"On the sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Judas that he would become Pope. Nevertheless, ugly rumors were in circulation in regard to them; about children stolen, purses cut, and human flesh devoured. The wise people said to the foolish: "Don't go there!" and then went themselves on the sly. It was an infatuation. The fact is, that they said things fit to astonish a cardinal. Mothers triumphed greatly over their little ones after the Egyptians had read in their hands all sorts of marvels written in pagan and in Turkish. One had an emperor; another, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... never has any money to spend," Dicky explained. "That's the way her mother punishes her. But sometimes she earns it on the sly taking care of babies. She loves babies and babies always love her. Delia'll go to her from my mother any time and as for Betsy Hale—Rosie's the only one who can do ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... Counsel explained in his very best style, (Though he often indulged, on the sly, in a smile,) And the Judge was as eager as eager could be To learn all the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our own Miss, though she is ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... scientific. Say, Hartigan, ye can put me down for a member of your club; or yer church or whatever the dom thing is an' I'll see ye get whatever ye need in the way of protection; an' if ye want to sell any liquor on the sly, that'll be all ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... what sort of fellow you are, Roger. We have both been at it on the sly. I suppose that is what makes a father and son so ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... Sometimes it is a man who importunes you to purchase, sometimes a young girl, and at others even a child of eleven or twelve years belonging to either sex. The pretty girl of course finds the most customers, offering to "kiss the ticket for good luck," and on the sly, perhaps the purchaser also. This must be a Spanish idea, as it is practiced both in Madrid and Cuba. The Mexican government realizes fully a million dollars per annum from the licenses granted to protect this gross swindle upon the public. It is a regular thing for prominent ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... "has the self-denying ordinance broken down? I didn't know that you took pegs on the sly," and he ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... I guess," he said to the girl, who smiled sympathetically, somewhat ruefully. When she had gone he began to talk to Janet about the folly, in general, of prohibition, the fuse oil distributed on the sly. "I'll bet I could go out and find half a dozen rum shops within a mile of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... secretary was married and wrote poetry on the sly. He had four children. He would make an ideal helpmate, worshipping his employer with that rare quality of being interested in his ideas and aims beyond the mere earning of a salary; seeing, too, in that employer more than he, the latter, supposed. For, while he ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... does these days. You know they've had to keep a man on duty every night around that workshop, because of Percy. He ain't to be trusted, and would just as soon put a match to the place as eat his dinner—if he thought he could do it on the sly." ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... was against the rules," said Gladys, "but I don't intend to have any one dictate to me whether or not I shall eat candy. I've eaten candy all my life and it's never hurt me. If I can't eat it openly I'll eat it on the sly, but ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... see you on the sly, and we can go down in the fields and have fun, when your Auntie ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... 11. The two children I refer to were about nine years old. They seemed to think a very great deal of each other, but were very shy in the presence of others. He often sent the little girl presents of flowers and candy on the sly. They continued to love each other for three or four years, until they ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... enough," continued the representative of Cassio. "Then, hang it! why don't you walk the plank at once, and prove yourself sober?" vociferated a long-tailed wag, determined not to slip this opportunity of having a shot on the sly at his first lieutenant, who had only a night or two before put his perpendicularity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... had a dear gazelle To love me with its soft, dark eye, But came a loafing ne'er-do-well And stole her from me on the sly!'" ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... that, Dolly; we're not her teachers, and I don't care what she does,—to other people. But she needn't think she can do a thing like that, and act as if we didn't know anything, when we told her she was wrong, and then when she finds she is wrong to go and fix it up on the sly and pretend she was right all along! No-sir-ee! I won't stand for it. I'll show her up in all her meanness and deceit and I'll do it before the boys, too. She ought to be made to ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... at any rate would return with the carriage as early as he could after his visit to the magistrates' office. He went to the mayor, and inflicted much trouble on that excellent officer, who, however, at last, with the assistance of his clerk,—and of Robert Bolton, whom he saw on the sly,—came to the decision that his own authority would not suffice for the breaking open of a man's house in order that his married daughter should be taken by violence from his custody. 'No doubt,' he said; 'no doubt,' when Caldigate pleaded that Mr. Bolton's ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... was hiding you away here. That's a secret between himself and those who love you. He thought you were lost. Nobody will ever disturb you, you may be sure of that! Uncle Jeanbernat is smoking his pipe by his lettuce bed. The others will get news of you on the sly. Even the doctor isn't coming back any more. I am to be your doctor now. You don't want any more physic, it seems. What you now want is to be loved; ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... they need not fear the trolls that are prowling and peering about them far and near. Gently the winter evening falls over the copse on the height, and a thousand stars and candles are lit in the plains of the sky. The juniper trees grow weary and nod their heads on the sly; before we know it they're fast asleep, so we ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... vocation as a picker-up of every unconsidered trifle, is an adept at charcoal-burning, on the sly. The business of legitimate charcoal-manufacture is also largely practised in the Pines, although the growing value of wood interferes sadly with the coalers. Here and there, however, a few acres are marked out every year for charring, and the coal-pits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... sa'ce from you. Mara Pennel is a gal as has every bit and grain as much resolution and ambition as you have, for all you flap your wings and crow so much louder, and she's one of the close-mouthed sort, that don't make no talk, and she's been a-bearin' up and bearin' up, and comin' to me on the sly for strengthenin' things. She's took camomile and orange-peel, and snake-root and boneset, and dash-root and dandelion—and there hain't nothin' done her no good. She told me to-day she couldn't keep up ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... absolutely sober lately—thanks to your good offices"—at which the other made a gesture of dissent—"and then I would be in a better position to look after things. As it has been, any help I gave Mary in keeping the old man from killing people had to be done on the sly." ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... in Dick became suddenly tenfold more deep on learning this. "But why do you follow him about in this fashion? Does he like your company, or do you only follow him on the sly, and keep out of sight? ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... remember a charming Surrey village with a pretty vine-covered church where Daddy used to preach. She could recall exactly how her fat legs dangled helplessly from the high pew seat. Directly behind sat a stout farmer with four sons. The boys made faces at Edith on the sly; their mother sometimes ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... said the other. "I never thought for a moment she was saving money. She's always asking me for more, for one thing; but, then women alway do. And look 'ow bad it is for her—saving money like that on the sly. She might grow into a miser, pore thing. For 'er own sake I ought to get hold of it, if it's only to save ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... observed tranquilly to himself. "I've cornered the fourth. It remains to be seen whether Weldon is cornered by the fifth, or only the third. Hasn't been to see him! Little beast! But I'll bet any amount of gold money that she has done endless messing for him on the sly." ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... horrid carpets and curtains; and the fire, not even made of decent turf, but those ugly black coals, and never a draught through the chamber, except when I took it unbeknownst to you. Ah, Nora guessed that her father was dying, and there was no way of saving him but doing it on the sly. Well, I'm here, the girleen has managed it, and here I'll stay. Not all the doctors in the land, nor all the fine English grooms, shall take me back again. I'll walk back when I'm fit to walk, and I'll do my best to bear all that awful furniture; but in future this is my bedroom, ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... the Mistress wore long dresses, with different colors for Sunday clothes, but us slaves didn't know much about Sunday in a religious way. The Master had a brother who used to preach to the Negroes on the sly. One time he was caught and the ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... know what she's talking about but he does, because he told Doc Philipps, when he went to see about his liver, that if he couldn't wear a soft collar or a soft hat like other men and keep a dog and smoke in the house, and eat strawberries or whistle or go to ball games on Sundays and prize fights on the sly, why, there was one thing he could do and would have and that was a drawer, a whole chiffonier drawer, all to himself. And that he bet there weren't many men in Green Valley that could say as much. Hen just swore that he intends to have something ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... another fellow is down? But then, you see, a fellow never knows when he's down himself, and therefore he thinks that he's ill used. I'll tell you what now. I shouldn't wonder if we couldn't do it on the sly,—unless one of you is stupid enough to hit the other in an awkward place. If you are certain of your hand now, the right shoulder is the best spot." Phineas felt very certain that he would not hit ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... who began using hard words? You came here and made me out a pickpocket, just because I use a few tasty little posters which sell my goods, and all the while you're trying on the sly to take a poor old man's daughter away from ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... wrong, and I told you at the time you were all wrong. I have just been reading a most interesting book, all about these things (but you must never let Peachy know about it, as it is one of father's and I have been reading it on the sly). Remember you've sworn to tear this letter up. In any case it explains all about my brown neck and my brown eyelids and knuckles. It calls it 'Pigmentation'—the 'pigmentation of the mature virgin.' Isn't it interesting? So you see it was quite natural; and I can't help it; on the ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... find women who remain pretty while eating and sleeping, very rare. Little Adelaide, the red-headed one, you remember, ate stupidly. And this one over there eats brightly; she eats—crack! another nut—and she looks at me on the sly. I can see that she looks at me. All ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... below the surface. The slightest approach at love-making was made quite on the sly. Not a soul suspected that the trim little old fogy was smitten with Antonia; and so prudent was the elderly lover, that no rival could have guessed anything from his behavior in the reading-room. For a couple of months Croizeau watched the retired custom-house official; but before the third month ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... myself to four and five hours a day and five days in the week, but this time I have wrought from breakfast till 5.15 P.M. six days in the week, and once or twice I smouched a Sunday when the boss wasn't looking. Nothing is half so good as literature hooked on Sunday, on the sly. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nice spring o' cold water up by my cabin. Well, some days ago Ham Spink an' thet Dudder boy came up there, an' on the sly caved the spring in on me. I caught 'em coming away. I had my shotgun with me, an' I was mad, good an' proper. I said they must fix the spring or somebuddy'd git shot. They got scart, I kin tell ye, an' they got on their hands an' knees in the sand an' rocks an' mud and worked ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... found the streets sloppy and muddy, with heaps of ice and snow and dead horses among the rubbish. Few business places were open, all stores having been looted. Here and there was a semi-illicit stand where horsemeat, salt fish, carrots or cabbage and parsnips, and sour milk could be bought on the sly if you had the price. But it was very little at any price and exceedingly uncertain of appearance. We were sent to join the other prisoners, French, English, Scotch and Americans who had preceded us from the front to Moscow. They had tales similar ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... dearie me, his little sister! You're all demureness, butter wouldn't melt In your mouth, one would think to look at you. Still waters, though, they say ... you know the proverb; And I don't like your doings on the sly. ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... you! It's true, too, because Maria knows. She's rich, an' awful stylish, an' her name's Helen Weir-Huntley, mind ye, one o' them high-toned names with a stroke in the middle. An' Mrs. McNabb told Mrs. Fraser on the sly that Mrs. Basketful told her he wrote to a girl by that name every week o' his life, only not to tell. An' he gets a letter back every week, too, with a big chunk of red wax on it, an' some kind of a business stamped on; jist stylish ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... well, as the man said when he plaited the horse's tail, but this is a new way of gittin' married on the sly, with all the street to keep the secret. There's no mistake, secrets are dead funny. Spend yer last penny to 'elp yer friend out of a 'ole, an' it niver gits about, but pawn yer last shirt, an' nex' day all the bloomin' street wants to know if ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... street from the parsonage, and I wanted to ride. She said I could. But I was ashamed to ride in the daytime, for fear some of the members would think it improper for a girl of the parsonage, and so I got up at six o'clock this morning to do it on the sly. Somehow I never can remember that it is just as bad to do things when you aren't seen as when you are. It doesn't seem so bad, does it? But of course it is. But I never think of that when I need to be thinking of it. Maybe I'll ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... were some factors or merchants in the country who did it good deal in buying fish on the sly in that way at one time?-I believe there was at one time, but ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... won't go under that arch to this day and they've been seen to spit at it, and I spoze they throw things at it more or less on the sly. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... said comfortingly. "Dogs aren't very particular that way. What they want is bones. Cats now, they love disinterestedly. William Adolphus has never swerved in his allegiance to me, although you do give him cream in the pantry on the sly." ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... comes from Chios or Erythrai, I think—you would mistake him for another Prexinos, one fig could not look more like another, but just hear him talk, and you'll know that he is Kerdon and not Prexinos. He does business at home, selling his wares on the sly because everyone is afraid of the tax gatherers. My dear! He does do such beautiful work! You would think that what you see is the handiwork of Athena and not that of Kerdon! Do you know that he had two of them when he came here! And when I got a look ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... matter doesn't he lend an ear to any settlement you, young ladies, may propose? He invariably agrees to all you say! But if you, young ladies, aren't agreeable, it's really of no avail. When you, for example, spoke just now,—it's true it was on the sly,—you called him straightway by his name, miss. This thing does very well with you, young ladies, but were we to do anything of the kind, we'd be looked upon ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... I have a jug here that holds exactly three pints and a half. The girls fill this for me unknown to my master, and the purveyor brings me on the sly a bottle holding a good gallon, which makes up for the ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dynamite, or any other old explosive, in his planing mill, without knowing all about 'em; wouldn't he? But my father don't think it's any of my affair, you see. And besides, I wouldn't be surprised if that funny little professor had bound him not to tell anybody about it. They got the boxes in on the sly, and that's a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... was taken for an office-boy here and there; but he never stayed. The fact was, the only thing he could do well was to fling balls up in the air and catch them in turn, without letting them drop to the ground; and this he could only do best on the sly, behind somebody's back. Now this, though entertaining to those who saw it for a little while, did not help on his employers, who wondered why they did not get ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... after buying her out, took a lodging apart for her, bought the inevitable sewing-machine, and tried teaching her to read, preaching at her and giving her books. The woman lived and sewed as long as it was interesting and a novelty to her, then getting bored, began receiving men on the sly, or ran away and went back where she could sleep till three o'clock, drink coffee, and have good dinners. The third class, the most ardent and self-sacrificing, had taken a bold, resolute step. They had married them. And when the insolent and spoilt, or stupid and ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... undressed;) while, for once in a way, Miss Tag-rag, having taken only five minutes to put her hair into papers, popped into bed directly she had blown the candle out, without saying any prayers—or even thinking of finishing the novel which lay under her pillow, and which she had got on the sly from the circulating library of the late Miss Snooks. For several hours she lay in a delicious revery, imagining herself become Mrs. Tittlebat Titmouse, riding about Clapham in a handsome carriage, going to the play every night; and what would ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... synonyms of the English language, does not appear to have been down to the interpretation of Daffy; nor indeed does Bailey or Sheridan seem at all fly to it; and even slang Grose has no touch of its extensive signification. The squeamish Fair One who takes it on the sly, merely to cure the vapours, politely names it to her friends as White Wine. The Swell chaffs it as Blue Ruin, to elevate his notions. The Laundress loves dearly a drain of Ould Tom, from its strength to comfort ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the human combination in the steamer-chair. She, however, her head thrown back, with half-closed eyes, seemed fascinated by the glories in the west, and almost unconscious of his presence. As too much staring might cause annoyance, he did most of it on the sly. And the opportunity was good. As a mystery, she proved an absorbing study: an irresistible blending of contradictions, of sympathy and reserve, of sadness—and of wit—of a character and temperament not half-divulged. Whenever their eyes met, he felt a mild commotion, a ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... is going on, eh?" he stormed. "Having food brought in on the sly, eh? Well, I'll see that that is stopped! You'll go without your supper for this!" And then, after a few more words, he stormed out of the room, banging the door behind ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... said the surgeon, "You've been drinking on the sly. You've been disobeying orders; 'Tis useless to deny. Let me tell you on the Q. T. That I am going to mark you 'duty' You've been drinking unboiled water I can read it ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... obtain the necessary objects! How to secure black corn, and how and where to get the feathers of an owl! Both were so well known and so generally tabooed that inquiry after them would forthwith arouse suspicion. Black maize might be procured on the sly; but the other could be found by chance only,—by meeting with the body of a dead owl on the heights ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... I shall not want much money anyway. But suppose the captain is very inquisitive about me, how will you get along with the case? He must be somewhat suspicious when a Boston boy wants to be taken to New York on the sly." ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... the attorney's son from Brompton, who sold out;—we shaved his mustachios, put a bear in his bed, and sent him home to his ma—And he said that Major Campbell might be very pious, and all that: but he'd warrant—they were the fellow's own words,—that he took his lark on the sly, like other men— the snob! so I told him, I was no better than the rest, and no more I am; but if any man dared to say that the Major was not as honest as his own sister, I was his man at fifteen paces. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... surface water, ignoring all sanitary laws, became unwell and then cursed the climate and my so-called misrepresentations; others would ignore all instructions as to the agricultural methods essential to success in this climate, and then denounce me on the sly because ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... like it, Beatrice," repeats her lover, gravely—not, however, alluding to the duties relating to Miss Macpherson, which she had been urging upon him. "Upon my life, I don't." He looks away moodily out of the window. "I hate doing things on the sly. And, besides, I am a poor man, and your parents are rich. I could not afford to support a wife at present on my ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... second flight to wag a portentous finger, "Old Un, mind this now—if there should 'appen to be cake for tea, don't go makin' a ancient beast of yourself with it—no slippin' lumps of it into your pocket on the sly, mind, because if I ketch ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... like. Why was he alone to be an exception? He had no money at all. He was ashamed to pass by the shop and look at the woman who owned it. He owed thirty-two roubles for beer already. There was money owing to the landlady also. Daryushka sold old clothes and books on the sly, and told lies to the landlady, saying that the doctor was just going to receive a large sum ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said the carpenter. "You can always get rid of a coil of rope to someone, on the sly, you boatswains can. A coil of rope comes to a few guilders. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... friendship should at once have blossomed. He stroked the paw of the Indian lion the first morning, but the day was not over when he was stroking the cheek of the puma; while all he could do with the grizzly at the end of the month was to feed him a little on the sly, and get for thanks a growl of the worse hate. There are men that would soonest tear their benefactors, loathing them the more that they cannot get at them. I suspect that in some mysterious way Glum Gunn and the bear were own brothers. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... trouble, Captain. You have misunderstood the boy, and he has been doing this work on the sly. He showed them to me, though, and I have promised to give ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... touch here an' there, an' ye never saw the like. He ate a penny can'le, an' drank half a bottle o' ink, an' I cudna tell ye a' what. The billies lookit as gin they were gettin' terrifeed at Sandy, when I noticed him gie Bandy a bit wink on the sly; an' I saw syne that Sandy was nae mair mismirized ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... state of rage, and one morning when the apprentice was emptying, on the sly, a bowl of starch which she had burned in making, just as Mme Lorilleux was passing, she rushed in and accused her sister-in-law of insulting her. After this all friendly relations were at ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... did. My rooms cost me so much that I never have a shilling to spare, and I do not go to Monte Carlo often, for these Rossiter-Brownes profess to be very religious people—Baptists, I believe—and hold gambling in great abhorrence, so, as I wish to stand well with them I have to play on the sly, or not at all. They have a house in New York and another in the country somewhere, and a cottage at the sea-side; and they have a maid and a courier, and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne talks as familiarly with both of them as she does with me, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... watchers in the underground world, who possess enormous quantities of it. It frightened him a little when he heard that there was so much fire in the world under us, but he was not apt to be afraid very long and so as he went on searching, and on the sly listening to the talks of windegoos and others, he found that the fire for which he had been so long searching was in the possession of a fierce old medicine warrior who guarded it with the greatest care. Those who had employed ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... doors by the May elves who haunted the town that night playing all sorts of pranks. Such a twanging of bells and rapping of knockers; such a scampering of feet in the dark; such droll collisions as boys came racing round corners, or girls ran into one another's arms as they crept up and down steps on the sly; such laughing, whistling, flying about of flowers and friendly feeling—it was almost a pity that ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... was ever heard of before," said the squirrel, "there is nothing like it in history; I know, for I've often slipped into the owl's muniment room (between you and me) on the sly, and taken a peep at his ancient documents. It is ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... summer winds is sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees; And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees, And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly, Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly. The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings; And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz, And the off-mare is a-switchin' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... up your mind we will, now. I didn't like the looks of the crowd a little bit. Some of these wild waterdogs along the gulf coast, they told me, wouldn't object to a little piratical business on the sly when—" ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... on—ah, as late as possible, I trust—attaining the object of a long cherished ambition, you will have a table d'hote at Belleville Batignolles, and will be courted by the old soldiers and bygone dandies who will come there to play lansquenet or baccarat on the sly? But, before arriving at this period, when the sun of your youth shall have already declined, believe me, my dear child, you will wear out many yards of silk and velvet, many inheritances, no doubt, will ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... more weak than for a boy to have no reason for doing a thing than that men do it? But it led to something worse. He was smoking on the sly, and to conceal it he became a liar. He lied in the school by his conduct, he lied at ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... you do—remain in Cincinnati and meet that vulgar carpenter on the sly, I suppose," ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... just one dreary round, with mother always whining and father always preaching. You heard what he said to the servants to-night? I wonder they stand it. I should go out of my mind myself if I didn't get a little amusement going up to the shops and sneaking into a matinee on the sly. I'm sure I don't know how you'll stand it, after the life you've led. What do you use for your hair? It's so soft and silky. I wish I had black hair like yours. Do you put anything on your hands? They're rather brown; ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Flore, who had been reflecting on her master's silence, waited in expectation of some momentous communication; but although he kept near her, and looked at her on the sly with passionate glances, Jean-Jacques still found nothing to say. At last, when the dessert was on the table, he recommenced the scene of the ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... stories, gave them news, went errands in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls some novel, that she always carried in the pockets of her apron, and of which the good lady herself swallowed long chapters in the intervals of her work. They were all love, lovers, sweethearts, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... I am not sure that he did not give the Kaffirs drink on the sly. At any rate, I have seen some very drunk natives on the road between the locations and Blaauwildebeestefontein, and some of them I recognized as Japp's friends. I discussed the matter with Mr Wardlaw, ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... "Yes! I DID—on the sly! Yesterday morning on your slope by the stream, when no one was up! I washed a panful and got that." She took a piece of tissue paper from her pocket, opened it, and shook into her little palm three tiny ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... the things that made me break away from her in the beginning. She'd had other love affairs for one thing; her late father's masquerading as a doctor for another. They had only used that as a cloak. They had run a gambling-house on the sly—he as the card-sharper, she as the decoy. They had drained one poor fellow dry, and she had thrown him over after leading him on to think that she cared for him and was going to marry him. He blew out his brains in front of her, poor wretch. They say she never turned a hair. You wouldn't believe ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... at all if he lost honestly. You know—for I see you know the world, ma'am—how few men would be proof against such a temptation. There are men high up in their profession—so high that you'd as soon suspect the queen on her throne of selling her country's battles as them—that fight cross on the sly when it's made worth their while. My Ned is no low prize-fighter, as is well known; but when he let himself be beat by that little Killarney Primrose, and went out and bought a horse and trap next day, what could I think? There, ma'am, I tell you that of my own ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... go down while she's alone. When he conies in he'll beat her horribly if he finds out we've been there. I often go in on the sly. I went for him this morning when he began beating ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... priggy-wig," and Alicia shook a finger at her, "if you don't quit that spoilsporting of yours, there'll be trouble in camp! The truth is, there's not much fun in making fudge, just 'cause there's nobody to forbid it! At school, we have to do it on the sly. Here, if Mrs. Berry or Uncle Jeff knew we thought of it, they'd send forty 'leven footmen and maids to help us!" "That's so," laughed Dolly; "I wasn't thinking of them. But isn't it time we all went ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... then considered as closely akin to an unlawful thing, but in laughing and quaffing, and whispering of merry jests. For I have usually found that, be the Rule of Church and State ever so sour and stern, folks will laugh and quaff and jest on the sly, and be merry in the green tree, if they are forced to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may have succeeded to ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... in the hands of the Preventive men by to-morrow," I replied, "and Richard Tresidder will know that a man has come to his house for years at midnight on the sly." ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... of all passers-by under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to her child. Eponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... cook wouldn't at first, but at last she said yes, and Cap o' Rushes made the gruel. And when she had made it she slipped the ring into it on the sly before the cook took ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... Gran'ma Mullins just that very thing but it did n't seem to give her much comfort. She give a little yell an' said oh, Heaven preserve her from havin' to sit by an' watch Lucy Dill raise Hiram's children, for she was sure as she'd never be able to give 'em enough pie on the sly to keep 'em happy an' any one with half an eye could see they'd be washed an' brushed half to death. She says Lucy won't wash a dish without rinsin' it afterwards or sweep a room without carryin' all the furniture out into the yard; oh my, she says her ways is most awful an' ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... was an elegant lady. She kept all Lillie's dresses and laces and wardrobe, and had something ready for her to put on when she changed her toilet every day. If this very fine lady wore her mistress's skirts and sashes, and laces and jewelry, on the sly, to evening parties among the upper servant circles of Springdale, who was to know it? Mrs. John Seymour knew nothing about where her things were, nor what was their condition, and never wanted to trouble ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... big houses, well kept and looked after then. Now lots of them were empty, with broken windows and everything in ruins; others were just good enough to let to people who would live in them, and make a living by cultivating a bit and selling grog on the sly. Where we pulled up was one of these places, and the people were just ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... before all this was known; even Nelson had no perception of it; and although much alarm was indulged in on the sly, the few who gave voice to it were condemned as faint-hearted fellows and "alarmists." How then could Springhaven, which never had feared any enemies, or even neighbours, depart from its habits, while ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... and my greatest concern is to save you from anything of the kind. Will you stop meeting Mr. Willard on the sly?" ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... with pity of her sisters, mill-hands in West Adams still, or married to mill-hands, men who got drunk on the sly and didn't work regular, and wanted a full half of all they made for themselves. 'Gene and his mother were always scolding about the money they could have had if they'd kept that wood-land on the mountain. They'd ought ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... his millionaire crew Will only vote once, sir; while I (Who to scorn laugh the honest assessors) Plump a score to their one—on the sly! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... conjecturing at the motive of this order from the Court of France. "No doubt we are suspected. I never had a hope that we should not be. The Court of France, you see, can do no less than forbid us, but I should not be surprised if it winks at us on the sly. We will give them a month. Colonel Lally is a friend of mine and a friend of the King. We will get an abatement of that order, so that not one of you ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... seen. My life on it, there are plenty of holes and corners in the old house over the way. Run off with a wench! Holy brother Julian! Contemptuous brother Julian! Stand-by-thyself brother Julian! Run away with a wench at last! Well, there's a downfall! He'll be for marrying her on the sly, and away!—I know the old fox!—for her conscience-sake, probably not for his! Well, one comfort is, it's damnation and no reprieve. The ungrateful, atheistical heretic! As if the good old mother wasn't indulgent ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... job to strike a tabooed pearl-island—say, about the fourth year," remarked a third, "skim the whole lagoon on the sly, and up stick and away before the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was in the drawing-room. And what else do you think I found? Why, Cherie administering"-and he pointed down his throat, and made a gulp with a wild grimace of triumph. "On the sly! Ha! ha!" ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so stupid as to let you see, I don't know. Why, you meant to go off on the sly by yourself. Were you going to ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... that!" Louis remarked sarcastically. "I like your nerve. You do it on the sly. You don't say a word to me; and not content with that, you give him all of it. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... expect you know considerably better than I do. Have you never had an hysterical patient who declared she could not walk and after being carried about for months has been discovered dancing a fandango in her bedroom on the sly?" ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... hiding the names cut in the stone long ago, of John and Elizabeth Bartram. The old garden of flowers and the ferns were worth some study. And there were rambles in the lanes, going after wild strawberries, and even the venturesome ones went on the sly to Dunk's Ferry and had their fortune told by Old Alice. There were many little shrieks and giggles, and joyous or ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... "is about one of the hired men we had last winter, whose name was Jacobs. He was a cunning fellow, with a hangdog look, and a great cleverness at stealing farm produce from father on the sly, and selling it. Father knew perfectly well what he was doing, and was wondering what would be the best way to deal with him, when one day something happened that brought ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... drink bitters and gins and the like, such as I understand as good people as clergymen and women take in private, and by advice, I do not know why one should not make them palatable and heat them with his own poker. Cold whiskey out of a bottle, taken as a prescription six times a day on the sly, is n't my idea of virtue any more than the social ancestral glass, sizzling wickedly with the hot iron. Names are so confusing in this world; but things are apt to remain pretty much the same, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... wouldn't have it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the sly" [voice down to an impressive whisper, now,] "and buy up a hundred and thirteen wild cat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri—notes ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... utterance. "'Tis strange," she said, "that I've not seen the chromos At the shop windows."—"Only recently," Said he, "have they been sold here in the city; The market has been chiefly at the West. The old man thought it policy, perhaps, To do it on the sly, lest you should know. Well, well, in that bald head of his he has A mine!" Then Linda struck the bell, and said: "This is my entertainment, Mr. Brown; Please let me pay for it." And Brown's "O no" Was not so wholly irresistible That Linda did not ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... did, Mis' Mayberry!" exclaimed their mother relentlessly. "It was two jars of cherry preserves that Prissy put up and clean forgot to seed 'fore she biled 'em, and the children done took and et 'em on the sly. Now they're going ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had always been allowed to drink when at home and now he frequently drank on the sly when down to Cedarville. On these excursions he was generally joined by a weak-minded boy named Hurdy, who was usually willing to do whatever ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... seat on the stove-couch, and quietly, in the course of their conversation on one thing and another, she managed to ascertain her age, her native village and other such particulars, and then setting her mind diligently to put, on the sly, her conversation and mental capacity to the test, she discovered how deeply worthy she was to be respected and loved. But in a while Pao-y arrived, and Pao-ch'ai ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... do him honor, we pretend that we cannot understand him, and we employ people to explain him to us. We treat his works as alcohol is treated in the arts. It is, as they say, "denaturized," that is, something is put into it that people don't like, so that they will not drink it "on the sly!" ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... squaws together while Frog-in-the-face and his braves were off hunting, and she had the boldness to tell them that she believed they could shoot as well as the men. She said she could, because she had tried it on the sly. With that they got out some old worn-out bows and arrows and went into the woods to try their luck. Well, do you know, those squaws killed so many bears and deer and ducks and turkeys that, loaded down with a baby each, they ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Duchess of Kingston down to the Bird of Paradise, or Kitty Fisher. Here I have met very queer characters, who came to queer ends too: poor Hackman, that afterwards was hanged for killing Miss Reay, and (on the sly) his Reverence Doctor Simony, whom my friend Sam Foote, of the 'Little Theatre,' bade to live even after forgery and the rope cut short ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... goin' a sparkin'," suggested one of the idlers. "The gal up ter the squire's holds herself pooty high an' mighty, but like as not she's as plaguey fond of bundling with a good-looking man on the sly as ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... said I,—my very skin felt tight,—"I see that I must be more underhand in my actions, and contrive to see my friends entirely on the sly." ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... weren't looking into any one of the rooms over there. You were looking at a reflection in that useless old window behind which the elevator runs. That happens when the elevator running on that side is down. I've seen it often and laughed in my sleeve at the chance it gives me to observe on the sly how things are going on at certain benches. Many a girl has got her discharge—But no matter ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... draw it without my signature, and I steadily refuse to sign anything. Again and again they have brought me documents, and I have always said that I would consider them at five and twenty, when I came of age under my father's will. I went on the sly to a lawyer in Kingswell and paid him a guinea for his advice, and he put me up to that. 'Sign nothing,' he said, and I have signed nothing, so, except by forgery nothing can have gone. Still for all that it may have gone. For anything I know I am not worth more than the clothes I stand ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... several ways. To begin with, Master Joe was packed off to a distant school, far from that to which young Reddy was sent. But the boys found each other out in the holidays, and became firm friends on the sly, and Joe was so loyal and admiring that he never ceased to talk to his one confidante of the courage, the friendliness, the generosity, the agility, and skill of his secret hero. The confidante was his sister Julia, to whom the young hereditary enemy became ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... whispered, as he quietly slipped the paper into Bud's hand. "Read it on the sly; and ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays, and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... drove her over to Elmhurst that morning, and he drives over two or three evenings a week to meet her on the sly and get her report. That may be politics, but it ain't very respectable, to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... come acrost the Channel For to wallop Germany; But they 'aven't got no soldiers— Not that any one can see. They plug us with their rifles An' they let their shrapnel fly, But they never takes a pot at us Exceptin' on the sly. ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... to tell me that Charlotte is sick, but I don't really see why you should take so much trouble—I really don't. It doesn't matter to me whether Charlotte is sick or whether she isn't. YOU know that perfectly well, Mr. Patterson, if anybody does. When Charlotte went and got married, on the sly, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... declared Mrs. Floyd. "I hid behind the curtains in the parlor and watched him on the sly while he was waiting for you to come down. I never saw a man show love plainer; he kept looking up at your window, and his face fairly shone when you come out. You can't fool me. He's in love, but he's trying to overcome it ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... that's what I'm afraid of. I took her a shawl one day, the like of which she might never have seen, although she did live in luxury and she gave it away to her maid, Katia. Sometimes when I can keep away no longer, I steal past the house on the sly, and once I watched at the gate till dawn—I thought something was going on—and she saw me from the window. She asked me what I should do if I found she had deceived me. I said, 'You ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... some shame and confusion that she heard the ignorant coachman pass her off as his sweetheart, and ask his brother, the night-watchman, to admit her on the sly, as she was one of the girls employed ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... Connecticut. I went there to visit a distant relative of my dad. It was a little side line and our train ran into a freight. We knocked open a car full of chickens and what do you think? Those chickens scattered far and wide. I'll bet many a family is having chicken dinner on the sly this week!" ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... man faces a fierce dog, knowing that if he turns and runs the dog will pursue. He supposed that as long as he stared at the coffin and saw nothing he could be sure that the deceased remained inside, but that if he gave the ghost opportunity to get out on the sly it might afterwards come at him from any point of the compass. He was an ignorant man, with a vulgar mind; he had some reverence for a corpse, but none whatever for a ghost. His mind had undergone a change concerning the dead the moment he had ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... begun to remember the terms of the wager, and was trying to get a line out on the sly, baited with a piece of meat he had fastened to the hook, in hopes of some gullible fish taking hold, so that he could wildly haul his captive in, and have the ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... and Government made them think so, and so they determined to wait on quietly in Peking till things should get thick, and then it would be time to go south. I think I may safely say that everyone drew out an inventory of his things, and not a few had their most necessary things packed "on the sly," and were ready to start on ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... knowed that suthin' was between us. Well, meetin' out, we started hum, I sorter feelin' what would come. We 'd jest got out, when up stepped Zeke, An' said, "Scuse me, I 'd like to speak To you a minute." "Cert," said I— A-nudgin' Liza on the sly An' laughin' in my sleeve with glee, I asked her, please, to pardon me. We walked away a step er two, Jest to git out o' Liza's view, An' then Zeke said, "I want to know Ef you think you 're Eliza's beau, An' 'at I 'm ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the poet soared, And Sorrow fled when thou wentst by, And, when we said "Here's looking toward" . . . It seemed a better world, say I, With greener grass and bluer sky . . . The writ is on the Tavern Door, And who would tipple on the sly? . . . 'Tis not ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... precautions, provisions and small water casks, or barricoes, had already been stowed in the bows and along the sternsheets of the long-boat; so, after chucking in one or two articles which they had brought up from below beforehand on the sly, amongst which was a good-sized barrel of rum, they proceeded to drop down into the boat one by one, Moody going first and the others following until the whole number, a round dozen in all, had got in—the two who ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... was dark in winter, or in summer before the regular hour for ceasing work had arrived; and to this rule he kept, and that under far greater difficulties, on the Sunday as well. For Mistress Croale would not sell a drop of drink, not even on the sly, on the Sabbath-day: she would fain have some stake in the hidden kingdom; and George, who had not a Sunday stomach he could assume for the day any more than a Sunday coat, was thereby driven to provide his ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... is too thin. It worked all right up to ten o'clock, for Mackay and Fair both came down and spent a good quarter of an hour in the end of the drift and kept tapping around with their hammers. I was mean enough to watch them on the sly and saw them both taking samples. If you keep awake, you will see John Mackay down here again by six o'clock in the morning, and you may make up your mind not to see any more daylight for three days or a week to come; that is, if the drift ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... said, "How can I talk to him, except on the sly, in this place? Never fear, Jack Smith and I know one another too well ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... strangely unconquerable, and it rose again and again, vital and conflicting, to taunt him with its indestructibility. He certainly could not have told himself why he liked to meet this girl so often on the sly and why he liked to kiss her red lips and make her eyes shine into his. But the fact that he did like the meetings and did look forward to the kisses, was quite a dominant factor in his life. Still, these things were apart: ambition, money, reputation were more to the ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... the Otways knew took great glory and comfort in these rumours, but Mrs. Otway heard the news with very mixed feelings. It seemed to her scarcely fair that a Russian army should come, as it were, on the sly, to attack the Germans in France—and she did not like to feel that England would for ever and for aye have to be grateful to Russia for having sent an ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... lower end of this Little City in Itself. And so are the tenants of this musty old row, shady locksmiths with a tendency toward skeleton keys; ingenious upholsterers who indulged in paper-hanging on the sly; shoemakers who did half-soling and heeling, their day's work set to dry on the window-sill, not to mention those addicted to the use of the piano, banjo, or harp, as well as the wig and dress makers who lightened ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of it to be drunk on the premises. It was a coarse, inferior kind of whisky, known in Salt Lake as "Valley Tan." Throughout the city there was no drinking-bar nor billiard room, so far as I am aware. But a drink on the sly could always be had at one of the hard-goods stores, in the back office behind the pile of metal saucepans; or at one of the dry-goods stores, in the little parlor in the rear of the bales of calico. At the present ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... have a look and speak my mind. My son, Alexey, is here, being saved. I am his father; I care for his welfare, and it is my duty to care. While I've been playing the fool, I have been listening and having a look on the sly; and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. You know how things are with us? As a thing falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie for ever. Not a bit of it! I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am indignant with you. Confession is a great ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... passes it off with some jesting remark; "that a fool can ask in five minutes more questions than a wise man can answer in a week," or wish "that the examiners would play fair, and change sides of the table for an hour with the candidates for a finish." But he, too, though he does it on the sly, is cramming with his coach at every available spare moment. Hardy had finished his reading a full thirty-six hours before the first day of paper-work, and had braced himself for the actual struggle ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to believe in. So I believe in the Christian God, and in Wilfrid His Bishop, and in the Church that Wilfrid rules. You have been baptized once by the King's orders. I shall not have you baptized again; but if I find any more old women being sent to Wotan, or any girls dancing on the sly before Balder, or any men talking about Thun or Lok or the rest, I will teach you with my own hands how to keep faith with the Christian God. Go out quietly; you'll find a couple of beefs on the beach." Then of course they shouted "Hurrah!" which meant "Thor ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... with a few shabby fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or an inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech to a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty years ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse de——one of the most elegant women in Paris. I quote literally: "One hides one's pear or one's apple as best one ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... like for a minit, not knowin' what to do; then with a sudden start she spread herself out just like the eagel of Ameriky, and soared rite up into the sky with nothin' to histe her by. I felt in my heart to foller her, and spread out just as she did, keeping near her on the sly. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... head of the stairs was shut; and turkeys, as is well-known, are very timid about moving in the dark. That poor gobbler just stood there, stock-still, on that sheet of bark and did not dare step off it. Three times a day Halstead used to go down there, on the sly, with ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... no good qualities: such as the snake I kept warm in my trousers-pocket; the stickleback that I am convinced I tamed in its own waters; the toad for whom I built a red house of broken drainpipes at the back of the strawberry bed, where I used to go and tickle his head on the sly; and the long-whiskered rat in the barn, who knew me well, and whose death nearly broke my heart, though I had seen generations of unoffending ducklings pass to the ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Potter! Jabez Potter! Nobody'll know till you're in your coffin jest how much good you've done in this world'—on the sly! An' you'll let this pore boy rest an' git well here before he has to go out an' hunt a job for hisself. For my pretty, here, tells me he ain't got no home ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... city since she left it. Upon further inquiry, however, regarding the Kid, he learned that that respectable personage, together with his worthy coadjutor, Black Jack, were in the habit of paying frequent visits to Canada on the sly; it being thought that they were employed by persons who were engaged in smuggling. This information he gained while walking near the breakwater with a new acquaintance well versed in city notorieties, and who, at the moment, happened to espy a boat known to ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Mrs. Gammit with decision. "I thought o' that, too. An' I watched 'em on the sly. But they hain't a one of 'em got no sech onnateral tricks. When they're through layin', they jest hop off an' run away acacklin', as they should." And she shook her head heavily, as one almost despairing of enlightenment. "No, ef ye ain't got no ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the selfish jealousy which would keep her out of her birthright indefinitely. "You want to be real careful, Diantha," said Persis, realizing the futility of her words. "Thad's a nice boy and you're a nice girl, but it don't look well for young folks to be meeting on the sly." ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... or stealing watermelon, it was more fun if it was done on the sly. The boy who comes home feeling deliciously wicked and delightfully sinful after staying away from school all day can have his whole day ruined by being told that it was a holiday and that the school had been closed. Bart Stanton didn't want to spoil his own fun by asking for permission ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... always felt Foe could help. And yet he didn't help very much. He read a heap of poetry—on the sly, as it were; and one night I coaxed him off to a talk about Browning. His language on the ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Jinny, wholly unconscious of Patricia's perturbation. "Came in on the sly last week to have a new set made. Got measured for 'em, and am going to get them day after tomorrow. Thought I'd combine business with pleasure and make a visit while they were being filed to fit. I don't reckon that dentist'll ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... sprees, I abstained totally from the use of ardent spirits. I never could and never did drink in moderation. One drink would always kindle such a fire in my blood that it was out of my power to prevent its spreading into a conflagration. I have very many times been accused of "drinking on the sly," as they say, but every such accusation is false. I have also been accused of using opium. I know the pitiable wretch that started that lie—for it is a lie—and the poor dupe that repeated it. For five years my appetite has been so fierce at times, that, I repeat, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners; in the dark &c. adj. januis clausis[Lat], with closed doors, a huis clos[Fr]; hugger mugger, a la derobee[Fr]; under the cloak of, under the rose, under the table; sub rosa[Lat], en tapinois[Fr], in the background, aside, on the sly, with bated breath, sotto voce[Lat], in a whisper, without beat of drum, a la sourdine[obs3]. behind the veil; beyond mortal ken, beyond the grave, beyond the veil; hid from mortal vision; into the eternal secret, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... I s'pose he intended for me to get 'em on the sly without mentionin' it to you, an' put in what he sent, but I sort of guessed you might like to fall in with his idee by hangin' 'em up yourself, here by the chimbley, where the children all used to do it. Here's the nails, same ...
— On Christmas Day in the Morning • Grace S. Richmond
... you look a gift horse in the mouth, if you are prudent enough to do it on the sly? Besides, don't everybody look in the horse's mouth, as soon as the giver has departed? Suppose you're patriotic, and offer your son to Uncle SAM as a gift, to use in his civil service, isn't Mr. JENCKES's bill designed as a means of looking into your son's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... denotes the master-hand. Moreover, the panels of all the doors, as well as their jambs and frames, were ornamented with sketches in all mediums, illustrating incidents in the lives of the various boarders who occupied the rooms below, and who—so Fred told him afterward—stole into this sacred spot on the sly, to gloat over the night's work whenever a new picture was reported and the rightful denizens were known to ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith |
