"Off-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up from the cellar, the bell was ringing furiously, and flocks of startled birds were flying out of the chestnut-trees. It was for dinner. All the guests were in the garden. Oscar introduced me in his off-hand way, and I offered my arm to the mistress of the house to conduct her to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... auto-erotism is far from being an unimportant or merely curious study. Yet psychologists, medical and non-medical, almost without exception, treat its manifestations—when they refer to them at all—in a dogmatic and off-hand manner which is far from scientific. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most widely divergent opinions are expressed. Nor is it surprising that ignorant and chaotic notions among the general population should ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... old Moodie keeping a step or two behind Hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look him in the face. I remained under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. In spite of Hollingsworth's off-hand explanation, it did not strike me that our strange guest was really beside himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which have ceased to vibrate smartly ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... guess we're in a land of liberty. Do as you like. Now, I daresay you think me a very odd fellow to come out of my shell to you in this off-hand way. But I liked the look of you, even when we were at the inn together. And just now I was uncommonly pleased to find that, though you are a parson, you don't want to keep a man's nose down to a shop-board, if he has any thing in him. You're ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Handy Solomon, and without delay fired off-hand. A puff of dust showed to the right. "Nerve no good," he commented, "jerked ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Irish appointments were popular in Ireland, although the gentlemen who filled them belonged to a party of so small a minority. Lord Eglinton was a gentleman personally liberal and generally esteemed, generous, and off-hand, fond of Ireland, and adapted to intercourse with the Irish. Mr. Blackburn, the lord-chancellor, was considered the greatest equity lawyer in Ireland, and an impartial judge. Lord Naas, the chief secretary, was an Irishman ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Canon Law (p. 59 ff.) gives a good idea of the substance of a dictated mediaeval lecture. Concerning the "original" and more or less off-hand lecture we have the amusing account of Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1146-1220), in his "most flattering of all autobiographies." After recounting—in the third person—his studies at Paris in Civil and Canon ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon R——ts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a piece," answered Pike in the most off-hand way imaginable. "We'll have it here presently but Jim'll have to help. We've lost a linch-pin in the dark. ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... to the spirit, as well as the letter, of her promise. Jane, who was a very matter-of-fact young person, treated her with the same off-hand cordiality that she would have bestowed on any other chance acquaintance with interesting possibilities. The girls who stopped at the table to speak to Jane or Helen, smiled and nodded affably when they were introduced. Some of them stared ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... we had adopted him into our inmost hearts, although he compelled us to show our good-will after his own off-hand fashion. ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... that notwithstanding the occurrence of a great war subsequent to the date above specified, which completely changed the map of Europe, wherein Roumania took a very prominent part and England assisted at the settlement, there are few intelligent readers in this country who could say off-hand where precisely ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... barony, no mean performer on the violin, could dance the national bolero of "Tatter Jack Walsh" in a way that charmed more than one soft heart beneath a red woolsey bodice, and had, withal, the peculiar free-and-easy devil-may-care kind of off-hand Irish way that never deserted him in the midst of his wiliest and most subtle moments, giving to a very deep and cunning fellow all the apparent frankness and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... listening with only half an ear, was about to make some off-hand reply, as he had always done before. But suddenly a strange, stirring idea flashed through his brain. Could it be? Could that be what Archulera meant? He glanced at the man. Archulera was watching him with bright black eyes—cunning, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... sullen, the young lady in the office curt and off-hand, the second and only waiter as nearly as possible mutinous. 'All his blooming companions,' he explained (though not precisely in these words), had departed to spend Christmas in the bosom of their families. He spoke cockney English, and, in reply to a question (for the colonel tried ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Wilberforce, had reached. There was that in the frankness and boldness of his address which disarmed their keen suspicion of a Bishop's inevitable assumption of superiority, and put them at their ease with him. He was always ready to meet them, and to speak off-hand and unconventionally, and as they speak, not always with a due foresight of consequences or qualifications. If he did sometimes in this way get into a scrape, he did not much mind it, and they liked him the better for it. He was ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... should be able to explain, off-hand," pursued Helen, "the actions of such a crazy crowd of people as those——Do look there! that woman jumped right down that sandbank. Did ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... she was. In less than half an hour after the sale was made, in this off-hand fashion, Mrs. Cartwright sat alone in her parlor, looking down upon the naked floor. But she had five ten-dollar gold pieces in her hand, and they were of more value in her eyes than twenty carpets. Not long did she sit musing here. There was other work to do. The old carpet must be replaced upon ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... He holds his face in advance as he walks, a forceful face, with eyes that squint. He has something in his hand. "I found this while digging last night at the end of the new gallery to change the rotten gratings. It took my fancy off-hand, that knick-knack. It's an old ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... put it all accurately," said Father Jervis at last. "I mean I can't tell you off-hand all the tests that are exactly applied to every case. But it's something like this. ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... if I think students can obtain just as good instruction here as in Europe? That is a little difficult to answer off-hand. I fully believe we have some teachers in America as able as any on the other side; in some ways they are better. For one thing they are morally better—I repeat, morally better. For another they are ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... Rembrandt will be satisfied with the first dirty old Jew or besotten barmaid that comes to hand. But the realistic Dutchman is not, therefore, any the less smitten with beauty, any the less eager to be ornamental, than the idealistic Italian: his man and woman he takes indeed with off-hand indifference, but he places them in that of which the Italian shall perhaps never have dreamed, in that on which he has expended all his science, his skill, his fancy, in that which he gives as his addition to the beautiful things of art—in atmosphere, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... Guises did not get to know of this little detail until long after, or they might have imagined that it was a planned piece of malicious mockery. However, it is only fair to admit that the marriage was treated in a very off-hand way, and it is that which always happens to people whose modesty and candour hinder them from posing and talking big when they get the chance. A ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... distance away; Chester Haynes sat with his back to him, thus confronting the detective, while Mike and Alvin occupied the respective ends of the board. These details sound trifling, but they had a meaning. Calvert thus distributed his companions apparently off-hand, but the seating of himself as mentioned was done with a purpose. Chester then, from the position he occupied, was the only one of the other three who observed anything significant in that action ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... was a common diversion among the men, when their stock of ammunition would allow it; this, however, was far from being always the case. The present mode of shooting off-hand was not then in practice. This mode was not considered as any trial of the value of a gun, nor indeed, as much of a test of the skill of a marksman. Their shooting was from a rest, and at as great a distance ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... lady after a three days' acquaintance, or in asking a gentleman to take him a horse in over-night, with whom he might chance to come in contact in the hunting-field. And he did it all in such a cool, off-hand, matter-of-course sort of way, that people who would have stared with astonishment if anybody else had hinted at such a proposal, really seemed to come into the humour and spirit of the thing, and to look upon it rather as a matter of course than otherwise. Then his dexterity in getting ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... This caused me to think of my parting with old Aunt Chloe, and I told him I should take it as a great favor indeed if he would paint a pink hand and a black hand on my chest. He said the colors were pricked into the skin with needles, and that the operation was somewhat painful. I assured him, in an off-hand manner, that I didn't mind pain, and begged him to set ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... show their knowledge by their "surprise" if the objects are altered so as to oblige the movement to be made in a different way. But our higher thought centers know hardly anything about the matter. Few men can tell off-hand which sock, shoe, or trousers-leg they put on first. They must first mentally rehearse the act; and even that is often insufficient—the act must be performed. So of the questions, Which valve of my double door opens first? Which way does my door swing? etc. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... grandmother went to Versailles to the jeu de la reine. The Duke of Orleans kept the bank; my grandmother excused herself in an off-hand manner for not having yet paid her debt, by inventing some little story, and then began to play against him. She chose three cards and played them one after the other: all three won sonika, [Said of a card when it wins or loses in the quickest ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... never suit him," replied Malcolm in an off-hand manner. "He likes to have his bread ready buttered for him; cornfields and flour-mills are not in his line at all. Ah, here comes the search-party," and Malcolm looked a little curiously at ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... me the refusal of his land!—the merest trick to get into the house—confound him! As much as told me, if I did not buy it off-hand, I should not have the chance again! The cheek of the brute! To dare show his face in my house after trifling with my daughter's affections on the pretence that he could not marry a girl whose father was ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... marksmanship badge, to be awarded, as in the National Guard and in the Army, to each boy who annually showed satisfactory proficiency in shooting. The qualifying score first adopted for this badge was 40 out of a possible 50 "off-hand." It was found almost immediately that the boys were shooting so well that it was necessary to raise the standard, which was therefore increased to 42 ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... habitual criminals in London, of whom 706 are thieves and 161 receivers. Now, each of these thieves has a distinctive method. A crime occurs. It is reported to the local police station, and a detective is sent to the scene. Perhaps he is able to say off-hand: "This job was done by so-and-so." Then, having fixed his man, he sets to work to accumulate evidence. Scotland Yard is reported to, and thence word is sent to every police station to keep a look-out for Brown, or Jones, or Smith—that is, if he has left ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... they care a button what we call it," Angelica decided off-hand, out of her own inner consciousness. "But you would not like us to be either 'con' or 'per,' would you?" ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... to fortify my waning "Dutch courage" by an off-hand attack upon my hospitable entertainers, and having in some sense, even though it be Pickwickian, vindicated my cloth, let me go on for a moment and cut my garment according ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... she smiled slightly, and said that I didn't know what I was saying, and, in fact, declined my self-sacrificing offer. So there I was—and I'll be hanged, Macrorie, isn't it odd?—there's the third person that's refused to marry me off-hand! I vow I did what I could. I offered to marry her at once, and she declined just as the others did. With that I turned the tables on her, reproached her for her coldness, told her that I had given her the highest possible mark of my regard, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... know—it is a question that requires time; a body can't answer every question right off-hand. But it does do good. I am satisfied ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... proud to wait upon such a sweet young lady,' she said. 'But isn't it rather sudden? You told me there was a young lady in the case, but I never knowed you was going to be married off-hand like this.' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the expense of Kelly, who, having been a composer of music, became a wine-merchant. "You will," said the ready wit, "import your music and compose your wine." Nor was this service exacted from the old idea thought sufficient; so, in the House of Commons, an easy and, apparently, off-hand parenthesis was thus filled with it, at Mr. Dundas's cost and charge, "who generally resorts to his memory for his jokes, and to ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... exceedingly familiar vein. It implied such intimacy, and called up in such a lively way the gay times Motley and himself had had together in their youthful days, that I was puzzled to guess who could have addressed him from Germany in that easy and off-hand fashion. I knew most of his old friends who would be likely to call him by his baptismal name in its most colloquial form, and exhausted my stock of guesses unsuccessfully before looking at the signature. I confess that I was surprised, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... an off-hand way, 'I can ask any one. But we may as well walk on a little and look about us. If it is a shop ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... quite sure that if he had been his usual size the Hackee would not have chucked him under the chin in that off-hand way, but he did not mind a bit. They were all three sitting before the storehouse, the best of friends, when both chipping Squirrels sprang to their feet in terrified accord, standing for a second ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... brief formula, blushed hotly; then she stood while he spoke, with bowed head and clasped hands like a reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew a kind of isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The civilian's wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was absurdly affected; and indeed to an acuter intelligence it might have looked as if she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... measure, with no other guide than a cord, without outlining the letters in white; he was the only one who could place each of the letters in position inside of the frame of a placard, and, without losing an instant in aligning them, dash off capitals off-hand. He was also renowned for fantastic letters, capricious letters, letters shaded in bronze or gold to imitate those cut in stone. Thus he made fifteen to twenty francs on some days. But as he drank it all up, he was not wealthy, and ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... all his fingers but did the spacing with his thumbs and wrote so rapidly that Dick thought he was copying and not writing off-hand. ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... rest in the carriage, Mrs. Farnham," he said, with off-hand politeness, as if studying that lady's comfort more than anything on earth. "We will see what wild flowers can be found among the rocks. Take care of yourself; that's right, Ralph, let the horses wet their mouths at this little brook—not too much though, it is a warm day. Now, Isabel, let's ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... advantages revealed itself in the affability of his greeting to Ralph, and in his off-hand request that the latter should "look up Clare," who had come over with him to get ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... between the two surfaces of a sheet of paper. If you take a needle you can insert the point in the burrow and pass it along wherever the bore is straight, so that the needle lies between the to sides of the leaf. Off-hand, if any one were asked if it were possible to split a leaf, he would say no. This little creature, however, has worked along inside it, and lived there. The upper surface of the leaf is a darker green, and seems to the touch of firmer ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... for Tragedy; incapable of entering historically into the spirit of another age, they made up improbabilities and improprieties for their censure. [Footnote: Scuderi speaks even of Chimene as a monster, and off-hand dismisses the whole, as "ce mechant combat de l'amour et de l'honneur." Excellent! Surely he understood the romantic!] The Cid is not certainly a tragedy in the sense of the ancients; and, at first, the poet himself called it a Tragi-comedy. Would that this had been the only occasion ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... in its beating as he stood beside the white-robed figure and looked down into the familiar, strange face, and he wondered how his last letter could have been so jaunty and off-hand. How could he ever write "Dear Marjorie" again, with this face in his memory? She was as much a lady as Helen had been, he would be proud to take her among his friends and say: "This is ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... to say off-hand how much of that there was," he pursued with amusing caution. "But there was a situation, tense enough for the signs of it to give many surprises to Mr. Powell—neither of them shocking in itself, but with a cumulative ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... bilobee etc. Ces mouvements etaient visibles dans les observations I et IV et appartenaient surtout a des globules de grande taille." It is naturally impossible to decide if these minute movements suffice for a spontaneous locomotion. But one cannot exclude off-hand the supposition that they do. It is indeed supported by a further observation of Jolly on the mononuclear eosinophil cells of the marrow. Hitherto it was taken for established that these cells are ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... know, my lad," said the officer, shortly, "and don't speak to me again in that free off-hand tone. Please to understand that I am an officer and you a prisoner. Forward, and mind this: any attempt to escape will be followed by ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... practical or calculating person; and he was compelled to think that a pique at having his secret sprung upon her had moved her to give way to Phillotson's probable representations, that the best course to prove how unfounded were the suspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him off-hand, as in fulfilment of an ordinary engagement. Sue had, in fact, been placed in ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... said, as though he were giving judgment, "is, doubtless, of a remarkable nature, and I cannot at the moment lay my hand upon any authority bearing on the point—if, indeed, any such are to be found. But I speak off-hand, and must not be held too closely to the obiter dictum of a viva voce opinion. It seems to me that, notwithstanding its peculiar idiosyncrasies, and the various 'cruces' that it presents, it will, upon closer examination, be found to fall within ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... He went across to Winterborne and stood beside him. Each knew the probable purpose of the other in standing there, and neither spoke, Fitzpiers scorning to look upon Winterborne as a rival, and Winterborne adhering to the off-hand manner of indifference which had grown ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... ushered the three clergymen and families to the front row of seats, of which C. Skimmerhorn, Esq., and his train, occupied as much as they could cover by spreading out. Mr. Skimmerhorn recognized, in one of the clergymen, his beloved pastor, and proceeded, in a pleasant, off-hand manner, and a loud voice, to give a few of the reasons which inclined him to pronounce the panorama ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... if I could remember the conversation. I tried to dodge the trouble by answering off-hand, 'Douglas had eaten too many turtle-eggs for luncheon '—this being a man-like thing, that any dear old lady would understand. But she was too shrewd. I had to explain to her that I was learning to think, and this sent her ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... been reached when the average piece of this class spells failure. There is, of course, nothing in the work of Isadora Duncan which limits it to one principal, and naught to prevent the combination of singing and dancing. Off-hand it seems rash to suggest that spoken dialogue could be harmonized with these. It is imaginable that the authors of Prunella could see their way to combine with work somewhat on the lines of their charming piece such ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... feel persuaded in my inmost soul, that it is to the fact of my having been a main-top-man; and especially my particular post being on the loftiest yard of the frigate, the main-royal-yard; that I am now enabled to give such a free, broad, off-hand, bird's-eye, and, more than all, impartial account of our man-of-war world; withholding nothing; inventing nothing; nor flattering, nor scandalising any; but meting out to all—commodore and messenger-boy alike—their precise ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... question was not to be answered off-hand. But the fact that it was so had made Antony interested in her; and it was for this reason that he had followed up so alertly Bill's casual mention of her in connection with the dressing-up business. He felt that he wanted to know a little more about Miss Norris and the ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... talking nonsense about being made a midshipman. You've about as much chance as you have of being made port-admiral off-hand," answered Jack, with more temper than he generally showed. "Of course you don't want to be killed—no more do I; but we must both be ready should it be God's will to call us in the ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... him as he entered now the security of individual isolation. He had felt the same sense of restfulness when he had ascended, after the day's work, to the little whitewashed attic of his father's house. To-night he liked the glow because it suggested warmth, but he could not have told off-hand the colour of the carpet or the subjects of the engravings on the wall; and had he found a white pine chair in place of the red leathern one, he would have used it without an admission of discomfort. In the midnight hours he liked the empty house ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... quite," said Peterkin, who had been gravely attentive to this off-hand advice—"not quite; you must first make three little men to dive in it before it can be said to be perfect; and that would be rather difficult, I fear, for two of them would require to be philosophers. But hallo! what's this? I say, Ralph, look here. There's one o' ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and disliked what she called 'schoolgirl gush.' She had been the subject of violent admirations before, and knew how soon they were apt to cool down. She was perfectly nice to Merle, but a little off-hand, and never showed her any preference. This line of treatment rather aggravated Merle's symptoms instead of ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real, sober earnest,' returned Dick, 'I'd thank you to get it done off-hand. But as you can't, and as the question is not what you will do for me, but what you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you, pray sir let me know what you ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... for her biographer to answer off-hand. Lettice, as we know, had admitted into her heart a feeling of sympathetic tenderness for Alan, which, under other circumstances, she would have accepted as worthy to dominate her life and dictate its moods and duties. But the man for whom this sympathy had been aroused was so ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... nature that Mr. Bodery held out a helping hand to the son of his old friend, Walter Vellacott, when that youth appeared one day at the office of the Beacon, and in an off-hand manner announced that he was seeking employment. Like many actions performed from a similar motive, Mr. Bodery's kindness of heart met with its reward. Young Christian Vellacott developed a remarkable talent for journalistic literature—in fact, he ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... the Boss in the short ribs. We tackled the job off-hand, me strappin' a section on him, and he clampin' another on me. It was like dressing for a masquerade in the dark, neither of us ever having worn steel boots or Harveyized vests before. Some of the joints didn't seem to fit any ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... slipped into the dark hall-way, so the watchman later said. The same irrepressible propensity to meddle in the affairs of everybody in the household where he was employed, in the councils of the various labor unions, in the meetings of political associations, in the official duties or off-hand chats of the men at military head-quarters, in the management of the Lambert Library, seemed to follow him in his casual intercourse with this obscure little household. One night when towards ten o'clock Miss Wallen came blithely down ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... get any light from these quotations, and we should be glad to have been spared the doubt as to Mr. Lowell's accuracy and authority as a verbal critic suggested by his off-hand emendation of a phrase which he has remembered for its alliterative sweetness while he has missed its sense and forgotten the context. In the line "Fayre Venice," etc., which occurs not at the beginning, but near the end, of the sonnet, "lost" would be so contradictory ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... consequence of the straitened circumstances of her father, she was compelled to open a Young Ladies' Establishment in a provincial town. Intelligent, but without any solid knowledge, she herself relates in her memoirs how she taught ancient history off-hand, chiefly by means of a lively imagination. She even critically expounded the philosophical systems of Greece and Rome without knowing or understanding them. Her handbook for Greek History was "The Travels of Young Anacharsis." There was no system or connection in what she taught, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... tells us less about the first Radical—the first man who rebelled against the despotism of unintelligible customs, who asserted the rights of the individual against the claims of the tribal conscience, and who was eager to see society organized, off-hand, on what he thought a rational method. In the absence of history, we must fall back on that branch of hypothetics which is known as prehistoric science. We must reconstruct the Romance of the First Radical from the hints supplied by geology, and by the study of Radicals ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... most serious" error to refer instincts generally to inherited habit, but it still remains "a serious error," and this slight relaxation of severity does not warrant Professor Weismann in ascribing to Mr. Darwin an opinion which he emphatically condemned. His tone, however, is so off-hand, that those who have little acquaintance with the literature of evolution would hardly guess that he is not much better informed on ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... a rather rough-appearing personage and dressed like a Western farmer or miner, rather coarsely handsome, and with an easy, off-hand manner that was quite attractive, and he might have been thirty or thirty-five years ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... —You everlasting Grievance of the Boxes, You wither'd Ruins of stum'd Wine and Poxes; What strange Green-sickness do you hope in Women Should make 'em love old Fools in new Point Linen? The Race of Life you run off-hand too fast, Your fiery Metal is too hot to last; Your Fevers come so thick, your Claps so plenty, Most of you are threescore at five and twenty. Our Town-bred Ladys know you well enough, Your courting Women's like your taking Snuff; Out of mere Idleness ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... that he is going to invade your dominions with a great army whenever he gets the wished-for opportunity, in order to avenge the injustice he thinks he has suffered in that bygone bridal question. Now I want you to be the first in throwing this danger off-hand." The king showed little interest in the matter and paid to his wife's chattering but little attention. But she contrived at length so to speak to him as to make him place faith in her words, and he asked her to give him good redes, that this matter might be arranged in such a way ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Tubman ran across the horse, and partly out of pity for its owner, and partly out of admiration of the horse, whose failure to win at the races was due more to his lack of condition and the bad management of his jockey than lack of speed, bought him off-hand, and, having no use for him himself, shipped him as a present to the deacon, with whom he had now been four years, with no harder work than ploughing out the good old man's corn in the summer, and jogging along the country roads on the ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... moment. "Get down into a dark cellar with just one window. Block out all the light from that window except one small circle. Shoot, off-hand, till you can put five bullets through the circle without mussing up the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... off-hand sort of personage, and certainly gave himself no airs on account of his birth and rank. Nevertheless, the English ladies, who were anxious that he should sing again, made a sort of deputation to him, and begged the honour of his highness favouring them with a song, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... therefore with a sense of supreme satisfaction, interwoven with certain suppressed exuberance born of freedom and self-reliance, that Jack, in answer to Breen's "What's this?" when his eyes rested on the bundle of bonds, replied in an off-hand but ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... little finger. The details of this affair are as follows: Mr. Covey sent me, very early in the morning of one of our coldest days in the month of January, to the woods, to get a load of wood. He gave me a team of unbroken oxen. He told me which was the in-hand ox, and which the off-hand one. He then tied the end of a large rope around the horns of the in-hand ox, and gave me the other end of it, and told me, if the oxen started to run, that I must hold on upon the rope. I had never driven oxen before, ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... off-hand manner of answering; and when you have stated any pathological fact—right or wrong—stick to it; if they want a case for example, invent one, "that happened when you were an apprentice in the country." This assumed confidence will sometimes bother them. We knew a student ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... years engaged in diluting the high orthodoxy of the Church by the introduction of members of the Evangelical body into places of influence and trust. He had deeply offended men who agreed in opinion with myself, by an off-hand saying (as it was reported) to the effect that belief in the Apostolical succession had gone out with the Non-jurors. "We can count you," he said to some of the gravest and most venerated persons of the old school. And the Evangelical ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Office and other Chapters of Romance (MURRAY). For that is precisely what the tales are; and excellently romantic and thrilling chapters too, for the most part dated in the decade following the great Anglo-French peace of a century ago. Probably you couldn't say off-hand what the Black Office was. Let me whisper. It was, amongst other things, a postal censorship that opened and perused all letters intended to cross the Channel. With what natural indignation would you, in July three years ago, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... State, the proceedings would be endless. The only appeal, we think, should be one to have a child discharged from the care of the Superintendent. Serious complaints of ill treatment could be aired in this way. We are not able to suggest, off-hand, exactly what the restrictions should be, and very full discussions between Child Welfare authorities and legal authorities would be necessary as a preliminary to effective legislation on ...
— Report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee • Ronald Macmillan Algie
... to be left behind, would join in the off-hand rattle, and one of them would give it as her opinion that a wife might have an incorrigibly unfaithful husband, and yet be ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... take advantage of the occasion." This plan, however, was considered as being too rapid and rash. Marriage is a very serious affair, and many things would require arrangement. A lady with the wealth which belonged to Madame Goesler cannot bestow herself off-hand as may a curate's daughter, let her be ever so willing to give her money as well as herself. It was impossible that a day should be fixed quite at once; but the Duchess was allowed to understand that the affair might be mentioned. Before dinner on that day every one ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... admirable is the suddenness, brevity, and force of this scene! And it is as artful and dramatic as off-hand; for this Amazon, Bradamante, is the future heroine of the warlike part of the poem, and the beauty from whose marriage with Ruggiero is to spring the house of Este. Nor without her appearance at this moment, as Panizzi has shewn (vol. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... a Yankee; and though a cultivated one, he had not parted with an innate inquisitiveness, and had an off-hand way of asking such questions as first presented. He catechised these three missionaries as faithfully, even in presence of Dr. Adams, as if he had been President of the American Board. He desired to know the number of years spent in ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... with whom his co-reformer Carlstadt sympathized, appealed to Luther, still concealed in the Wartburg. He had written to the Waldenses that it is better not to baptize at all than to baptize little children; now he was cautious, would not condemn the new prophecy off-hand; but advised Melanchthon to treat them gently and to prove their spirits, less they be of God. There was confusion in Wittenberg, where schools and university sided with the "prophets'' and were closed. Hence the charge ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... can't possibly say off-hand," I protested. "I am not alone in this. I have a friend with me. I will go back and tell her what you say. She may decide ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... very well," he said, trying to speak in an off-hand tone; "they don't get enough sun. And then, the other day I had to pour my coffee out of the window, and I forgot that the border was just underneath. I daresay it ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... griefs, Teachings and preachings, Boluses, briefs, Writs and attachments, Quarterings, hatchments, Clans and cognomens, Comments and scholia, (World's melancholia)— Cast them aside, and good riddance to rubbish! Here at the street-corner, hearken, a strain, Rough and off-hand and a bit rub-a-dub-ish, Gives us a taste ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... proffering to make the railway complete in all its parts, buy the land at the commencement, and, if required, to engage the station-clerks at the conclusion, with all the staff complete, so that his patrons might have no trouble, but begin business off-hand. But the latter condition—the staff and clerks—being simply a matter of patronage, the directors kept that trouble in ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... off-hand and in my groping I forgot the child and her question. I saw a vision—a vision of that broader, nobler future toward which human civilization ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... tell of you," said Roger, appearing to search his memory; "but speaking off-hand and at first sight, I should say you was either half-drunk or tolerably unlucky in your face." And indeed the Under-Sheriff had set out from Truro at dawn and imbibed much brandy on ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... without waiting for a "ladies" day; stop to look at a street fight, cause no sour looks if she entered a smoking compartment on the train, mingle with the man-world unquestioned, unhindered, unnoticed, exciting at most a pleasant off-hand camaraderie due to her ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... seemed so distasteful to him. Rodolfo thanked her, and supper being ready they went to join the rest of the party at table. The father and mother, Rodolfo and his two companions had already seated themselves, when Dona Estafania said, in an off-hand way, "Sinner that I am, how well I behave to my guest! Go," she said to a servant, "and ask the senora. Dona Leocadia to honour our table with her presence, and tell her she need not stand on any punctilio, for all here are my sons and her servants." All this ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... We are constantly being told, in respect of some episode or other of the war of to-day, that "nothing like it has been seen since the Thirty Years' War." But the writers who make this statement, with an off-hand air of familiar scholarship, never by any chance bring forward the evidence for this greater atrociousness of the Thirty Years' War,[1] and one is inclined to suspect that this oft-repeated allusion to the Thirty Years' War ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... say off-hand that they don't belong to any finger. They are the bones of the left ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... and much more, Harry rejoined with the most off-hand and confident air; saying that in his "guinea-pig" days, he had often climbed the masts and handled the sails in a gentlemanly and amateur way; so he made no doubt that he would very soon prove an expert ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... in all our dispensations of law and order that is calculated to strike astonishment to the heart and mind of a foreigner, it is our off-hand way of conducting a police investigation. In other countries, to be a magistrate, a notary, means to be in some degree qualified for the position; to be a constable, means to possess a moderate ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... firing of guns, and tramp of the horses settled the question off-hand. There was an instant scattering to their own steeds, upon whose backs they vaulted, and then, turning their heads toward the mesquite bush, they sent them flying away at ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... 'ave to send the money on to you," ses Sam, in a off-hand way. "Unless you like to call ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... detected it mainly in the clasping of his hands, in which he put a great force stealthily. Once, however, he had overcome that sort of agonizing hesitation sufficiently to tell me that he had no such intention, he became rather communicative—at least relatively to the former off-hand curtness of his speeches. The tone, too, was more amiable. He informed me that he intended to study and also to write. He went even so far as to tell me he had been to Stuttgart. Stuttgart, I was aware, was one of the revolutionary centres. The directing committee of one of the Russian parties (I ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... repressed. There was no recurrence of the diffidence of Exeter. His native genius led him irresistibly along the inevitable path. He loved to speak, to hold the attention of a listening audience. He practised off-hand speaking, but he more commonly prepared himself by meditating on his subject and making notes, which, however, he never used. He would enter the class-room or debating society and begin in a low voice and almost ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... acted otherwise. My vanity was not even wounded, which is so often the case under similar circumstances. Self-love and prejudice prevent a woman yielding till she has been assidiously courted, whereas I had asked her to share my bed in an off-hand manner, as if it were a mere matter of form. However, I should not have done it unless it had been for the fumes of the champagne and the Somard, with which we had washed down the delicious supper mine host had supplied us with. She had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which he was not always able to answer. He often said, "We will ask Mr. Andrewes what he thinks;" and for my own part, I respected him none the less that he often honestly confessed that he could not, off-hand, solve all the problems that exercised my brain. He was not a good general naturalist but he was fond of geology, and was kind enough to take me out with him on "chipping" expeditions, and to start me with ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Leyden should have been run off the place when he first arrived. Vandersee is full of mystery, too, and I can't for my life see why he, if he is, as he says, a Government man, can't take charge of the schooner there, flog the jungle with trackers, and finish Leyden and his opium runners off-hand. Why, he has had a dozen chances. If my hands had not been tied by secret orders and later circumstances, I could have potted the beggar myself, easily. Now Miss Sheldon is gone. Where? You say Leyden fascinates her. Well, has she joined him? Where can she find him, in ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... statement which seems inconsistent with Matthew's narrative. This might be met by asserting, that the conclusion of Mark's Gospel, though found in certain copies, is spurious, However, that we may not seem to betake ourselves to an off-hand answer, we propose to read the place thus:—'Now when [JESUS] was risen:' then, after a comma, to go on,—'early the first day of the week He appeared to Mary Magdalene.' In this way we refer [Mark's] 'Now when ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... thought this a neat, off-hand way of making the invitation, for he looked at his woman-kind as if he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,—and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,—whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... his care Miss Hilst, and then began to discuss his pet theories. Upon his wanting to know what brought me back, I said it was the longing for the country, and consciousness of unfulfilled duties towards it. I said it in a careless, off-hand way, and Sniatynski looked puzzled, not knowing whether I spoke seriously or mockingly. And again the same phenomenon of which I spoke in Paris repeated itself here. The moral ascendency he had gained over me gradually ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the world where would be called into requisition the schoolteacher's services; in fact it would hardly be supposed that such a thing was possible. Yet in our colored American army this became not only possible but really practicable, for in it frequently, in an off-hand manner, schools were established and maintained, not only for teaching the soldiers to read and write but also to sing, nor were debating societies, even, things unheard of in the camp life of these men. Besides in quite a number of the colored regiments military bands were formed, and under ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... her wisdom. It was in fact, we have hinted, as a besieger that our young lady, in the provisioned citadel, had for the present most to think of her, and what made her formidable in this character was that she was unscrupulous and immoral. So, at all events, in silent sessions and a youthful off-hand way, Kate conveniently pictured her: what this sufficiently represented being that her weight was in the scale of certain dangers—those dangers that, by our showing, made the younger woman linger and lurk above, while the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... Virginian, Roger Atkinson, at his home near Petersburg, was writing to a friend about the men who had gone to represent Virginia in the great Congress; and this letter of his, though not meant for posterity, has some neat, off-hand portraits which posterity may, nevertheless, be glad to look at. Peyton Randolph is "a venerable man ... an honest man; has knowledge, temper, experience, judgment,—above all, integrity; a true ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... without the ceremony of knocking and dropping into a chair as if his knees failed him, began twirling his battered old hat in an embarrassed manner, and doing as so many of his predecessors had done—proposing off-hand. He had a face like a terra-cotta image, a long lank figure, faded old clothes, and ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... enthusiastically; in fact, she gave no real answer at all, but merely remarked in an off-hand manner, "I shouldn't have thought any one could want much to ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... had been engaged in, and, although they seemed to make a great fuss about it; on the other side (Van Diemen's Land), it was considered a mere necessary nuisance; and so proceeded to prepare such supper as she could. In the same off-hand way she remarked to Sam, when he went into the kitchen to get a light for his pipe, that, if it was true that Mike Howe had crossed and was among them, they had better look out for squalls; for that he was a devil, and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... expected on the evening train from the north, so the conspirators would not have long to wait. To pass the brief intervening time Lottie went to the piano and gave them some music like herself, brilliant, dashing, off-hand, but devoid of sentiment and feeling. Then she sprang up and began playing the maddest pranks on languid Bel, and with Addie was soon engaged in a romp with De Forrest and Harcourt, that would have amazed the most festive Puritan that ever schooled or masked a frolicsome ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... off-hand answers, which it might perhaps be hardly fair to have recorded, had they been of persons of less eminent talent: and it adds to the curiosity of the circumstance to mention, that I believe Dr. Wollaston's reason for supposing no union would take place, ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... it again, and I was jumping about upon my bucket in my excitement. It was evident that Berks meant to finish the battle off-hand, whilst Jim, with two of the most experienced men in England to advise him, was quite aware that his correct tactics were to allow the ruffian to expend his strength and wind in vain. There was something horrible ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... twisted oddly for a second. He seemed to ponder the matter. "I can't say off-hand what I'm going to do with you," he said. "You're—a bit of a problem, you ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... and diplomatic, with a knowledge of statecraft sufficient for the elementary condition of government over which he presided; and his subjects were not then so many that he did not know by name every head of a family amongst them. He could give you off-hand the genealogy of each of the families which had, after the defeat of Kossovo, taken refuge in the Bielopolje, the central valley of the principality, from the defeat of Dushan down, and he knew all the traditions of their early history. When ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... dinner for the day after the morrow, stating in the honest way he knew so well that she had heard he was out of town, or she would have asked him two or three weeks ago. Now, of all social things that Pierston liked it was to be asked to dinner off-hand, as a stopgap in place of some bishop, earl, or Under-Secretary who couldn't come, and when the invitation was supplemented by the tidings that the lady who had so impressed him was to be one of the ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... crack contributors to the Reviews, Magazines and Gazettes, who have said more tender, and true, and fine, and deep things in the way of criticism, than ever was said before since the reign of Cadmus, ten thousand times over,—not in long, dull, heavy, formal, prosy theories—but flung off-hand, out of the glowing mint—a coinage of the purest ore—and stamped with the ineffaceable impress of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... pretty presents, though he did not venture to offer them to Margaret. At last, however, he seemed to think that the time was come when he must try his chance. So he walked in and found Margaret in the room alone, and he told her, in an off-hand sort of way, that he loved her, and that, if she would marry him, he would give up the sea and live on shore, and make her comfortable and happy for the rest of ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... criticism, romance, he had absorbed every thing in our language worthy of attention. Shakspeare, Milton, indeed all the English poets, were his familiar companions. There was not a disputed passage or an obscure reading in any one of the great plays upon which he could not off-hand quote the best renderings, and throw original light from his own illumined mind. Upon theology he had apparently bestowed years of investigation and reflection. A sincere Christian, he had been a devout ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... long when she heard a rustling amongst the bushes, but she took no notice of it, for she felt it was sure to be her lover, coming to have a talk with her; and now that she was so possessed with the thought of a fairy lover, she had ceased to care for poor Tom, and was extremely cool and off-hand with him. ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... that we tries it off-hand; what's the use of shilly-shally? I made a mortal vow that that 'ere dog and I won't live together—there ban't ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... quarrel; and the bitches are more at their ease than when undergoing the importunate solicitations of the male. As to their performances in the field, opinions vary, and each sex has its advocates. The bitch, with a good fox before her, is decidedly more off-hand at her work; but she is less patient, and sometimes overruns the scent. Sir Bellingharn Graham has been frequently heard to say, that if his kennels would have afforded it, he would never have taken a dog-hound into the field. That in the canine race the female has more of elegance and symmetry of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the bag to Bell in an off-hand way as if it were but a trifle. Nevertheless he was a little excited, for he ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... a picture as he came in—a fashion-plate, and as such I coolly regarded him—fresh, fair, and smiling, looking younger, if possible, than when we parted a year before, and handsome, as that much-abused word goes, in his debonair, off-hand style of appearance. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... vanished in as many minutes. Oppressed by consuming anxiety he could scarcely breathe in the close, stale air. Em gambled with an affectation of careless indifference; she asked in an off-hand manner for cards; paid her losses with a loud laugh. Jake invariably gave one rapid glance at his hand, and then threw it down upon the table without separating his discard. Mr. Ottinger, it was plain, was superstitious—he edged his hand ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... whether he'll be able to manage it; but you daren't broach the subject, it wouldn't be polite. You've got to be polite. Then you get worried by the thought that Tom is bursting to get out with you and only wants an excuse; is waiting, in fact, and hoping for you to ask him in an off-hand sort of way to come out for a stroll. But you're not quite sure; and besides, if you were, you wouldn't have the courage. By-and-bye you get tired of it all, thirsty, and want to get out in the open air. You get tired of saying, "Do you really, Mrs. Smith?" or "Do you ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... again and became as affable and familiar as earlier in the evening. Brandon, however, was frozen. He was polite, dignified and deferential to the ladies, but the spirit of the evening was gone, since he had furnished it all with his free, off-hand manner, full ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... the leader of the file produces nothing striking. If the thing is done without creating a disturbance, the procession does not alter its ways at all. The second caterpillar, promoted to captain, knows the duties of his rank off-hand: he selects and leads, or rather he ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... McGregor would have been short of human if she had not been a wee bit self-conscious and forced to suppress from her voice the satisfaction that echoed in it when she observed in off-hand fashion: ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... ma'am, in neck-or-nothin' scrimmages o' that sort," continued Pax, in the off-hand tone of one much experienced in such scrimmages, "one can't well stop to pick and choose; besides, I couldn't see well, d'ee see? an' her hair came first to hand, you know, an' was convenient. It's well for both on us, however, that that six foot ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... shield an asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, Rastrea mi suerte." And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was a rule far more honored in the breach than the observance. The post commander was about the only one to receive such recognition from his juniors, all others, as a rule, contenting themselves with a jovial "'Morning, Jack." "How are you, major?" and, possibly, an off-hand and perfunctory touch of the cap. Only among sticklers for military propriety like Leonard was the salute tendered to superiors. In nine cases out of ten it meant, when given, that personal relations were strained. Approaching the battalion ...
— Under Fire • Charles King |
