"Loose end" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... men tailed on to the inch and a quarter cable and bore the loose end away up the path. Presently one stood clear, waving a signal. Again the donkey began to puff and quiver, the line began to roll up on the drum, and the big yarder walked up the slope under its own power, a locomotive unneedful of rails, making its own ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a wife to go back to is never at the same loose end as a man who has no need ever to be punctual for a solitary meal, and Hartley walked quickly because he wanted to get clear of his depression, rather than for any reason that compelled him to be ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... of the stick. Turn in the edge first that the nails may go through the double thickness of cloth. Adjust this canvas-covered stick to the top of the chair, allowing the cloth to form a loose hanging seat; measure the length needed for back and seat, cut it off and nail the loose end of the canvas strip to the other stick; then fit one stick in the top of the upright back stakes and the other stick in the ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... say much, being a man of few words; but he picked up the loose end of the tablecloth and threw it over the remnants ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... happened. As the loose end of the main line trailed along, it whipped against a line of telegraph wires with such violence as to wind itself around the wires again and again, just as a whip-lash winds round a hitching-post when whipped against one. The result was that the runaway kites were finally ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... cases like this, especially if you lose your head a bit, you get hold of the loose end of the rope that's hanging from the post with one hand, and the end of the line with the clothes on with the other, and try to pull 'em far enough together to make a knot. And that's about all you do for the present, except look like a fool. Then I took off the post end, spliced the line, ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... a loose end," said he, "come out with me and have a look round. It will clear the war out ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the back of the horse; next tie the rope by one end in a hard knot that will not slip—not too tightly—round the horse's neck in the place at which the mane is divided, having the knot on the right side of the neck; then pass the loose end of the rope forwards, along the right side of the neck, into the horse's mouth and back along the left side of the neck to that part of the rope which surrounds the horse's neck, and underneath which it is passed; than take the ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... room and he had shut the door, I absently selected the only comfortable chair and we sat down next to each other. A long and quelling silence followed the lighting of my cigarette. Feeling rather at a loose end, I thought out a few stage directions—"here business with handkerchief, etc."—and adjusted the buckles on my shoes. I looked at some photographs and fingered a paper-knife and odds and ends on the table near me. The oppressive silence continued. I strolled to the book-shelves ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... his bright eyes, overpowered my will by his winning personality. He seemed to force me to desire his companionship. I weakened. After all, I reflected, I was at a loose end, and where I went did not matter to anybody. Aristide Pujol had also done me a considerable service, for which I felt grateful. I yielded with ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... plainly audible. This unaccustomed, unmilitary labor produced a quantity of fine sawdust, which was sprinkled over the larvae. I had made a partition of a bit of a British officer's tent which I had used in India and China, made of several layers of colored canvas and cloth. The ants found a loose end of this, teased it out and unraveled it, so that all the larvae near by were blanketed with a gay, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... out, and it won't be wiped out for a long time. I shall be unspeakably delighted if, when I turn my job over to you, you have it wiped out. And even then, there'll be a loose end to pick up every now and then till ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... her skirts stand out, and go crinkling in and out into folds just exactly like the fashion-plates; her hair looks as if it had been done a minute before—I don't believe she would have a single loose end if she were out in a tornado. It's the same, morning, noon and night; if she were wrecked on a desert island she would be a vision of elegance. It's the way she was born. I can't think how I came to be her daughter, and I know I'm a trial ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Mameena in her fur cloak and her blue beads, standing between Jana and myself with her arms folded upon her breast and looking exactly as she did in the tremendous moment of her death before King Panda. I even noted how the faint breeze stirred a loose end of her outspread hair and how the sunlight caught a particular point of a copper ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... returned the other. "You're the right sort, padre, and I'm at a loose end just now. Besides, I'd like to see old Harold. He's one of ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... "No, I haven't found any will, and there's not a corner left that I haven't turned inside out. I suppose he never really made it. Just talked about it, probably, as people are so fond of doing. And now I'm at a loose end; all alone in this big house with no one to speak to and nothing to do with myself. It's a beast of a day, or I should go out and try for a salmon, in self-defence. To-morrow I shall go South. And you, have you found out anything ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... bring the occulist "en rapport" with the person or thing associated with it. But it is the astral senses which are employed in describing either the past environment of the thing, or else the present or past doings of the person in question, etc. In short, the object is merely the loose end of the psychic ball of twine which the psychometrist proceeds to wind or unwind at will. Psychometry is merely one form of astral seeing; just as is ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... himself at a loose end. A certain fretful dislike of the patronage of indifferent young men, younger than himself, and a certain distaste for regular work in the orchestra made him look round. He wanted something else. He wanted to disappear again. Qualms and emotions concerning his ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Sir Thomas Kobbly fancied himself as a landscape-painter and spent most of his time arguing techniques with Vann Larch, and Steven's tutor, Captain Rainer was a normal-space astrogator and found a kindred spirit in Sharll Renner. This left Lady Valerie Alvarath at a loose end. There were plenty of volunteers to help her fill in the time, but Rank Hath Its Privileges; Trask undertook to see to it that she did not suffer excessively from ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... all, and lay them around the piles," the young sea-king shouted; and the half-naked rowers, unshipping their oars, reached out under the roofs and passed the stout cables twice around the wooden supports of the bridge. The loose end was made fast at the stern of each vessel, and then, turning and heading down stream, King Olaf's twenty stout ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... narrow slit with nought but the wet, smooth rock to cling to. He swung for a moment, full of thought, and even as he hung there another of the hellish stones sang through his curls, and struck a chip from the face of the cliff. Up he clambered a few feet, drew up the loose end after him, unslung his belt, held on with knee and with elbow while he spliced the long, tough leathern belt to the end of the cord: then lowering himself as far as he could go, he swung backwards and forwards until his hand reached the crack, when he left the rope ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... targeting a new gun is thirty yards, and the standard circle is thirty inches. Make a circle on the barn door with a piece of chalk and string fifteen inches long. First drive a nail into the wood and fasten the string to it with the chalk on the loose end. Then describe and measure ninety feet from the target. Fire as nearly as you can at the centre of the circle and count the shot that are inside the chalk mark. In order not to count the same shot twice mark them ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... move slowly &c 275; while away the time &c (inaction) 681; be master of one's time, be an idle man. Adj. leisure, leisurely; slow &c 275; deliberate, quiet, calm, undisturbed; at leisure, at one's ease, at loose ends, at a loose end. Adv. unhurriedly, deliberately, without undue haste; anytime. Phr. time hanging heavy on one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... or five years at the Unitarian College were wasted, or, at least, had been spent without apparent profit; and in 1798 young Hazlitt, aged close upon twenty, unsettled in his plans as in his prospects, was at home again and (as the saying is) at a loose end; when of a sudden his life found its spiritual apocalypse. It came with the descent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge upon Shrewsbury, to take over the charge of a ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... rope and threw its loose end into the bin, watching with a fascinated gaze the fashion in which it was dragged ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... was holding the loose end of the rope so that it would not slacken too freely, put it in her hand and, as their ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... a loose end. At first it was very pleasant to be a free man, able to go where I wanted without fearing anything. I had only been a month under the ban of the law, and it was quite enough for me. I went to the Savoy and ordered very carefully a very good luncheon, and ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan |
