"Old hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scowling at him. "Confound it, what are you doing with no more rank than captain? On the face of it, you're an old hand, a highly experienced veteran." ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... a flickering candle, stuck in a grease-streaked bottle, sit several mounted men of the old Brigade, their faces brown and weather-beaten from long campaigning in the Sinai Desert and amid Palestine hills. The gear and stuff scattered casually about the tent tell it is the abode of an old hand of long service, who worries little about the frills of base and peace-time armies. And there, too, sprawled half-way across a camp bed is Mac. They yarn about old times, Gallipoli days and after, laughing often, though ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... caught the tap of your knuckles and he had thrown wide the green door, what a welcome would have awaited you! How warm the grasp of his fine old hand; how cordial ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... cases. There was Rosenthal, a noted receiver in his day, to whom a dishonest clerk had sold five thousand pounds for five hundred. Rosenthal had held the notes for six years, and had then put them cautiously on the Continental market. He was an old hand, was Rosenthal, and very clever and leary, but they had bowled him out. The clerk was wanted on another charge, and turned Queen's evidence against the receiver. Almost all the stories had this kind of termination, because the legal gentlemen whom young Mr. Barter ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Harrison Miller who took the statement that morning. Lucy's cramped old hand wrote too slowly for David's impatience. Harrison Miller took it, on hotel stationery, covering the carefully numbered pages with his neat, copper-plate writing. He wrote with an impassive face, but with intense interest, for by that time he ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... step; her head shook slightly as she looked about the room, perhaps from nervousness, perhaps from a touch of palsy. In either case the fact had a pathos which Mrs. March confessed in the affection with which she took her hard, dry, large, old hand when she was introduced to her, and in the sincerity which she put into the hope that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... very tired, poor young man. There's two nights he's had no sleep at all. Won't ye try and rest aisy for his sake, Miss Isabel darlint? Ye can go up the mountain in the morning, and maybe that little Miss Bathurst will like to go with ye. Do wait till the morning now!" she wheedled, laying a wiry old hand upon her. "It's no Christian hour at all ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... indiscriminatingly thrashing or being thrashed by the "esteemed contemporary" or the "outraged citizen;" the second of whom sets the type, reads the proofs, corrects them more or less, makes the rollers, works the old hand press, and curses the editor and the boy impartially; and the third of whom sweeps the office weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, inks the forms and sometimes pis them, carries the papers, and does generally the humble and diversified works of the "printer's devil," while between ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... everyone," said Nora. She fell on her knees beside the elder woman's chair and stroked her work-roughened old hand. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Dorfman, an old hand at confidential snooping, refused to quail before the much-publicized senatorial scowl. "It's tough putting on a hunt when you're not quite sure ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... fac-simile No. 2, "England," is a striking instance. But he soon corrects himself, and writes for twenty folios (to the recto of folio 27) with more or less care in his clear Roman hand. Thence he begins to return rapidly, but by perceptible degrees, to the old hand, until, on the recto of folio 31, and a page or two before it, he writes, illegibly to most modern eyes, as in fac-simile No. 3, "a proverbe." Thereafter, except upon certain rare and isolated occasions, he never returns to his Italian ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Lydia struck the kind old hand from her shoulder and dashed out of the house. She ran through the snow to a giant pine by the gate and beat her fists against it for how long she did not know. Pain in her bruised hands and the intense cold finally brought her to her senses. A self-control ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the booty can be disposed of is closed. If the thief has been unwary enough to leave a finger-print it is photographed, and should he be an old hand the records at Scotland Yard show his identity in less than ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... sixty, eighty miles away, spoken of as "down there" by the riders of the high country. And Young Pete, detailed to help "gather" in some of the most rugged timberland of the Blue, would not have changed places with any man. He had been allotted a string of ponies, placed under the supervision of an old hand, entered on the pay-roll at the nominal salary of thirty dollars a month, and turned out to do his share in the big round-up, wherein riders from the T-Bar-T, the Blue, the Eight-O-Eight, and the Concho rode with a loose rein and a quick spur, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... to; and the first alarm was Octavio's hand being seized, which was clasping his treasure. He starts from the frighted arms of Sylvia, and leaping from the bed would have escaped; for he knew too well the touch of that old hand; but Sebastian, wholly surprised at so robust a repulse, took most unfortunately a stronger hold, and laying both his hands roughly upon him, with a resolution to know who he was, for he felt his hair; and Octavio struggling at the same minute to get from him, they both fell against ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... she said, "you just take all the fear away. I kept feeling that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone now. Jed said"—here Nancy wavered—"he ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... good timber was close at hand, and while Dave, Henry, and Sam Barringford cut the logs, the others had the horses haul them to where they were wanted and set them up as desired. James Morris was an old hand at this sort of employment, and so the work ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... case. When his original investigations failed to reveal a motive for the murder, he determined to return to London to ascertain what dangerous criminals were at liberty who might have committed the murder. His own view then was that the murder was the work of an old hand who had entered the moat-house to commit burglary, and had murdered Mrs. Heredith to escape identification. The isolation of the moat-house, the presence of guests with valuable jewels, the time chosen for the crime, and the scream of the victim, tended to confirm him in this belief. Caldew's ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... argue the matter in her present state. She merely sighed, and moved her shrivelled old hand up and down upon the counterpane. Alice finished the letter without further remarks. It merely went on to say how happy the writer would be to know something of her cousin as Mrs Grey, as also to know something of Mr Grey, and then gave ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... said one man. It was Tod Barstow, an old hand. And he added, nodding, 'He's a damn ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... of the year on furze, or "fuzz," as we call it here. Two acres of furze he had, which he cut close in alternate years, the second year's growth making a fine juicy fodder when chopped small into a sort of chaff. An old hand-apparatus for that purpose—a kind of chaff-cutting box—was described to me. The same man had a horse, which also did well on furze diet mixed with a little malt from the ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... announced. "He runs a little yak outfit, a few head of horses, and some cattle over on Big Porcupine." A moment later Bethune drew up and greeted the rider with a great show of cordiality. "Hello, Pierce, old hand! How's everything ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Fitch was very hopeful," answered Phil. "And my father says he's one of the best oil experts to be found anywhere. He's an old hand at the game." ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... include within its pages some rules for the writing of novels;—or I might perhaps say, with more modesty, to offer some advice on the art to such tyros in it as might be willing to take advantage of the experience of an old hand. But the matter would, I fear, be too long for this episode, and I am not sure that I have as yet got the rules quite settled in my own mind. I will, however, say a few words on one or two points which my own practice has pointed out ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... time, takin' the big surf-boat an' all the apparatus. The tug was a blowin' off steam, like as if she was connected to a volcaner. I tell you there must have been some fire under them boilers. An' when we started—I'm an old hand, boy, but I'm tellin' ye that I never thought to see Houghton. The ol' skipper sent that tug through at racin' speed like as if it was a moonlight summer night an' he had all the sea-room in ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the provinces. He would have, in the first place, to come and reside in Edinburgh, and get introduced, at no slight expense of trouble, mayhap, to the brown, half-defaced manuscripts of our public libraries. He would require next to study the old hand, with all its baffling contractions. If he succeeded in mastering the difficulties of Melville's Diary after a quarter of a year's hard conning, he might well consider himself a lucky man. Row's History would occupy him during at least another quarter; Baillie's Letters and ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... sleep, took her way to the Pierres' cottage, with the present of a fine fresh "dorade" for the invalid; and when she had stood for a minute by the bedside leaning on her stick, and looking on the face of the half-unconscious girl, she began with her natty old hand to pat Marie's shoulder, and with coaxing words to get her to say that she would see Antoine. But at the first sound of the name, the limp figure started up from the pillows, and from the innocent, childish lips came a stream of strange, eager speech, as she poured forth her conviction, ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... "Codex Membranaceus, Olim Abbatiae S. Medardi Suessionensis in uncialibus litteris et auricis scriptus. Saec. VI." The preceding is written in an old hand, inserted in the book. It is a folio volume of unquestionably great antiquity; but I should apprehend that it is antedated by at least two centuries. It is full of embellishment, of a varied and splendid character. The title to each Gospel is in very large capital letters of gold, upon a purple ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... fell asleep, it was still clasped in his old hand, and there was a look of grim tenderness on the face on the pillow, turned toward his ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... suddenly and caught his hand to her lips. She noticed with a tender contraction of her heart that it was an old hand—knotted, with purple stains. ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... inherit eternity, yet have authority now only over the period that we have passed, with what wealth then are the aged furnished! Sweet must it be to sit with folded hands and dream life over once again. How rich we are, how happy! How dear is the old hand in ours! Years have added up the sum of all the felicity that we have known together, and carried it over to to-day. Those that have left our arms and gone out into other homes are still our own; but little sunny heads ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... sure, my gentleman. Hai, but she's a bad one, that same. But she plays and I play, with the winning for me—since the good cards are always in the old hand. Fear nothing, my rye. She cannot hurt, though snake that ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... old friend, All the pleasures we have known Thrill me now as I extend This old hand and grasp your own— Feeling, in the rude caress, All affection's tenderness; Feeling, though the touch be rough, Our old souls ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... Fauchelevent, "none of this despair. There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to pay it. I am an old hand, you are a new one. I know all the ropes and the devices. I will give you some friendly advice. One thing is clear, the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the cemetery will be closed ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Carter, warmly. "Indeed, we won't do anything of the sort. I should like to see him try to turn us out! Old Hand, whose father used to blacken your poor grandfather's boots, turn us out of our own house! You don't know what you are ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... concerned. It was one of a series of training practices in anticipation of the school regatta, which was to come off on the second of June, in which the rival four-oars of the three houses were to compete for the championship of the river. The second of June was far enough ahead at present, but an old hand like Bloomfield knew well that the time was all too short to lick his crew into shape. Parrett's boat, by all ordinary calculation, ought to win, for they had a specially good lot of men this year; and now Wyndham had left, the schoolhouse boat would be quite an orphan. Bloomfield ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... altar-piece beyond, and is wrapped in a sort of waking sleep that is blindness. Olympius kneels at the steps within the rail, and his heart beats loud as the grand figure of the Bishop bends over him, and the thin old hand with its strong blue veins offers the sacred bread to his open lips. He trembles, and tries to glance sideways to his left with downcast eyes, for the moment has come, and the blow must be struck then or never. Not a breath, not a movement in the church, not the faintest ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... things, why my eldest cousin has, from her youth up, ever been in her romping and playing so firm and decided; and now that she has entered the married estate, and has the run of affairs in that mansion, she must have reaped so much the more experience, and have become quite an old hand! I've been thinking these last few days that outside my eldest cousin, there's no one else who could come to my help; and, aunt, if you don't do it for the face of your nephew and your nephew's wife, do it, at least, for the affection you bore ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... in his swivel chair, rocking gently backward and forward for several minutes, after a fashion he had when perturbed. Suddenly his old hand shot out and pressed the push button on his desk, and his ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... hand—a worn old hand that had many a time gone out in love and kindness when younger hands were cold. Poets have sung and fighting men have done great deeds for hands that ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... little sister, born the same time. With our lilac frocks on and white bonnets to shade the sun off our eyes. And each a nosegay of garden flowers." There was no more sorrow in the old woman's voice than belongs to any old voice speaking thoughtfully and gently. Her old hand caressed the crisp locks of the little, interested boy, and felt his chin appreciatively, as she added:—"Three or four years older than yourself, my dear! Seventy years ago!" with just the ring of sadness—no more—that always sounds when great age speaks ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... true enough, ma'am,' sighed the man; 'there's no getting to the bottom of their artfulness: but I'm an old hand, and I know all the ins and outs of the complaint. It isn't possible for Mr. Wendover to get any drink in this house, and he never goes out of it without me. Every drop of wine and spirits is under lock and key, and all the servants are ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... as an old hand-loom worker in a factory attempting to make his clumsy machine compete with the flying shuttles about him, is a workingman equipped with knowledge so meagre that he can get no meaning into his life nor sequence between his ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... to give any information about himself or his business near Rose Ranch. But being an old hand at that game, Mr. Hammond finally made him see that it would be wiser for him to reply. If he did not wish to get others into trouble, he would better try to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... company for an hour in their several homeward rides from certain fairs, and had carried the pleasure of his society, they very gravely asserted, considerably beyond a joke; so that the state of the prisoner's affairs took a very sombre aspect, and the counsel—an old hand—intrusted with his cause declared confidentially that there was not a chance. But a yet more weighty accusation, because it came from a much nobler quarter, awaited Clifford. In the robbers' cavern were found several articles answering exactly to the description ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... moving just out of reach of the bland old hand, which stretched itself out to chuck her under the chin, and was left patting the air with infinite benevolence "mother ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the Paradise ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... that range anything from 1 to 18 feet in height. But more promising—I have a cluster of fine young seedlings that I have been caring for. All the woods were cleared away from them to give them plenty of light. They are watered by the old hand bucket method in dry spells. I report on them occasionally to Mr. G. F. Gravatt and Mr. Russell B. Clapper of the U.S.D.A. They are a faint ray ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... sir, and I hope you got the night well?—A fine day for us this holyday morning; my Grace is gone to early prayers, so your honour will be content with an old woman to make your tea. Oh, let me put in plenty of tea, for it will never be good; and if your honour takes stirabout, an old hand will engage to make that to your liking, any way; for by great happiness, we have what will just answer for you of the nicest meal the miller made my Grace a compliment of, last time she went ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... He, confessedly, was not an experienced hunter in the Rockies. Corporal Hyman was an old hand at the hunt, and there were other soldiers in the detachment who could find the wild game when there was any to be found. Up to date, however, the game had been scarce. A few mountain antelope and some smaller animals—but these the hungry ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... take an interest in my struggles. I often sit in his room in the rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, smoking and sipping whisky into the small hours. He is an old hand, who knows the market and frankly manufactures ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... brain comprehended the fact that this speech was but another way of announcing that he and his men would find no welcome at the Three Bar from that moment on. Harper caught his arm and jerked him back. The albino was an old hand and could rightly ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song, So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong, You hardly could distinguish one in ten. He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: His ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... single file—four on each side of the road, at intervals of thirty yards. The movement has been quite smartly carried out. Still, a critic must criticise or go out of business. However, Captain Blaikie is an old hand. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath, But love, and love alone.' And he: 'Not less Am I in charity with you, my sons, And all my sins of pride, and other sins, Humbly I mourn.' Then, bending the old head O'er the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord To be his soul's viaticum, in might Leading from life that seems to life that is; And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made, He sat upon his bed, and spake: 'How long Ere yet ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... attention more than any other object was an individual, seated on one of the benches opposite, who, though evidently enjoying the spree as much as if he were an old hand at such business, seem' d in every other particular to be far out of his element. His appearance was youthful. He might have been twenty-one or two years old. His countenance was intelligent, and had the air of city life and society. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... in the direction in which Mr. Justice Harbottle had shaken his gnarled old hand. They compared notes. Not one had seen any one making a disturbance. They asked one another if the ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Books of this History belonging now to Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Bookseller in Edinburgh, which formerly belonged to the late Reverend Mr. Matthew Reid, Minister of the Gospel at North-Berwick; it is written in a very old hand, the old spelling is kept, and I am informed that it exactly agrees with the Glasgow MS., with which it was collated, during the time this edition was a printing." ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... fresh young face, and the brilliant eyes. "You wouldn't call yourself a very old hand, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... July, 1858, two women carrying well filled market baskets, were crossing the old Hand Street bridge that spans the Alleghany River between Pittsburgh and ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... a beautiful world this is, and how full it is of truly kind, good people! Mrs. Morris was here this morning, and just one squeeze of that long, yellow old hand of hers seemed to speak a bookful! I wonder why I have always disliked her so, for she is really an excellent woman. I gave her a good kiss to pay her for the sympathy she had sense enough not to put into canting words, and if you will believe it, dear old Journal, ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... absorbing powers of the forbidden subject, there were moments when it seemed that a pause was impending, and Mr. Ormsby, an old hand, seized one of these critical instants to address a good-natured question to Coningsby, whose acquaintance he had already cultivated by taking wine ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... told to name one of the girls present; if he could catch an apple in his teeth, she would be his next year's valentine. Fun, splashing, and laughter followed for five minutes; then time was up, and three more boys took their turn. After many such trials Posy's big cousin (an old hand, with a big mouth) brought up a little apple, another fellow caught an apple by its stalk, and Bob (good at a dive), after plunging his face to the bottom of the tub, and holding his apple steady between his nose and chin, rose with it in ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... are always bickering with Father Holt," cried my lady. "Come and kiss my hand, child," and the oak held out a branch to little Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon the gnarled knuckles of which there ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ardent admirer of Early Italian architecture and have built yourself a Fifteenth Century stone-floored and frescoed or tapestry-hung dining room, you must set your long refectory table with a "runner" of old hand-linen and altar embroidery, or perhaps Thirteenth Century damask and great cisterns or ewers and beakers in high-relief silver and gold; or in Callazzioli or majolica, with great bowls of fruit and church candlesticks ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... were laid, and the civilian element began to plunge a bit on Orme, word having passed that he was an old hand at the game, whereas I was but a novice. Orme took some of ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... fellow, and it would be well to get a little out of his reach. At all events, she had scarcely disappeared before the youngster was again on the wing. It was wonderful how much at home he seemed,—poising, backing, soaring, and alighting with all the ease and grace of an old hand. One only piece of awkwardness I saw him commit: he dropped upon a branch much too large for his tiny feet, and was manifestly uncomfortable. But he did not stay long, and at his next alighting was well up in the tree, where it was noticeable that ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... place on the south of Market Street, to a building which resembled a deserted, tumble-down stable or blacksmith's shop plastered with old hand-bills and posters. There were some dirty old window-frames in the second story, but I do not believe there was one whole pane of ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... [1] (From which till the next Central sittings I hail), Is still the same snug, free-and-easy old hole, Where Macheath met his blowens, and Wild floor'd his bowl [2] In a ward with one's pals, not locked up in a cell, [3] To an old hand like me ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... rather eagerly. I stared. Could I believe my eyes? First of all on the top of it, in the neatest old hand, was written—'Guilfrid Combremead His Boke. 1630.' Then followed what I will not write, lest this MS. should by any accident fall into the hands of book-hunters before my death. I jumped to my feet, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... demand and esteem on farms and in small villages and towns, and is an economical and thrifty, and may be a comely floor-covering. The accompanying illustration of a woman weaving rag carpet on an old hand-loom is from a fine photograph taken by Mrs. Arthur Sewall of Bath, Maine, and gives an excellent presentment of ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... old hand at the Pacific, the English adventurer Captain Peter Dillon, who was the first to pick up the trail left by castaways from the wrecked vessels. On May 15, 1824, his ship, the St. Patrick, passed by Tikopia Island, one of the New Hebrides. There a native boatman pulled alongside in a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are.... Fancy your graduating from dinky church things into Stillman musicales, and Palace dansants, and young Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a sudden ... and getting away with it as if you were an old hand at the game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you a post-graduate course in high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven ways. I don't mean anything vulgar or common ... you understand. I'm a gentleman, Miss ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... and weighing his every act to find out if he does or does not love her to-day as well as he did yesterday at this time.... Then, when spontaneity is dead, she is the chief mourner at its funeral.... A few couples never leave the Garden of Eden. They grow old hand in hand. They are the ones who bear and forbear; who have learned to adjust themselves to the intimate relationship of living together.... A certain amount of liberty, both of action and thought, must be allowed on each side.... The family shut in upon itself grows so narrow that all interest in ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... few books carefully covered in a corner shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) to his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... would not fight—it was a dead bird in the pit. My friend at once apprehended that he had to deal with an old hand—one of those aggravating fellows who are up to cryp—a man who can write a sentence, and be capable of leaving the letter e entirely out. For there are ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... you innocent some day. I have no doubt these rascally Luddites are at the bottom of it. And now, look here, young fellow, I hear that you are going to run the mill. Of course you can't know much about it yet. Now I am an old hand and shall be happy to give you any advice in my power, both for your own sake and for that of your good father. Now I mean what I say, and I shall be hurt if you refuse. I am in here two or three times a week, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... convict at all times and seasons. He had found nothing. In vain had he laid traps for him; in vain had he "planted" figs of tobacco, and attached long threads to them, waited in a bush hard by, until the pluck at the end of his line should give token that the fish had bitten. The experienced "old hand" was too acute for him. Filled with disgust and ambition, he determined upon an ingenious little trick. He was certain that Dawes possessed tobacco; the thing was to find it upon him. Now, Rufus Dawes, holding aloof, as was his custom, from the majority of his companions, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... spring bubbled not far away and the music of the tiny creek that trickled from it through a bed of water-cress provided a pleasing lullaby. His visitor nodded approval of the snug arrangements. Apparently McCorquodale was an old hand at this sort ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... out and took the bundle from the extended, unsteady old hand. His own hands were shaking a little as he broke the string and fluttered swiftly through the half dozen papers and pamphlets. Old Jerry never skipped a breath ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... infested the neighboring coast; his cabin was their rendezvous; and not unfrequently, it was said, the depository of their contraband goods. Conkey Jem—so was he called by his associates, on account of the Slawkenbergian promontory which decorated his countenance—had been an old hand at the same trade; but having returned from a seven years' leave of absence from his own country, procured by his lawless life, now managed matters with more circumspection and prudence, and had never since been detected in his former illicit traffic; nor, though so marvellously gifted in that particular ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... so white as it should have been, the nails were not so well trimmed as a more fastidious mood might have demanded; but Westray did not notice these things. He took the shaky old hand, and gripped it warmly, not saying anything, because he ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... of five huskies, good workers all; and he traveled pretty light, with a sled packed and lashed as only an old hand at the trail can perform that task. But the queer thing about the outfit was that Willis had a sixth dog with him, a dog half as large again as any in the traces; and this one walked at Jim's heel, idle; though, at the outset, it had taken some sharp talk to get ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... appealed, her eyes big and terrified at the recollection of what had passed. "No, he didn't hit me, Joe; but he choked me. He grabbed me by the throat and shook me—his old hand's as hard ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... is excessive in proportion to what is received. Four pounds of oakum is a great task to an expert and an old hand. To a novice it can only be accomplished with the greatest difficulty, if indeed it can be done at all. It is even in excess of the amount demanded from a criminal ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Bob; you are not now at Tamworth, or in the house, but talking to an old hand that knows every move on the political board,—you need have no disguise with me. Come, be candid for once, and tell me, what are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... dramatic nondescripts now happily preserved and duly treasured in the library of the British Museum bear inscribed in the same old hand, at the head of the first page and again on the last page under the last line, the same contemptuous three words—"silly old story." And I fear it can hardly be maintained that either Chapman, when writing "The Blind Beggar of Alexandria," or Rowley, when writing "A Shoemaker, ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... The "old hand" and the "new" were now quietly climbing to the top floor where their tasks were to be side by side, and Amy had time to examine her companion's face. It was plain and freckled, boasting none of that "prettiness" of which Gwendolyn was so openly proud, but it was gentle and intelligent, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... of his freckled face there beamed two honest light-blue eyes. His forehead was broad and slightly bulgy; his carroty hair was cut short to his head. Mrs. Church raised her wrinkled old hand and laid it for a ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Ernest exclaimed; "we had better mount at once. If the brute is still there he is just as likely, being such an old hand at the sport, to make a bolt at once, instead of waiting until the dogs are ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... use, George," observed P. Sybarite presently. "If you're in earnest in these public-spirited endeavours to—how would you put it?—to remove the soil from your map, take a tip from an old hand and go to soap and water. I know it's painful, but, believe me, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... stumbled lately at a book-stall on a very curious old book entitled A Treasurie or Store-house of Similes both pleasant, delightfull, and profitable. The title-page is gone; but in an old hand on the cover it is stated to have been written by a certain "Cawdrey," and to have been printed in 1609, where I cannot discover. Can any of your correspondents oblige me with some information concerning him? The ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... neck and crop into a cab, with a short-handled shovel and a sharp-tongued old hand. It nigh breaks their backs, but they learn quick ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... have done the right thing with more instant decision than Ortensia had shown. He understood, too, that he had so thoroughly frightened the wretched Pina that she was henceforth his slave, on whom he could count as safely as Stradella had depended on her in Venice. With the instinct of an old hand he glanced quickly round the room to see that no object had been displaced in a way to excite suspicion, and he then sat down in a straight chair, folded one knee over the other, and ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... little worried about intrusting that big vessel to an inexperienced officer like Clif, and Clif was not so very cock sure himself. No one knew just where they were, and in the storm and darkness reaching Key West harbor would be task enough for an old hand. ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... That's an old rule in diplomacy (and remember, she's a diplomat, whatever else she may be!) Old-stagers can divine the Young ones' secrets from the nature of the questions they ask! So if you got the chance, ask her nothing! Don't lie, either! It would take a very old hand to lie to her in such way that she couldn't ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... in the doorway, shading her eyes with her withered old hand, and staring intently in the direction ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... Birch was an old hand at running hare, and up to all sorts of dodges, so that I knew all it was needful for me to do was to husband my "wind," and run evenly with him, leaving him to shape our course and ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... said Bill angrily. Steve noted that both of the old hand's cheeks were flushed hotly. "Barbee telephoned in about four hours ago. Seven steers dead, some more sick. An'," the explanation coming quickly, "Barbee's got the hunch Blenham had rode on ahead an' had poisoned the ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... "His furry old hand, twisting and trembling, Took the sweet gift—"You dear little darling," Uttered quite softly, tenderly kissing, The bright little face, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... struck sundry vigorous blows at the reptile, which, however, seemed only to madden, without disabling him. Several times he elevated his head from the ground to strike at his assailant; but the little knight was an old hand with snakes, and vigorously repelled his assaults. At last, he struck a blow which laid out his snakeship; and the field was won, when Harry had smashed his head with a large rock. The reptile was ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... With the old hand plough a binder required more care and caution to produce an even edge throughout than with the new cutting machine. If a careless workman found that he had not ploughed the margin quite square with the text, he would put it in his press and take off "another shaving," ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... picture in the old woman's dull red dress and bright red sleeves. He liked the brown wheel and the yellow floor and the beautiful bit of blue cloth thrown over the wheel-base. Then he saw how beautifully the white kerchief and apron and wall caught the light. He saw the helpfulness of the rugged old hand, worn and scarred as it was, yet patient and firm in ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... it's all such a tempest in a tea-pot! My uncle's an old fogy. But you're a woman of the world—you will understand.—I made a fool of myself in that affair, of course. Still, who would have supposed the woman wouldn't play the game? She's an old hand, an ex-chorus girl, and all that—Fay Lanham—any one can tell you about her. I don't know what got into her, except that I'm making a good deal of money nowadays, and I suppose she's ready to settle down. It was all quite ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... think so, my boy," answered an old hand. "Depend upon it, he intends trying what the mounseers will think of our ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... that it just did slip out, as you say. An old hand, a man accustomed to be at odds with the laws and the police, would have known better. Did he make the same statement here?" asked Fortini, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... pipe until his face was enveloped in a fog of smoke. His companion's tone of patronage had nettled him. The old hand moved restlessly but did not answer. It is doubtful if the other's sarcasm had been observed. It was scarcely broad enough to penetrate the toughened hide ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... tow-rope, turns around and looks you in the face, as much as to say: "What are you going to do about it?" The simplicity and stupidity of his countenance seem to you to be admirably feigned, and unless you are an old hand you are inevitably provoked. This is particularly pleasant on the marshy table-lands of Lapland, where, if he takes a notion to bolt with you, your pulk bounces over the hard tussocks, sheers sideways down the sudden pitches, or swamps itself in beds of loose snow. Harness a frisky ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... went out together, and, perhaps naturally, drifted to the smoking room of his hotel. He was an old hand on the road, and full of stories of his own and others' experience. I tried to be ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... on a subject that is ridiculed and Dorothy said no more. But if she were hurt by having her unselfish project thus lightly treated, she was made instantly glad by the tender way her guardian drew her close, and the gentle pat of the soft old hand ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... says I. "But if I'd been Piddie I think I'd have hung the assignment for that on some other hook than Hollis's. He didn't know what a bond looked like until a year ago and that piece of work called for an old hand." ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... again, and Gregorio Macomer entered the room, having been informed of the presence of a visitor. The Duca looked up, and his head shook involuntarily, as he at once began the slow process of getting upon his legs. But Macomer was already pressing him into his seat again, holding the old hand in both of his with an appearance ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... succouring the wounded, or assisting the police, or hauling a mitrailleuse if he could help it. Yet the War dog worships the Army; it represents a square meal and a "cushy" bed. The new draft takes him for a mascot; but the old hand knows him better. A shameless blend of petty larceny, mendacity, fleas, gourmandism, dirt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... the glaze of tears so that one blink would have overflowed them, Lilly laid her lips to the veiny old hand, her voice down into the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... and pressed his lips to the blood-blotched back of the faithful shrivelled old hand. He did not shed a tear. We weep only when we are ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... her feet, some tears came to her eyes, and taking Hannah's hard old hand, she stooped ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... the yard in my father's time; they have not been worth their salt these ten years. When the business was turned over to me I didn't discharge any old hand who had given his best days to the yard. Somehow I couldn't throw away the squeezed lemons. An employer owes a good workman ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... should be too late," said he, as Lawry met him on the main-deck. "I have been all over the village to find you another fireman, and I have succeeded in getting you a first-rate one—an old hand ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... Couplet headed 'Lectori'. Prologue. Epilogue at the end. The third edition really, two having appeared in 1637. On the verso of the titlepage and of the next leaf are some verses inscribed in an old hand. ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... that did not pass near Equity. After giving as much of a shock to her mother's mild nature as it was capable of receiving by her unexpected return, she had gone to her own room, and remained ever since without seeing her father. He put up his thin old hand and passed it over her hair, but it was long before either of ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... it had opened at his feet, and he could have seen the sovereigns ready coined in it. He just couldn't. I can understand that state of mind, though I don't pretend to respect it. I can imagine just how the man trembled to go into some speculation, and didn't dare to. Must have been an old hand at it, too. But it seems as if the money he steals becomes sacred to a man when he gets away with it, and ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... are an old hand here, they tell me. I wish you'd show me the ropes, you know. I'm very keen, but as ignorant as a babe. What sort of rifles do they use here? I wish you'd come and look at my ironmongery." ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... impertinence: "E se volete sapere piu innanzi dimandatene un altro ch'io Marcho Polo non cercai piu avanti." The Khalif is called Largaliffe; Reobarles, Reubarbe, with a marginal note in an old hand, "Reubarbe citta di Persia, donde viene il reubarbero herba medicinale." Completed by Dolfo Spini, 16th July, 1425. Paper. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Rupilius, an old hand at slang, replies with a volley of rough sarcasms, "such as among the vineyards ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... now that we were no longer gods in a car, except an occasional beggar, to whom the Cherub would murmur, "God will aid you, sister!" "Pardon me, brother!" and then, changing his mind, drop a penny into a withered old hand, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson |
