preceding the king, a group of little boys, nearly naked came dancing merrily along, flourishing cows' tails over their heads in all directions. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... thus expressed himself, Donald started to his feet, and was about to leave the house without any farther ceremony, when the landlord adroitly planted himself between him and the door, and demanded the reckoning. Donald did not know precisely what was asked of him, but he guessed that it was a demand for payment, and this demand he was determined to resist, on the ground that what he ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... True, in my youth, I had the name of being the best horseman in our village—the best rastreador—the most skilful trapper. I could 'tail the bull,' 'run the cock,' and pick up a girl's ribbon at full gallop—perhaps a little more adroitly than my competitors; but I think it was something else that first gained me the young girl's esteem. I had the good fortune once to save her life— when, by her own imprudence, she had gone out too far from the village, and was attacked by a grizzly bear. Ay de mi! It ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Wentworth, a good deal like fumbling in a lock with a key chosen at hazard. He seemed to himself to go about the world with a big bunch of these ineffectual instruments at his girdle. His nephew, on the other hand, with a single turn of the wrist, opened any door as adroitly as a horse-thief. He felt obliged to keep up the convention that an uncle is always wiser than a nephew, even if he could keep it up no otherwise than by listening in serious silence to Felix's quick, light, constant discourse. But there ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... which rested against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink hand edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forward movement, she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blue platter, placed on ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... length over the Budget, a single blow cut the thread of a fast-expiring life, and a petty, smug-faced lawyer came forward with the axe. In spite of M. Royer-Collard's admirable discourse, the hereditary peerage and law of entail fell before the lampoons of a man who made it a boast that he had adroitly argued some few heads out of the executioner's clutches, and now forsooth must clumsily proceed to ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... has proved himself a brave and skilful officer, and reflects credit on your brother's judgment in the selection of a protege," returned Maxwell, adroitly. ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... By adroitly questioning her he became convinced of the truth of his suspicion, and finally he charged her outright with having ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... am—I crush without pity all who cross my path. Reflect well; to-morrow you must decide! you can do with impunity what you are asked. In his joy, the father of my child would not discuss the probability of such a resurrection, if our falsehoods, which will render him so happy, are adroitly combined. He has, besides, no other proofs of the death of our child, than what I wrote to him fourteen years since; it will be easy for me to persuade him that I deceived him on this subject; for then I had just cause of complaint against him. I will tell ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... growing, pleasurable excitement. When by evaporation the chandu had become reduced to the size of a small pea, and a vague spirituous blue flame began to dance round the end of the spatula, Mrs. Sin pressed it adroitly into the tiny bowl of one of the ivory pipes, having first held the bowl inverted for a moment over the lamp. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... "It was very adroitly done, that turn of the sentence," Belle-bouche replied, smiling again pleasantly. "Let us go into the garden, as ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... we were expected to carry off what we could not devour. It was indeed a "feast of fat things." The first course was what, for the Indian, takes the place of bread among the whites,—dried salmon. It was served, a whole washbowlful for each of us, with a dressing of seal-grease. Muir and I adroitly manoeuvred so as to get our salmon and seal-grease served separately; for our stomachs had not been sufficiently trained to endure that rancid grease. This course finished, what was left was dumped into ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... these things are too sacred to be meddled with, or even sometimes, to be questioned. The ordinary mind is slow to distinguish between tradition and truth—especially where the two have been so fully and so adroitly mixed. Many are not in possession of the newer, the more advanced knowledge in various fields that you are in possession of. But remember this—in even a dozen years a mighty change has taken place—except in a church whose very foundation and whose ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... these far-away and subtle effects of his teaching; not present good or pleasure either for himself or his pupil, but the far-off good—the distant development. That idea would free him from the notion, too common in our day, that the success or failure of his efforts is to be tested by any adroitly contrived system of examinations; or still worse, exhibitions. His success can alone be tested by the future lives of his pupils—by their love for, or dislike of, new knowledge. His success will be marked by their active growth through all their lives; his failure, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... enough to perceive there had been a slight jar in the feelings of these two young women, and he adroitly changed the conversation. With Eve he had entire confidence on the score of provincialisms, and, without exactly anticipating the part Grace would be likely to take in such a discussion, he introduced the subject ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... fine night, Gen. Sullivan," said Col. Hamilton, sharply nudging the ribs of his superior officer with his elbow. "There would be little trouble on such a night, I fancy, to track our ghostly visitant." Both of the ladies becoming interested, and Col. Hamilton having thus adroitly turned the flank of his superior officer, he went on, "You should know that the camp, and indeed the whole locality here, is said to be haunted by the apparition of a gray-coated figure, whose face is muffled and hidden in his collar, but who has the password pat to his lips, and whose ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... throne had sprung up, but he overcame them without much difficulty: one of them, named Pae, took refuge in Assyria, joining Tammaritn and that little band of dethroned kings or pretenders to the throne of Susa, of whom Assur-bani-pal had so adroitly made use to divide the forces of his adversary. Khumban-khaldash might well believe that the transportation of the statue of Nana and the sack of Susa had satisfied the vengeance of the Assyrians, at least for a time, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a pair of sparkling, excited eyes to his. From the moment when she had appeared, half timidly in her borrowed feathers and taken refuge under Mrs. Sequin's experienced wing, she had been the sensation of the evening. Adroitly conveyed from one group to another she had left enthusiasm in her wake. She was evidently enjoying to the utmost the novelty of receiving homage from one black- coated courtier after another, and of hearing delightful things about herself. The only apparent drawback to her pleasure was ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... owner; and it seemed to him, as he looked back, that he had done very little with the opportunity which looked so great in the light of his present restrictions. What he had done with it—the use to which, as unfriendly critics might insinuate, he had so adroitly put it—had landed him, ironically enough, in the ugly impasse of a situation from which no issue seemed possible without some ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Young Gurwood, knowing what the message was, having seen it taken down while lounging at the station, had judiciously placed himself pretty close to the widow. Observing her shudder, he placed his strong arm behind her, and adroitly sinking down on one knee received her on the other, very much after the manner in which, while at school, he had been wont to act the part of second ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... three salvos, taken up by some few voices, three crowns and a quantity of bouquets were adroitly flung into the room through the open window. Ten minutes later the Place du Murier was empty, and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... necklet of black jet cut in many faceted black squares. Her complexion, naturally high in tone because of the pink of health, was enhanced by the tiniest speck of black court-plaster laid upon her cheekbone; and her hair, heightened in its reddish-gold by her dress, was fluffed loosely and adroitly about her eyes. The main mass of this treasure was done in two loose braids caught up in a black spangled net at the back of her neck; and her eyebrows had been emphasized by a pencil into something almost as significant as her hair. She was, for the occasion, a little too emphatic, perhaps, and ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... had adroitly drawn the conversation to a general discussion of children. He knew that Mr. Evans's weak point was ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung |
