"Surreptitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in plain sight on every stage. "No smoking" is one peremptory order that admits of no violation. Woe unto the actor or actress, principal or chorus girl, who tries to sneak a smoke in a dressing room, if found out! The fireman is using his nose as well as his eyes, and the familiar odor of a surreptitious cigarette will lead him straight to the culprit. Mr. Fireman is authorized by law to enter any dressing room under such circumstances, and no matter what the state of your toilet, he will exercise his authority, enter your room—and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... clothes. She understood that he was preparing to leave, and that he had probably decided to go without seeing her. She saw that the decision, from whatever cause it was taken, had disturbed him deeply; and she immediately concluded that his change of plan was due to some surreptitious interference of Mr. Royall's. All her old resentments and rebellions flamed up, confusedly mingled with the yearning roused by Harney's nearness. Only a few hours earlier she had felt secure in his comprehending pity; now she was flung ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... Larry the Bat—some time between four o'clock and the present, it was now well after eleven, the case had dropped from his pocket. There had been ample time then for Whitey Mack to have made that appointment with Lannigan—and ample time to have made a surreptitious visit to the Sanctuary. Had Whitey Mack gone there? Had Whitey Mack found that hiding place in the flooring under the oilcloth? Had Whitey Mack discovered that the Gray Seal was not only Larry the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... she must not be petted or pampered with regimen or diet unsuited to her needs; left to find out as best she can, from surreptitious or worthy sources, what she most of all needs to know; must recognize that our present civilization is hard on woman and that she is not yet adjusted to her social environment; that as she was of old accused of having given man the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... wry mouth, shrugged, and didn't bother to answer with more than a nod. He allowed a slight expression of contempt for supervisors who asked silly questions to show. He caught the surreptitious wink of the operator at the next panel, behind the supervisor's back. The disturbance was beginning to attract attention. In response to the wink he pulled the dogged expression of the unjustly ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... defeated. This neglect of duty may be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of course not to excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage. But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens ...
— The Federalist Papers
... MELANCHOLY, a book once the favourite of the learned and the witty, and a source of surreptitious learning, though written on a regular plan, consists chiefly of quotations: the author has honestly termed it a cento. He collects, under every division, the opinions of a multitude of writers, without regard to chronological ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Lettice or Maude Kitson, she resented the way in which they had gone over to Anna, with whom Lettice in particular had struck up a violent friendship—the sort of friendship which requires secret signals, long whisperings in corners, the passing of many surreptitious notes, and is particularly aggravating to ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... waited while I sealed it up and gave it to the porter. Then, with a surreptitious squeeze of the hand, he left me to go to ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... redoubtable skipper of the Osprey regret her change of crew, and to treat him with more civility than her proud spirit quite approved of. There was but little wind, and the barge merely crawled along as the captain and mate, with surreptitious glances, took each ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... feet five, and has a plump, dimpling figure. Her hair is bright brown, and her nose is an exquisitely cut little straight one. (Here I observed Dawn casting surreptitious glances in the mirror opposite.) Her eyes are bright blue with long dark lashes, and she has a mouth too pretty to describe, fitted up with a set of the loveliest natural teeth one could see in these days of the dentist; it is so perfect that it seems unnatural and a sad ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... I hear that you have procured a correct copy of 'The Dunciad,' which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a commentary; a work so requisite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... dark that the spy, who had seen the king but once and never Mr. Rassendyll, did not recognize who the visitor was, but he rightly conceived that he should serve his employer by tracking the steps of the tall man who made so mysterious an arrival and so surreptitious a departure from the suspected house. Accordingly, as Rudolf turned the corner and Helena closed the window, a short, thickset figure started cautiously out of the projecting shadow, and followed in Rudolf's wake through ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... by any means as tightly fastened after the writing as before; nor did the writing of two or three illegible words seem beyond the resources of very humble legerdemain; in fact, no legerdemain was needed, after a surreptitious loosening of the screw which, considering the state of the frame of the slate, could have ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... garantii. Surf sxauxmo, mar—. Surface suprajxo. Surfeit supersati. Surge ondego. Surgeon hxirurgiisto. Surgery hxirurgio. Surly malgaja. Surmise konjekti. Surmount venki. Surname alnomo. Surpass superi. Surprise surprizi. Surrender kapitulaci. Surreptitious kasxa. Survey (land) termezuri. Survey vidadi, elvidi. Surveyor termezuristo. Survive postvivi. Susceptible sentebla—ema. Susceptibility sentemo. Suspect suspekti. Suspend pendigi. Suspense (uncertainty) necerteco. Suspicion ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... human conscience, and especially the boyish article, recognizes a broad difference between the theft of growing crops—of apples on the trees, for instance, or corn on the stalk, or melons in the field—and that of other species of property. The surreptitious appropriation of the former class of chattels is known in common parlance as "hooking," while the graver term "stealing" describes the same process in other cases. The distinction may arise from ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... to the gross neglect and violation of their public duty, and to open, daring, and lawless resistance to the authority of the magistracy and of the executive government, on various occasions; that the systematic and surreptitious introduction of Orangeism into every branch of the military service, in almost every part of the empire, in direct violation of orders issued in 1822 and 1829 by the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces, and the absolute power ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... strategist," said Brown to himself next morning as he sat watching with surreptitious glances the faces of the young ladies beside him. The preacher was at his best. The great land where his life mission lay, with its prairies, foot-hills mountains, and valleys, and all their marvellous resources, was spread out before the eyes of the congregation with all the passionate pride ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... who, for his part, declared that, until the actual day of the meeting, they had been in the custody of the gunsmith from whom he had bought them. The gunsmith, however, M. Devismes, said that this was not the case; and another witness declared that he had seen de Beauvallon having a little surreptitious practice ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... for Necessity to exercise her maternal function. And she has responded nobly. A progeny of new substances have been brought forth and, what is most encouraging to see, they are no longer trying to worm their way into favor as surreptitious surrogates under the names of "leatheret," "leatherine," "leatheroid" and "leather-this-or-that" but come out boldly under names of their own coinage and declare themselves not an imitation, not even a substitute, but "better than leather." This policy has had ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... mines, and crafting, bursting bombs, Are half so horrid as the sounding lash That echoes through the Carribean groves. Incessant is the War of Human Wit, Oppos'd to bestial strength; and variously Successful: in these happy fertile climes, Man still maintains his surreptitious power; Reigns o'er the Brutes, and, with the voice of Fate, Says "This to-day, and that to-morrow dies." Though here our Shambles blazon the Renown, The Victory, and Rule, of lordly Man; Far wider ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... the company barber reached into his pocket with a surreptitious glance about, "if you'll take these bills an' sneak past to that coaster lyin' along the next dock, the Chinese steward 'ull sell you three bottles o' whiskey fer these," and he handed me a bunch of bills ... "an' w'en you come back with th' booze, we'll see to it that you get took out to the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... to Reginald Mohun, who had been obliged to retire as full Colonel, Mr. White was so absolutely distasteful that it was his sister's continual fear that he would encourage the young people's surreptitious jokes about their marble uncle. Sir Jasper, always feeling accountable for having given the first sanction, did his best for the brother-in-law; but in spite of regard, there was no getting over the uncongeniality ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desires we had caged through the centuries broke loose—caged with traditions, with public opinion and scriptural penalties." He was delighted with his image and went on to elaborate it. "They broke loose like wild animals from a menagerie. We'd always known they existed. Sometimes we'd paid surreptitious visits to them in books," the old eyes blinked cautiously, "the way one goes to the Zoo, to remind himself that there is a jungle somewhere. But we'd only regarded them as specimens; we'd never expected to meet them roaming about the streets loose or coming as domestic pets ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... whether high or low, woman or man, who was not in a high state of exultation, with the exception of Pao-y, who behaved just as if the news had not reached his ears; and can you, reader, guess why? The fact is that Chih Neng, of the Water Moon Convent, had recently entered the city in a surreptitious manner in search of Ch'in Chung; but, contrary to expectation, her visit came to be known by Ch'in Yeh, who drove Chih Neng away and laid hold of Ch'in Chung and gave him a flogging. But this outburst of temper of his brought about a relapse of his old complaint, with the result that in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... juvenile inhabitants of Arden, without little stifled bursts of laughter on her own part; while, in the very midst of her most earnest endeavours, she was apt to find her brother Austin standing behind her, tempting the juvenile mind by the surreptitious offer of apples or walnuts. The attempts at teaching generally ended in merry laughter and the distribution of nuts and apples, with humble apologies to the professional schoolmistress for so useless ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... detective, taken by itself, implies one who must descend to questionable shifts to attain justifiable ends; but with the prefix of private, it means one using a machine permitted to the exigencies of justice for the purpose of surreptitious personal gain. Thus used, this agency, which even in honest hands and for lawful ends is one of doubtful propriety, becomes essentially dangerous and demoralizing. Originally an individual enterprise, the last resort of plausible rascals ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... military intricacies; and then the gallant Judge would explain it all over again. Whether from Columbia or Charleston, he was always in touch with the latest returns, hopes, plans of the leaders, and possibilities of the Southern Confederacy, together with all surreptitious assistance from foreign sources, in which Great Britain came first and Spain close behind, each having special reasons of their own for widening the breach ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the cradle sleeping as if it never had been taken away. Another case was related to me as having occurred in the same neighbourhood, but in this instance the theft was not discovered until after the death of the child. The surreptitious or false baby, having apparently died, was buried; but suspicion having been raised, the grave was opened and the coffin examined, when there was found in it, not a corpse, but a wooden figure. The late Mr. Rust, in his Druidism Exhumed, states that this superstition is common in the North of ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... another cadet. As he spoke he looked at Reff Ritter, but that individual merely scowled, and took surreptitious whiffs at a ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... they confided these things to Sophy instead of to each other, these wedded sisters of hers. Perhaps they held for each other an unuttered distrust or jealousy. Perhaps, in making a confidante of Sophy, there was something of the satisfaction that comes of dropping a surreptitious stone down a deep well and hearing it plunk, safe in the knowledge that it has struck no one and that it cannot rebound, lying there in the soft darkness. Sometimes they would end by saying, "But you don't know what it is, Sophy. You can't. I'm ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... on either side of the front. These proofs of unheeded Scriptural warning, being far different in size, gave the entire garment a sinister, cross-eyed effect, which did not fail to catch the eye of the most casual observer. After a surreptitious examination of the aforesaid pockets, Mary discovered that one was occupied by Miss Bumps' ample handkerchief, and the ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... could not be injured by such a composition, it was certainly Lord Sandwich himself; but his zeal as a minister to support his chief kindled in him a sudden enthusiasm for the support of virtue and decency also; and, having obtained a copy by some surreptitious means, he now made a formal complaint of it to the House, contending that the use of the name of the Bishop of Gloucester as author of the notes constituted a breach of the privileges of the House. And he was seconded ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... has doubtless made a better guess at what had happened than Plunger. It was in this way. Mellor and Crick, the two boys who had gained possession of the Garside flag, had found a good deal of amusement at first in making surreptitious visits to the barn, and dancing round their capture, but they soon began to long for something more exciting. Truth to tell, the capture had not made the sensation in the ranks of the enemy they had anticipated—so at least it seemed ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... receive another shock from my mysterious prisoner who had acted as interpreter. On Thursday he came to my cell in the uniform of a warder. Consequently I saw a good deal of him, and, he being friendly, we had many brief snatches of surreptitious conversation. He was highly intelligent, well-educated and sympathetic. I enquired as to how he happened to be in our unsalubrious avenue. He informed me that he was awaiting the Kaiser's pardon. His offence was not heinous. He had not responded to ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... whose theatre-goings have been limited to the "shows" to which his father has given him tickets, or to which he has escorted his mother or sisters, and whose wildest dissipations have consisted in a surreptitious cigarette and glass of beer, neither of which he enjoyed, but both of which he pretended to revel in for the sake of being "mannish,"—will talk knowingly of "the latest soubrette," "a jolly little ballet-dancer," "the wicked ways of this world," and "the dens of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... she thought she could convince herself and the world that Mary had been actively engaged in treasonous plots. Recently however at Tutbury under the charge of Sir Amyas Paulet, she had been guarded so strictly that no surreptitious correspondence had a chance of passing. Walsingham was confident that if the opportunity were given, a treasonous correspondence would be opened. It became his object therefore to give her the opportunity in appearance, while securing that the channel through which communications ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... since, notwithstanding he has obtained the dignified appellation of Sir Francis, the Gazette says, that "in future no improper person shall be admitted to the honour of knighthood, in consequence of two surreptitious presentations lately"—the one an M.D. the other F.R.C. Surgeons, particularly if it were possible that this Gentleman may be one of the persons alluded to. For, what says ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... about with a bandaged head. He had invented a likely story to account for the accident when the fellows at the club asked him about it, but he had no occasion to use it. No one referred to the matter. He saw them cast surreptitious glances at his head, but not a word was said. The silence could only mean that they knew how he came by his wound. He was certain now that Ethel had a lover, and they all knew who it was. But there was not the smallest indication to guide him. He never saw Ethel with anyone; no one showed ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... choicest bits of the savory messes of her art. She was haughty as Juno, and aristocratic as though her naked ancestors had come over with the Conqueror, or "drawn a good bow at Hastings," . . . and yet her pride invariably melted at the sight of certain surreptitious quantities of tobacco, with which I made my court to this high priestess of the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... wondering what effect all this would have on Bill. She stole a surreptitious glance at him, but he, too, seemed to have been caught up by Rose's gay, good humor. Mrs. Wade sighed as she remembered how everyone had flocked around Norah. Rose had inherited her mother's charm. Such women were a race apart. They could no more be held responsible for trying to please than a flower ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... government of their cities is arranged for on the basis that officials will be honest, and work for the city and not for themselves. Our city organizations often give the air of living under laws framed to prevent thievery, bribery, blackmailing, and surreptitious murder. We make our municipal laws as though we were in ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... his followers were led into so great an error by that surreptitious and piratical copy which stole last year into the world; with what injustice and prejudice to our author will be acknowledged, I hope, by every one who shall happily peruse this genuine and original copy. Nor can I help remarking, to the great praise of ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... hard, and pushed his plate with a jerk toward his niece. Her face was very red, but she took it—she was aware there was no other course open—divided the meat impartially, and gave each child a piece with a surreptitious thump. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... place; then the long line once more moved forward, and the Chessingtonians, slightly ruffled, but trying to carry off the affair in a dignified fashion, marched with admirable coolness into the church. If Honor had a little, surreptitious cry behind her Prayer Book, she managed to conceal the fact from the neighbours on either side of her in the pew; and if her eyes looked suspiciously red, and there was a slight tendency to chokiness in her voice as she walked ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Sunday in last year's April during the servants' dinner hour, doubly secure from the gardener by the day and the dinner, slink out with a spade and a rake and feverishly dig a little piece of ground and break it up and sow surreptitious ipomaea, and run back very hot and guilty into the house, and get into a chair and behind a book and look languid just in time to save my reputation. And why not? It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... benches against a peeling wall sleepy-faced boys with precocious eyes kept up a lazy hair-pulling, surreptitious wrestling bout. They rose indifferently in response to furiously repeated bellows for their assistance—a business of carrying typewritten bits of paper between desks a few feet apart; or of sauntering with eleventh-hour orders to the perspiring ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... come the mowers and reapers shall tread them to the morning music of the lark, and through Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, they shall show the fresh checker-work of the ploughman's hob-nailed shoe. The surreptitious innovations of utilitarian science shall not poach upon these sacred preserves of the people, whatever revolutions they may produce in the machinery and speed of turnpike locomotion. These pleasant and peaceful paths through park, and pasture, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... and I am willing to let it go at that. We managed to secure a buffalo steak for breakfast. No man needed to starve in that country during those days of plentiful game; but we were handicapped by the necessity of doing our hunting in a very surreptitious manner. However, we didn't starve; the worst we experienced was an occasional period of acute hunger, when we didn't dare fire a shot for ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and shyly came on from the back. The autocrat was not asleep, and the instant her foot touched it he bounced across the cage to the other upper perch. He evidently expected that she would be put to shame in her surreptitious attempt to share his perch, and would at once retire to her proper sphere; but he was mistaken. So far from being embarrassed by his displeasure, she calmly accepted the relinquished position, and prepared for sleep. This was far ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... weekly exercise. The class was supposed to prepare the chapter first, then, opening the book at the page of questions, to write the answers entirely from memory. A few did so, but I fear a large proportion of the girls yielded to the temptation thus placed in their way, and would take surreptitious peeps to supply missing dates or names. It seemed hard that the conscientious ones should often be obliged to lose marks, while those whose standard of right was lower won words of approval from Miss Harper for their correct exercises. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... What her careful, surreptitious observation of him, from the depths and round the wings of her sun-bonnet, told her was that he was an upright man, and true, and bold, with a spirit which he kept well in hand but which could blaze like lightning on occasion, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to the impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires. They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... conception of angels. I can't imagine one meeting a man in this surreptitious fashion. Really, Buck, when you come to think of it, it is almost as bad as—as—what you did ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... "Do you know it? I don't think any one else would come out suddenly like this to a place where he had a friend, without letting the friend know. Really, if it were not you, one might think it quite oddly surreptitious." ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... condemnations by ecclesiastics, and represents the old paganism which Christianity failed to extinguish. The Church has played a double part, a part of sheer antagonism, forcing heathen customs into the shade, into a more or less surreptitious and unprogressive life, and a part of adaptation, baptizing them into Christ, giving them a Christian name and interpretation, and often modifying their form. The general effect of Christianity upon pagan usages is well suggested ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... any authority in the case, to put a stop to the publication of a work which had been circulated without his sanction, but in vain. Even the first complete edition, which was issued in 1581, seems to have been without his consent; for the author complains that he was compelled, by the surreptitious publication of parts of his poem, to finish the work in haste, and he wished for more time to elaborate the plot and polish the style. In the later editions, no less than seven of which appeared the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... study several of these species, as comparatively little is known of their habits, and indeed much still remains to be learned of the whole genus, familiar as one or two of the species are. Their sly, surreptitious manners render them exceedingly difficult to study at close range and ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... with Mr. Wyndham, Secretary of the American Legation, and were shown through the private rooms of the royal palace, of which my daughter took snapshots with surreptitious skill. The Queen was a great invalid and scarcely ever saw anyone, but while driving to her summer palace we caught a glimpse of her being lifted from her little horse, on which she had been riding, seated in a sort ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... that converted Jew who afterwards turned out to be a burglar, and nearly murdered poor dear Mr. Higby, the Baptist preacher, the night he broke into Mr. Higby's house and stole all his hams.' Once when I did manage to give the Maltese a surreptitious kick, and she yelled as if she was half-killed, Susan said, 'I am really afraid I shall have to ask you to leave us now. Poor pussy's nerves are so thoroughly upset that I must devote all my energies ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... purred. Was she married? There was a general movement—a surreptitious smoothing of back hair—an apologetic fumbling at the spot sacred to neckties. The judge buttoned up the two remaining buttons of his waistcoat. Lannigan ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... i., p. 201.).—I believe that no reply has been made to this Query. The following passage, transcribed from the Epistle Dedicatory to the surreptitious edition of Quarles's Judgment and Mercy, affords a slight negative proof ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... "But I know all those people." He never could rid himself of a surreptitious admiration for Bartley Hubbard. He, too, was "smart" and "alive." He had the "get there" to him. "Why," he would say, "I know fifty boys just like him down there in La Salle Street." Lapham he loved as a brother. Never a point in the development of his character that ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... wholesale agent, and Cointet Brothers, printers and paper manufacturers, were also bankers in all but name. This surreptitious banking system defies all the ingenuity of the Inland Revenue Department. Every banker is required to take out a license which, in Paris, costs five hundred francs; but no hitherto devised method of controlling ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... work from under her apron, and sewed with head depressed a little more than necessary. On this her mother drew a piece of work out of her pocket, and sewed too, while Richart read. Both the specimens these sweet surreptitious creatures now first exposed to observation were babies' caps, and more than half finished, which told a tale. Horror! they were like little monks' cowls in shape ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... quest, the while the disdainful lips curved laughingly and so bewildered him, he forgot the customary phrases and stood staring like a nonny. Her footstep fell so light, she was so agile and quick, the superstitious dwarf swore she was but a creature of the night and held surreptitious meetings with all the familiar spirits of demonology. As she never denied the uncanny imputation, but only displayed her small white teeth maliciously, by way of answer, Triboulet felt assured he was right and crossed himself religiously whenever ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... feel that he had convinced his room-mate, who took charge of his carpet-bag and now sat with it between his feet waiting the signal of the fugitive's surreptitious return for it. He was a vague-looking young man, presently in charge of the "Local and Literary" column of the one daily paper of the place, and he had just explained to the two other boarders who were watching with ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... transfer my rescued cur. He was grateful, as dogs ever are for a kindness, and licked my hands as I put him down. And he found strength somehow to wag his tail in token of thankfulness, so I felt repaid for my act of mercy, and very well satisfied. A surreptitious visit to the dining-room resulted in a purloined chunk of cold roast beef, and two or three dry, hard biscuits, which I found in the corner of a cupboard. Thus laden with my plunder, I started back, and in the hall came face to face with my ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... Maria, on her way to school in the rain, passing under the unconquerable golden glow of the maples, cast a surreptitious glance at the old Ramsey house as she passed. It had been wonderfully changed for the better. Even the garden at the side next her aunt's house was no longer a weedy enclosure, but displayed an array of hardy flowers which the frost had not yet affected. Marigolds ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... while upon his face the faintly indicated modellings of a grin hinted of an inner laughter at some surreptitious thought. "Well, you know, Fred says himself sometimes, I don't seem to be much of a ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... twenty cents a term; and since an ordinary textbook of philosophy or theology or canon law contained many sheets, these charges constituted no inconsiderable part of the cost of instruction. The books must be returned before the student left the university; sales were at first surreptitious and illegal, but became common early in the fourteenth century. Reasonable accuracy among the stationers was secured by a system of fines for errors, half of which went to the university, the other half being divided between the supervisor or head proof-reader ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... the more contemptible, they feel, for the public to wrap itself in the cloak of hypocrisy before casting stones. The modern poet's weakness for autobiographical revelation leaves no secret corners in his nature in which surreptitious vices may lurk. One might generalize what Keats says of Burns, "We can see horribly clear in the work of such a man his whole life, as if we were God's spies." [Footnote: Sidney Colvin, John Keats, p. 285.] The Rousseau-like nudity of the poet's soul is sometimes put forward ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... but Sikhs on this job," said Turner. "British troops wouldn't appreciate the delicacy of the situation. Moslems couldn't be trusted not to talk. The Sikhs enjoy the surreptitious part of it, and don't care enough about the politics to get excited. Wish I might be in at the finish, though! Have you any notion ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... direct communication with Philip since the time after our capture of Mr. Cornelius, who, as every exchange of prisoners had passed him by, still remarked upon parole at Mr. Faringfield's. If Mr. Faringfield received news of Winwood through his surreptitious messenger, Bill Meadows, he kept it to himself, naturally making a secret of his being in correspondence with ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... allowed, and who undoubtedly had a careful eye to the small Hannah, aged four, also old enough to knit a stocking and sew a seam, and read her chapter in the Bible with the best. Dorothy and Sarah could take even more active part, yet even the mature ages of eight and ten did not hinder surreptitious tumbles into heaped up feather beds, and a scurry through many a once forbidden corner of the Ipswich home. For them there was small hardship in the log house that received them, and unending delight in watching the progress of the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Alfonso did all he could to prevent the surreptitious printing of the Jerusalem Delivered in various towns of Italy, the dread of which had much afflicted the poet; and he also endeavoured, though in vain, to ease his mind on the subject of the Inquisition; ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... in the "Columbian Magazine," or the "American Review," of that period. My serious wish were to have all those crude and boyish pieces quietly dropp'd in oblivion—but to avoid the annoyance of their surreptitious issue, (as lately announced, from outsiders,) I have, with some qualms, tack'd them on here. A Dough-Face Song came out first in the "Evening Post"—Blood-Money, and Wounded in the House ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and physical discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her to make that surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two days later, I have never been able to imagine. The accommodations aboard the schooner were cramped, to say the least, and the good lady had a perfect horror of volcanoes. The ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... assisting prisoners to carry on a surreptitious correspondence with people outside," he retorted, in the tone of a man who knows what ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... all the plays we now receive as his were first collected) was published by two Players, Heming and Condell, in 1623, seven years after his decease. They declare that all the other editions were stolen and surreptitious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the errors of the former. This is true as to the literal errors, and no other; for in all respects else it is far worse ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... say that I have not interpolated my author's dreams with any surreptitious ones of my own; but have laid a faithful abstract before the economic reader, who might not be well pleased to pay seven pounds sterling for a body of raving. I have indeed omitted many circumstantial pictures of his intuitions, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... wears the look of subdued melancholy which was once involuntarily assumed by each mourner for the memory of SHAKSPEARE, who passed the solemn threshold. The ushers no longer find it necessary to sustain their depressed spirits by the surreptitious chewing of the quid of consolation, and are now the most pleasant, as they were always the most courteous, of their kind. Persons have even been heard, within the past week, to allude to BOOTH'S as a "theatre," instead of a "temple of art;" and though ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... a secret honeymoon that Edward Coe was on; delightful—but surreptitious, furtive! His mental condition may be best described by stating that, though he was conscious of rectitude, he somehow could not look a policeman in the face. After all, plain people do not usually run off on secret honeymoons. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... FOOL! Get OUT o' the way! Get OUT o' the way!" it said. Then we heard the car slow down and pandemonium broke loose. The horn was reinforced by an ordinary hooter, a whistle, several human voices and, lastly, an exhaust siren. I stole a glance at Ansell and found that he was having a good deal of surreptitious trouble in restraining our fiery steed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... untipped "boy san" He refuses to answer the bell. He suddenly understands no English at all. He bangs all the doors. He spends his spare moments in devising all kinds of petty annoyances, damp and dirty sheets, accidental damage to property, surreptitious draughts. And to vex one boy san is to antagonize the whole caste; it is a boycott. At last the tip is given. Sudden sunshine, obsequious manners, attention of all kinds—for ever dwindling periods, until at last the boy san attains his end, a fat ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... situation in which they found themselves, Bart could not resist a surreptitious wink at his companions as they passed through the doorway, which was returned in kind by his graceless companions. But, although they had had the satisfaction of balking the German officers, they were not long in ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... billed as an attraction. It was his first surreptitious taste of fame on the Atlantic coast, and not without its delight. The story often told of his being introduced by Ned House, of the Tribune, as a minister, though often repeated by Mark Twain himself, was in the nature of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... corners of my eyes, so as to look at the whites; and when he was quite satisfied with himself—there is only one animal more self-complacent than your medical man in such circumstances, and that is a dog who has gorged himself with surreptitious meat—he ordained that I should forthwith go properly to bed and stay there and be perfectly quiet until he came again, and in the meanwhile swallow some filthy medicine which ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... to be remarked, in passing, that Miss Cerinthy Ann was at this very time receiving surreptitious visits from a consumptive-looking, conscientious young theological candidate, who came occasionally to preach in the vicinity, and put up at the house of the deacon, her father. This good young man, being violently attacked on the doctrine of election by Miss Cerinthy, had ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... quite possible that even under these circumstances Delany might still have availed himself of what in law is called a locus poenitentiae had it not been that the mix-up was rendered still more mixed by the surreptitious appearance in the case of Mr. Michael McGurk, the father of the actual brick artist, who had learned that the cop was getting wabbly and was entertaining the preposterous possibility of withdrawing the charge against ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... according to the difference in its use, and the directions for determining this place to all conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental topic, a doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the surreptitious devices of the pure understanding and the delusions which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception, every title, under which many cognitions ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... miserable in a collar, had wished them every known joy. It was a relief to Symes who kissed his bride perfunctorily and returned her to weeping "Grandmother" Kunkel's arms—a relief to those impatient to dance—a relief to the thirsty whose surreptitious glances wandered in spite of their best efforts toward the pile of champagne ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the old use of the word, is no more. The surreptitious introduction into this country of German cigars, eau de Cologne, and Tauchnitz novels, does not merit the term. A revised tariff having removed the necessity for smuggling, the game is over; for that is the reason ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... first 108 years of the Library's existence it remained a reference library, and books were not lent, but surreptitious borrowing probably took place occasionally. At any rate on December 2nd, 1684, the following memorandum was made: "That BP J. Ushers treatise de Macedonum et Assyriorum [Asianorum] anno solari was missing this meeting yt was, by ye under-library-keepers attestation here the last meeting and has bin ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... Americans, who opened the new coastwise ports of Cape Melville, Puerta Princesa, and Bongao (October 15, 1903) in order to assist the scheme for preventing smuggling between these extreme southern islands and Borneo. Hitherto there had been some excuse for this surreptitious trade, because inter-island vessels, trading from the other entry-ports, seldom, if ever, visited these out-of-the-way regions. In February, 1903, appropriations of $350,000 and $150,000 were made for harbour works in Cebu and Yloilo respectively, although ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... not like the girl. A score of conjectures flashed through her mind as to the object of that surreptitious visit; but she put them all from her as being highly impracticable and not to ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... centre of a struggling group—the white men hitting out right and left to save them from being murdered. The teacher's wife, a tall, graceful young woman—with whom Denison had been exchanging surreptitious glances a few minutes before—weeping copiously the while, aided them by belabouring the backs of the women who were endeavouring to get at the prostrate figure of the little girl. But Packenham, Macpherson, and the supercargo were too much for the ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... sanitary men, like so many sorcerers, stoop in the final rites of fire and burial. Some days ago I taxed the band-master, Bond, with the possibility of playing in the dark; for a moment his face was as long as Taylor's bassoon, but since then by means of surreptitious practice and, I fancy, the sheer confiscation of his bandsmen's folios, the impossible has been achieved. Every band is the best in France, but only ours can play in darkness. Thus, as the column swings past the pond and waiting cookers, the Band strikes ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... as it appeared that Jim, in order to give dramatic intensity to the fractiousness of Clarence's horse, had inserted a thorn apple under the neck of his saddle, which Clarence only discovered in time to prevent himself from being unseated. Urged forward by ostentatious "Whoas!" and surreptitious cuts in the rear from Jim, pursuer and pursued presently found themselves safely beyond the half-dry stream and fringe of alder bushes that skirted the camp. They were not followed. Whether the teamsters suspected ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Mitty? All the blinds are down at 'Littlecote,'" announced Miss Jane Tebbs, bursting open the drawing-room door and disturbing her sister in a surreptitious game of patience. In well-ordered households the mistress is understood to have various domestic tasks claiming her attention in the morning. Cards should never appear ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... was as good as dead, anyhow, and there were many who carried their friendly sympathy with his highly respected nephew so far as to urge him vehemently to hasten at once—yes, that very night—to Karpatfalva, take possession, and seal up everything, to prevent any surreptitious filching of his property. But the young Squire was suspicious of all premature rumours, and resolved to bide his time, await more reliable information, and only put in an appearance on receiving news of the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... retreat he surprised Mr. Beecher Bain, a quiet man with a mild brow, who was smoking a surreptitious cigar over the last number of the Strand. Mr. Bain, at Bernald's approach, dissembled the Strand under a copy of the Hibbert Journal, but tendered his cigar-case with the remark that stocks were heavy again; and Bernald ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... grammar, frequently do not care for geography and history. They flounder dolefully in these studies and are in a state of more or less continual rebellion and disgrace. Because of their intense activity and restlessness, they irritate the teacher. She wants quiet in the school-room. Their surreptitious playing, rapping and tapping on desks, and other evidences of dammed-up energy and desire for more freedom and more scope of action, interferes with ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... This surreptitious undermining of General Butler by the Secretary of State, is one more evidence of how truly patriotic was the effort of the Republican Senators and Congressmen to liberate the President and the country from ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... collar, as one and the other assailed him with queries. Meanwhile the object of his journey, slowly moving her great fan of white ostrich feathers, looked across the table at Faraday and made a little surreptitious moue. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... thinking of that night in Beasley's store. He was thinking of what might have happened there if those women had carried out their purpose. He was wondering what the lessons might be that this girl might yet find herself confronted with. The matter troubled him. And Joan's surreptitious glance into his face warned her that the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to a low precipice, not more than three or four hundred yards off, sat the missing explorer, with book on knees and pencil in hand—sketching; and there, seated on the top of the precipice, looking over the edge at the artist, skulked a huge Polar bear, taking as it were, a surreptitious lesson in drawing! The bear, probably supposing Alf to be a wandering seal, had dogged him to that position just as Benjy Vane discovered him, and then, finding the precipice too high for a leap perhaps, or doubting the ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... suspicion upon the Cognata, and she never appeared after the discovery of the theft. We suspected her of having invented some dishes of which we were very fond, and we hated her for oppressing us with a sense of many surreptitious favors. Objectively, she was a slim, hoopless little woman, with a tendency to be always at the street-door when we opened it. She had a narrow, narrow face, with eyes of terrible slyness, an applausive smile, and a demeanor of slavish patronage. Our kitchen, after her ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... times." John, when pulled up for trial, affirmed that he had really a very small appetite, but the food furnished by that colonial blue-stocking, Anne Bradstreet, was not fit to eat, the bread being black and heavy and sour, and he only took an occasional surreptitious bite to keep himself from starvation. But it was proved that he had feasted not only himself, but comrades, and that a neighbor, who had a "great fat Turkey against his daughter's marriage" hung up in a locked room, was relieved of it by the hungry and agile John, who got some of his ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... association with the Bible Society would be prolonged beyond the present commission. For one thing Spain was, to all intents and purposes, closed to the unannotated Scriptures. Something might be done in the matter of surreptitious distribution; but that had its clearly defined limitations, as the authorities were very much alive to the danger of the light that Borrow sought to cast over the gloom of ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... angel" she said. Then she ruffled his hair and fled out to the kitchen to investigate the exact nature of the savory concoction which the nurse was preparing for her invalid. No royal chef, safe- guarding the stomach of his monarch against the surreptitious introduction of a deadly poison in the soup, could have evinced a greater interest in the royal appetite than did Donna in Bob McGraw's that night. As the nurse was about to take the bowl of broth which she had prepared, in to her patient, Donna ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... of the Pension Magnotte were for the most part of mature age and unattractive appearance—two or three lonely spinsters, eking out their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Chimnies and Jenny's whim. At a bill of fare, and the science how dinner should be put before him, he was then, as since, unrivalled; yet more to his good memorial, he knew how a dinner should be put before other people. For one day, as he was beginning to revel in a surreptitious banquet in the Bowling-alley, his share of the mess Lord Edward gave to the relief of want, which then happened to be wandering by the window.—"This ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... he readily consented to a reopening of business for a scrutiny of the various accounts which represented the boys' earnings at selling papers and blacking boots, minus the cost of their keep and of sundry surreptitious flings at "craps" in secret corners. The inquiry developed an available surplus of three dollars and fifty cents. Savoy alone had no account; the run of craps had recently gone heavily against him. But in consideration of the season, the house ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... did not care about being invited to examine patients in this surreptitious way before a teapot on the lawn, chance of a fee most problematical. He liked to see a tongue and feel a thumping pulse; to know the pedigree and bank account of his questioner as well. It was most unusual, in abominable ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... have another look at the place, but only a surreptitious one from the cover of the woods. His chief object now was to discover if neighbors knew anything about the place. As he came down the road he recognized the turn, which the day before had brought him directly in front of the gate, so he stepped to the side of the road, and approached ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... cried out to his surreptitious representative—"Nay, miscreant; but one. This thou shalt know, and feel too. Fool and impostor, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... us in hand, acting in turn as corporals, platoon sergeants, and company commanders. The gentleman with the eyeglass had charge of my platoon, and from the start he cast surreptitious glances at a little red brochure which he held in his hand, and mumbled words as if trying ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... white as milk, and the filbert-shaped horn of the finger-tips was the tint of rose leaves. Was she connected with the ticket in my pocket? I tried to look into her eyes, but in vain; nothing could I see but that wisp of golden hair which occasionally brushed my chin as with a surreptitious caress. If only I dared remain till the unmasking! I pressed her hand. There was an answering pressure, but its tenderness was destroyed by the low laughter that ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... eying one another with surreptitious and fearful pleasure, conveyed in their glances a knowledge of what had happened. The thing that Walter and Muriel had made up their minds about, whatever it was—that was what had caused the Squire to remain behind a closed door until he had gained some slight control ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall |
