"Nick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me owld eyes not to seen it, whin me own fingers sewed it, an' me own han's hoong it aboot the little crather's nick?" ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... enough I was sent to Tregony grammar school, my father being determined to give me a schooling befitting the position he hoped, in spite of his misfortunes, I should some day occupy. Now Nick Tresidder had been attending this same school for some months when I went. For this I was very glad, because I thought it would give me an opportunity for testing him. I had not been in the school a week, however, when my father came to fetch me ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Nick Razorblade a barber was, A strapping lad was he; And he could shave with such a grace, It was a joy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... just in the nick of tune, and I enclose a letter which I was just about to send to the Editor of the London 'Standard.' Please send it to that or any other paper you like, barring the 'Times,' 'Saturday Review,' or 'Pall Mall Gazette.' I wrote another letter to ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... the nick of time, he made the acquaintance of a Mr William Arbuckle, a friend of his father-in-law, and a South African sheep farmer, home for a holiday; and this man strongly urged him to emigrate to South Africa and take ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.] You love not me. [The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be dragged down and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and continues:] Yet I deserve your love. [The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c. thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a hoarse interrogative whisper, 'Deserves our love?'] Not for the sundry boons I have bestow'd And benefactions ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... around came to know a kind old fellow who loved to linger, his hands resting on his staff, watching their play, listening to their laughter; whose ample pockets were storehouses of good things. Their elders, passing by, would whisper to one another how like he was in features to wicked old Nick, the miser of Zandam, and would wonder where he came from. Nor was it only the faces of the children that taught his lips to smile. It troubled him at first to find the world so full of marvellously pretty girls—of pretty ...
— The Soul of Nicholas Snyders - Or, The Miser Of Zandam • Jerome K. Jerome
... intended to hold them both firmly on the surface that she was so kind. He watched her face with wonder, and a little fear, for which he was angry with himself. He noted the three grains de beaute and the smile that seemed to break high on her cheek, in a small nick, like that on the cheek of a Japanese doll. She frightened him, made him feel shy, yet made him feel at ease, too, as though her own were contagious; and his impression of her was softly permeated with the breath of violets. Jack disapproved ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... The initials E.C. apply to my brother, Emery C. Kolb; E.L. to myself. These initials are frequently used in this text. For several years the nick-name "Ed" has been applied to me, and in my brothers' narratives I ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... undone duties, where already lie notes on a comparison of Andalusian mules with the mules of Liane de Pougy, a few scribbled memoranda for a treatise on the love habits of the mole, and a half-finished biography of the talented gentleman who signed his works, "Nick Carter," if my by this time quite roving eye had not alighted, entirely fortuitously, on one of the forgotten glories of my library, a slender volume ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... very height of the confusion one of the hunters must needs fall overboard into the midst of the boiling flurry of bloodstained foam raised by the struggles of the frantic brute, and was only dragged aboard again by Harry in the very nick of time to save him from the terrific rush of the second plesiosaurus. Then the young leader of the party, seeing that his companions were too completely unnerved to be of any use, and that the violent struggles of the wounded ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... man beamed. Evidently he had not had a talk all day, and felt he must expand and let himself out to somebody. I appeared in the nick of time, and came in for all his honey. He rose, went to a bookcase, ran his eye along a shelf, took down a volume, and began, in a low tone: "'Cooperation is the mighty lever upon which an effete ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... seems thus clearly; and anecdotes change their value; and in that proportion honesty, as regards one or the other, changes the value of its chances. But what has all this to do with 'Old Nick'? Stop: let me consider. That title was placed at the head of this article, and I admit that it was placed there by myself. Else, whilst I was wandering from my text, and vainly endeavouring to recollect what it was that I had meant by this text, a random ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... particularly the small holders; so this reduction of the Navy Five per Cents unsettled several thousand capitalists, and disposed them to search for an investment. A flattering one offered itself in the nick of time. Considerable attention had been drawn of late to the mineral wealth of South America, and one or two mining companies existed, but languished in the hands of professed speculators. The public now broke like a sudden ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... the night!" said Alan. "From now on, these weary dragoons of yours will keep the crown of the muirland, and none will get out of Appin but winged fowls. We got through in the nick of time, and shall we jeopard what we've gained? Na, na, when the day comes, it shall find you and me in a fast place ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said the captain, turning to our coastguardsman, "the missin' of that steamer, at which I growled so much that day, turned out to be a great blessin' after all, although it seemed such a misfortune. For it caused me to arrive just in the nick of time to save two human lives—besides givin' the old girl here somethin' to think about and work upon for the next twelvemonth to come—whereas, if I had arrived the day before, I would have bin sleepin' in the house, and ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... names before which Lucifer must hide his diminished head; and from this vast repertory of all that is horrid and grotesque—more horrid on account of its grotesqueness—the feuilletonists, or short story-tellers, are not indisposed to draw. We back Danton any day against Old Nick. And how infinitely better the effect of introducing a true villain in plain clothes, relying for his power only on the known and undeniable atrocity of his character, than all the pale-faced, hollow-eyed denizens of the lower pit, concealing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... former days; pin-cushions, shell-baskets, one or two horse-shoes, and iron-heels of boots; several flat irons belonging to doll's houses, with a couple of dolls, much the worse for wear, mounting guard over them; besides a host of other nick-nacks, for which it were impossible to find names or imagine uses. Everything—from the old woman's cap to the uncarpeted floor, and the little grate in which a little fire was making feeble efforts ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... going to refuse her demand and order her out of the kitchen, but the words died on his lips when he turned and beheld the beautiful Hyacinthia, and he answered politely, 'You have just come in the nick of time, fair maiden. Bake your cake, and I myself will ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... spools, and the machines set in motion. At the required number of yards the spools stop revolving. The ordinary spool of cotton thread contains 200 yards, and when this has been wound on, the thread is cut with a knife by an attendant, who also cuts the little nick in the rim of the spool and fastens therein the end of the thread. Thread mills commonly print their own labels, and these are affixed to the spools by special machinery with remarkable rapidity. From the labeling machine the spools go to an inspector, who examines each one for imperfections, ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like Mrs. Bullfrog's, and also a green silk calash dangling down her back by the strings. In my terror and turmoil of mind I could imagine nothing less than that the Old Nick, at the moment of our overturn, had annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. This idea seemed the most probable, since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive, nor, though I looked very sharply about the coach, could I detect ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bet we have! Ma an' me can stand it, but, mister, I don't want folks to laugh at my children, and there's other things I don't want to happen to 'em. Buddy's a wild hoss and he's got a streak of the Old Nick in him. And Allie ain't broke no better 'n him. I got a feelin' there may be trouble ahead, an'—sometimes I 'most wish we'd never had no ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... it come clear. Heigho,"—he added a moment later as if to free his mind from unpleasant thoughts,—"I'll be glad when we are safely up in the hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though we're getting away just in the nick of time. My back hair and the pricking of my thumbs warn me that your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee has a plentiful supply of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, if they get too ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... all the witches, to see whether they had the secret mark about them by which they were stamped as the devil's own. This mark was always insensible to pain. Those who had not yet been marked received the mark from the master of the ceremonies, the devil at the same time bestowing nick-names upon them. This done, they all began to sing and dance in the most furious manner until some one arrived who was anxious to be admitted into their society. They were then silent for a while until the new comer had ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... after this I was at my aunt Kate Doneghy's. Uncle James, or "Jim," we called him, her husband, was not a Christian. He shocked me one day by saying: "So those Campbellites took you to the creek, and soused you, did they 'Cal'?" (A nick name.) What a blow! My aunt seemed also shocked to have him speak thus to me. I left the room and avoided meeting him again. How he crushed me! It had the effect to make me feel ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... thus merry: he will prove you his sin out of the bible, and then ask if you will not take that authority. He never sees the church but of purpose to sleep in it, or when some silly man preaches, with whom he means to make sport, and is most jocund in the church. One that nick-names clergymen with all the terms of reproach, as "rat, black-coat" and the like; which he will be sure to keep up, and never calls them by other: that sings psalms when he is drunk, and cries "God mercy" in mockery, for he must do it. He is one seems to dare God in all ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... us all in good nick," said Tresco, as he drew the cork of the bottle, and poured some of the spirit into the pannikin. "Here's luck," and he drank ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Heaven wi' its jasper halls Is now the on'y town I care to be in.. Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... "We'll keep Nick informed but he ought to remain where he is. We'll still want our men in the basic positions of power after ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... watching her, too, and I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for her, because she is one of those people who just can't stand losing. When Miss Thompson reached the place where she was about to ask Anne to step up and get the prize, Miriam half rose in her seat. Mrs. Nesbit pulled her back in the nick of time. I honestly believe she would have reached the stage before Anne did, if her mother hadn't stopped her. Hippy told me they left before the benediction. I suppose Miriam was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... the enemy had abandoned Big Springs and fallen back to Huntersville, the soldiers were permitted to break ranks, while Colonel Marrow and Major Keifer, with a company of cavalry, rode forward to the Springs. Colonel Nick Anderson, Adjutant Mitchell and I followed. We found on the road evidence of the recent presence of a very large force. Quite a number of wagons had been left behind. Many tents had been ripped, cut to pieces, or burned, so as to render them ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... woman, stolidly. Glancing again at Father Friday's kind face, she added, more graciously: "Wa-all, yer jest in the nick of time; the hoe-cake's nyearly done, and we war about ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... hard-hearted swains; sheep-cotes, rustic dances, junketings, anadems, and true-love knots; monsters invented for the perpetual menace of chastity; chastity undergoing the most surprising perils, but always saved in the nick of time, if not by an opportune shepherd, then by an equally opportune river-god or earthquake; episodes innumerable, branching off from the main stem of the narrative at the most critical point, and luxuriating in endless ramifications. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... worshipped him. These descendants all retain, in the names of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the recollections of the chief gods of this mythology. Mara (the nightmare) still torments the sleep of the English-speaking people; and the Evil One, Nokke (so says Laing), is the ancestor of Old Nick. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... have secured you at short notice like this," Lord Bracondale was saying. "I only found I had a free evening at breakfast, and I met Jack on my way to the polo-ground just in the nick of time." ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red. (Ow, poor beggars in red!) There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses, There's 'er mark on the medical stores— An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind That takes us to various wars. (Poor beggars!—barbarious wars!) Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor, ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... and leaned against his horse's neck and smiled at us, methought he was by far the goodliest man that ever I had looked upon. His teeth were as white as the foam on his horse's bit, and there was a deep nick at the corner of his mouth, like that at ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... the youngest brother, Henry, with quiet steps and a sober, thought-ful look. He had been taught to read and write, and for that reason he was nick-named Beau-clerc, ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... rattle in the inside, but there was no sound, and then I thought that the diamond might cleave to the side with damp, or perhaps be wrapped in wool. Scarcely was the locket well in my hand before I had it undone, finding a thumb-nick whereby, after a little persuasion, the back, though rusted, could be opened on a hinge. My breath came very fast, and I shook so that I had a difficulty to keep my thumbnail in the nick, yet hardly was it opened before exalted expectation ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... many hard tasks for him, I will try and do this too, though I was never set to do anything yet half so difficult." So he prepared his fire, and put his gridiron upon it, and lays the salmon fairly and softly upon the gridiron, and then he roasts it, turning it from one side to the other just in the nick of time, before the soft satin skin could be blistered. However, on turning it over the eleventh time—and twelve would have settled the business—he found he had delayed a little bit of time too long in turning it over, and there was a small, tiny blister on ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... if three of Tavannes' following had not run out on the instant and faced the mob with their pikes, and for a moment forced them to give back, the prisoners would have been rescued at the very door of the inn. As it was they were dragged in, and the gates were flung to and barred in the nick of time. Another moment, almost another second, and the mob had seized them. As it was, a hail of stones poured on the front of the inn, and amid the rising yells of the rabble there presently floated ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Philip joined them there was a fight at Brookfield, the Nipmucks and their allies being victorious. They proceeded to burn the town nearly entire, though the inhabitants who survived, after a three days' siege in a fortified house, were relieved by troops from Boston just in the nick of time. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... was a staid, wall-eyed veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut, broad skirts, long waist, and stand-up collar, over which dangled either a queue, or marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at the end of it—it would have puzzled old Nick to say which. His lower spars were cased in tight unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the coal-scuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings from his coat-flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the "last of the sea-monsters," but, like ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... as he gained the street; "but Old Nick is seldom so black as he's painted! He was a plaguy while, I thought, signing his name; but I wish I could sign mine to such ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... protect their lives and property from insult, many of the whigs had united in small parties, and were styled by the Skinners, in derision, the 'Cow-boys.' One of the most active and energetic of these bands, ever ready for any species of patriotic duty, was led by Nicholas Odell. Nick, as he was familiarly termed, though entirely uneducated, was one of the shrewdest men to be found; for Nature had gifted him where cultivation was wanting, and he became, in consequence, a most formidable and dangerous enemy in the service he had chosen. But fifty men composed his ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Dad and Norah and I had been out riding, and we came home, past the back yard, in the nick of time. We couldn't hear what the fellow was saying to Mrs. Brown, but his attitude was enough to make us pull up, and as we did so we saw him try to shove her aside. She was plucky enough and banged ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... chasing through the undergrowth as if the very Old Nick was after him, swinging his cap as he ran, and shouting out some words which he could ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to adjust sights, as the enemy were within "point-blank" range. Enfilading the enemy these guns were raking his flank with fire, whilst he was preparing to make a final rush down into the wadi. Had not this move been circumvented in the "nick of time," it is impossible to estimate the disastrous consequences which would have ensued. Almost at once, the deadly fire of the two machine-guns began to tell their tale, and odd Turks here and there suddenly remembered "a very urgent ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... his first knowledge of the mistake they had made, and, leaping into his canoe, he drove it across the stream with resistless speed, reaching the spot in the nick of time, and barely doing that, since he was forced to raise his voice while yet on the river, in order to ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... raising her hands, "you don't mean to say you haven't taken down your stocking. What would Saint Nick say?" ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... thinkin'," said Miss Mehitable cheerfully; "but the queerest thing and the nicest thing happened to me this mornin'. I got some money that I didn't expect. Just in the nick o' time, you see. We can go ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... of a male struggle with sorrow was far more touching than any description of feminine and unresisted grief could be: and, when the doctor said he loved his patient, she stole her little hand into his in a way to melt Old Nick, if he is a male. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of about two or three houses and an inn; there is likewise a species of barrack, where half a dozen soldiers are stationed. In the whole of Portugal there is no place of worse reputation, and the inn is nick-named Estalagem de Ladroes, or the hostelry of thieves; for it is there that the banditti of the wilderness, which extends around it on every side for leagues, are in the habit of coming and spending ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... advantage of a nick-name. Dickson thought he was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion. Had he dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into the shadows, and so missed ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... damned quick! ... And, in her humiliation, is there anybody mad enough to fancy that she wouldn't snap up Plank in such a fix? ... And make it look like a jilt for Quarrier? ... But Plank must do his part on the minute; Plank must step up in the very nick of time; Plank, with his millions and his ambitions, was bound to be a winner anyway, and Sylvia might as well be his pilot and use his money. ... And Plank would be very, very grateful—very useful, a very good friend to have. ... And Leila would ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... go. Let the lawyers and the judge puzzle it out. 'Guilty or not guilty?' 'Hanged if I know, my lord. Looks like guilty, but don't see very well how I can be.' That will bother old Rae some; it would bother Old Nick himself. 'Did you forge this note?' 'My lord, my present ego recognizes no intent to forge; my alter ego in vino may have done so. Of that, however, I know nothing; it lies in that mysterious region of the subconscious.' 'Are you, then, guilty?' 'Guilt, my lord, lies in intent. Intent is the soul ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... Lord Culpeper had arrived in Virginia, succeeding Berkeley, Jeffries, and Chichely, then returned the brothers Richard and Nicholas Barry, or Dick and Nick, as they were termed among the people; and as my Lord Culpeper was not averse to increasing his revenues, there were those who whispered, though secretly and guardedly, that the two bold brothers purchased their safety ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... side by side, Close to the fireside broad and wide. "Two?" said Saint Nick, as down he came, Loaded with toys and many a game. "Ho, ho!" said he, with a laugh of fun, "I'll have no ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... heaple steeple There I met a heap o' people; Some was nick and some was nack, Some was speckled on ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... must beg of you for the sake of the ladies to give up this out-of-the-way place, and come close, up to the settlement. We feel that we cannot leave you out here unprotected. Think of what would have happened if we had not arrived in the nick of time." ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... was; well, they drew Ballytowngal, and found no fox there. It was not expected, and nothing happened there. The people did not come into old Nick Bodkin's demesne, but we had heard by the time that we were there that we should come across a lot of Landleaguers at Moytubber. There they were as thick as bees round the covert, and there was one man who had the impudence to tell Tom Daly that draw where he might, he would draw in vain for ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... spell-of-hot-weather was stimulated to be really vicious. "I call Heaven to witness," it said, "that my sole desire was to be genial and beneficial. But what can one do when one is taunted and provoked, abused and nick-named like this? Very well then, I'll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... alone. The moment he comes into smart contact with his fellow-beings there is a crash, and the assembled company have a vision of broken fragments of humanity, which might have remained whole and suffered no more injury than a possible nick had the combatants been padded with adaptability. The irresistible man is the man who thinks he can get through the world without it. The irresistible man is the one who is so perfect in his own estimation that he needs no change. He is ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... I, my fine fellow, I will bounce you; and without a salutation I pressed forward. Madam, I give you my word, he behaved to the full pitch as I myself should have done under similar circumstances. Retiring upon an inclination of his structure, he draws up and fetches me a bow of the exact middle nick between dignity and service. I advance, he withdraws, and again the bow, devoid of obsequiousness, majestically condescending. These, thinks I, be royal manners. I could have taken him for the Sable King in person, stripped of his mantle. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the name of Joe Nick, called Old Nick by a great many white people of me city. Joe was owned by Rueben Rogers, a lawyer and farmer of Howard County. The farm was situated about 2-1/2 miles on a road that is the extension of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... certain metallic gleams in it—like time-veiled copper and brass. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth—without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... that should be decided in advance, because, surely, it presented serious dangers, was how he should justify the coming into his hands of a sum of money which, providentially and in the nick of time, relieved him from the embarrassments against ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... at eleven, somewhat after the fashion of the Hawkshaws of "yellow back" fame, who, if our memory serves us right, were so punctual that their appearance anywhere was described as being in the "nick o' time," only in this instance he was expected and did not "drop from the sky," ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Nick four round boys before they hit the dust?" said Dan. "Maybe I could, I don't know. I can't try it, anyway, Morgan, because I told Dad Cumberland I'd never pull a gun while ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... illustrations of this beautiful Romance to the young gentleman in question. As I cannot find, however, that he is known among his friends by any other name than "The Tripe-skewer," which I cannot but consider as a soubriquet, or nick-name; and as I feel that it would be neither respectful nor proper to address him publicly by that title, I have been compelled to forego the pleasure. If this should meet his eye, will he pardon my humble attempt to embellish with the pencil ...
— The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman • Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray
... Grammendorf, in Pomerania, a maid saw, every time she went to milk the cows, a hateful toad hopping about in the stable. She determined to kill it, and would have seized it one day had it not, in the very nick of time, succeeded in creeping into a hole, where she could not get at it. A few days after, when she was again busy in the stable, a little Ulk, as the elves there are called, came and invited her to descend ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... friends, and as this chest must have belonged to them, it would have been worth my while to get hold of her. As, however, they have never appeared, I have been saved the trouble and expense she would have been to me, and now this store comes just in the nick of time when I want it most. The only difficulty will be to dispose of all these things without raising suspicion as to how I came by them. Still, at the worst, I can but tell the truth should questions be asked, and prove that I got them ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Now, if Jingoss just thinks we're coming some time, and not to-morrow, he ain't going to pull up stakes in such a hell of a hurry. He'll pack what furs he's got, and he'll pick up what traps he's got out. That would take him several days, anyway. My son, we're in the nick of time!" ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... Tombs, is different. He maintains that the two cats are one and the same, and that the body of the beast is occupied by that ubiquitous spirit who is variously known as Satan, Hornie, Cloots, Mephistopheles, Pluto, and Old Nick. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... professor was seen to suddenly dart, with an activity they would hardly have expected in him, across the road. He was only in the nick of time. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... Evan would rather have been called Old Nick than "old man," but he nodded obedience to the manager's wishes and went about ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... mother of two boys in a twelve-month! Frederick came just in the nick of time, Sylvester Eve (December 31, 1893), to gain me a little brief renown, for royalty likes its women to be rabbits and, in the reigning houses at least, we are esteemed in proportion to ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... that the general did not at all approve of the turn affairs had taken. "I had a trap for them at the House-of-the- Eight-Half-brothers, and some hillmen in there ready to rush out and seize them as they passed. But a fool Afridi murdered one, and I only got there in the nick of time to save the other's life. I meant that Ranjoor Singh, who is a buffalo, should be troubled about his troopers and suspected on his own account, for he and I have a private quarrel. I did not mean to catch him, ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... knew him, Sir Norman, as if he had been his brother. In short, there was no use driving himself insane trying to read so unreadable a riddle; and inwardly consigning the mysterious count to Old Nick, he swallowed another glass of sack, and ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... in the rapidly increasing divisions among us of Conservatives, who, by a singular fatality, still indicate the plebeian origin which they would now so gladly disown by the term Democrats; and, on the other hand, of Republicans, nick-named at present Radicals—somewhat unjustly; since the term is strictly applicable only to a very limited portion ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... from thet thar scare That cum on Spense—tho', reely, I'll allus hold it was a shine Of thet thar pooty Deely: Thar's them es holds thro' thin an' thick, 'Twas a friendly visit from Old Nick. ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... stage or in books something always happens just in the nick of time to put things right; but that ain't life, or ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... as you shall hear tell of on the Main from Panama to St. Catherine's, aye, by the horns of Nick there be none of all the coastwise Brotherhood quicker or readier when there's aught i' the wind than Abnegation, and you can lay ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... another," and he pointed first to the fat and pompous Visitor, and next to the dishevelled Prioress, adding: "And now, Sir Commissioner, for all that I have done in the cause of justice I ask pardon of you who wear the King's grace and majesty as I wore old Nick's horns and hoofs, since otherwise the Abbot and his hired butchers, who hold themselves masters of King and people, will murder me for this as they have done by better men. Therefore pardon, your Mightiness, pardon," and ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... escape his age, his civilization, and his peculiar disposition; from which it seems to follow that not even the unanimous censure of generations can utterly discredit anything. The admission comes in the nick of time: history was on the point of calling attention to the attitude of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to Gothic, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... lies, and dragged in as usual the name of Sir Sydney Smith to support his assertions. "If you doubt me, only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he'll talk to you about Acre for thirty-six hours on a stretch, without taking breath; his cockswain at last got so tired of it, that he nick-named him 'Long Acre.'" * * * "Capital salmon this," said the captain; "where does Billet get it from? By the by, talking of that, did you ever hear of the pickled salmon in Scotland?" We all replied ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... the deal. He knew better'n to try to nick me for three hundred bucks on his danged, worthless note. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... "Old Nick will have me anyhow," I thought to myself as I drove home amid the shadows. The hum of the cicadas was still, and dozens of rabbits, tempted out by the cool of the twilight, scuttled across my path and hid in ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... leader had cheering and example, what were these set against this final ordeal: a blistering thirst of three days and two nights? Happily a water-hole, not bereft of all moisture, was found in the nick of time. A few birds flew about it in the evening, but Sir George Grey's hand shook so that he could take no aim. He headed a last desperate spurt for Perth; the reaching of succour, or the arrival of death. Which ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... a promoter. I promote the well-being of these good mountain folks by giving them sight and by furnishing them with nick-nacks to delight the eye. If you-all are troubled with poor sight I'll be happy to fit you with glasses warranted to make you see double. More coffee, if you please. This is the real article. I think I'll have to make this ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... for the girls to try to catch the auto now. They were far behind it, but still Betty ran on. Several narrow escapes had Paul on that perilous journey, and then in the nick of time he was saved from what might have ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... as 9 a clock, with their shiny morning faces, and with their scratchels on their backs, as the Poet says, and with their lunches in 'em, as praps the Poet didn't kno of; and arterwards, the LORD MARE and his Sherryffs went to Epping Forest and dined at a Pick Nick with a lot of Werderers, whatever they may be, and some common Counselmen, but, strange to say, they didn't have no Wenson! so they made Game of one another. They didn't arsk that Mr. PERCY LINDLEY, who's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... going to dine before retiring," he muttered to himself. "The Old Nick take the luck! They have all the good times, while I have ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... us as are the Lares, Larvae, and Lemures of heathen Rome; yet the deposit it has permanently left behind it in the English language is not inconsiderable. 'Lubber,' 'dwarf,' 'oaf,' 'droll,' 'wight,' 'puck,' 'urchin,' 'hag,' 'night-mare,' 'gramary,' 'Old Nick,' 'changeling' (wechselkind), suggest themselves, as all bequeathed to us by that old Teutonic demonology. [Footnote: [But the words puck, urchin, gramary, are not of Teutonic origin. The etymology of puck is unknown; urchin means properly 'a hedgehog,' being the old French ericon ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... one of my marine beauties: for they knew I had a footing in both these—shall we say circles? As to themselves they were the bohemian circle, not very wide—half a dozen of us led by a sculptor whom we called Prax for short. My own nick-name ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... this. He was not hard on the captain. Nothing was further from his thoughts. Friend! Of course he was a good friend and a faithful servant. He begged Powell to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to strike a bargain with Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were good to the captain, he (Franklin) would find it in his heart to love Old Nick for the captain's sake. That was so. On the other hand, if a saint, an angel with white ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the reporter; "besides, if by chance you had met with some deliverer there, just in the nick of time, why should he have abandoned you after having saved you from ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... he caught a glimpse of one of the desperadoes on top of the car and yelled to Ketchel and Jim who jumped just in the nick of time, and by sheer luck not uncommon in battles, escaped unhurt. As for the fireman he took a novel way of making his escape, by diving into the shelving bank of coal and letting it slide over him. In the excitement of the flurry of firing he ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... was shown the exact (?) spot where the little ark was found among the bullrushes in the River Nile. When Pharoah's daughter saw the little child she was touched and thus the destiny of a nation hung on the cry of a little child. Miriam, the sister of Moses appeared just in the nick of time and when the princess told her to call one of the Hebrew women her feet hardly touched the ground in her effort to get her mother to the spot. When the little hands were held out toward the joyous mother she was told to take the child and nurse him and thus she was paid wages for bringing ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... they rushed on, the bows were within an ace of diving into some wave, and the keel must often have shown, but by a dexterous turn of the tiller Kenneth avoided the danger just at the nick of time, and nothing worse happened than the leaping in of some spray, Scood silently sopping the gathering water with a large sponge, which he kept on wringing over ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Gave a lustre of midday to objects below; When what to my wondering eyes should appear But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick! More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name. "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!— To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, Now, dash away, dash away, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... yard untidy and he desisted. The suspense was terrible. He moved outside the yard-gate and my heart sank once more as I saw that he now intended to throw us in the gutter of the roadway. But (fortune was indeed with us that day), a large man in, blue clothes and silver buttons stopped him in the nick of time. Evidently, from the way the large man lectured and waved a short thick stick, it was against the rules of the town to throw dead fish in ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... patrol briefly. He wasted no words in this emergency when seconds were things of consequence, but made prompt use of the assistance which had apparently been sent from heaven in the nick of time. "Tell them she's struck on the reef off Sister Point," ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... we've that to do at the hall to-morrow night that may make men of us for the rest of our nat'ral lives. We've pledged ourselves to Jack Palmer, and we can't be off in honor. It won't do to be snabbled in the nick of it. So let's make for the prad in the lane. Keep in the shade as much as you can. Come along, my hearty." And away the two worthies scampered down ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the river to Pineville while the dam was being built to enable the gunboats to pass down the river. Colonel Molineux was relieved from command of a recruiting party which he had been in charge of, called the "Louisiana Scouts," but the Regiment nick-named them the "Jay-hawkers." The gunboats having safely passed the dam, the army commenced moving back on ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy
... than bad—load up, George! A new rifle's like a kid—pretty sure to fire a bit wide at first—not being used to it—we was all kids once, sir, remember! But a bit of correction here an' there'll put that right as a rule. On the other hand there's rifles as Old Nick himself nor nobody else could make shoot straight—ready, George? And it's just the same with kids! Now, if you'll stick your eyes to that glass, and watch the target, you'll see how near she'll come this time—all right, George!" As he speaks the rifle speaks also, and observing ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... what whim, Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb! Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball, Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all! In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, That we wish'd him full ten times a day at Old Nick, But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein, As often we wish'd to have Dick back again. Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not what ...
— English Satires • Various
... something a little while ago, a sort of an ear-piercing shriek that startled me, and caused me to nick my chin with the razor. I shall have to put a bit of flesh-coloured plaster over it. Was that the whistle?" asked the Honourable John in the most tantalising, nonchalant way, as if he had all the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... for thousands of ducks, geese, and wild swans. We reached, before night, a native village called Harchina (har'-chin-ah) and sent at once for a celebrated Russian guide by the name of Nicolai Bragan (nick-o-lai' brag'-on) whom we hoped to induce to ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... till morning, but it suddenly appeared like the most woful waste of time. The master of this tremendous affair should be abroad and active; who knew what his keen eyes might detect, what loss his absence might occasion in this nick of time? And here he was, shut up and locked in a wine-cellar! I began to be very nervous; I had already, with aid, searched every crevice of the cellar; and now I thought it would be some consolation to discover the thief, if I never regained the diamond. A distant ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various |
