"Roundabout way" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Because he hoped to be among German flying-men, he hinted to you that he might be able to do you some service. It occurred to him that he might learn where my grave was and let you know. Nothing further was in his thoughts then—or until he happened to draw out a piece of unexpected information in a roundabout way. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... brown. Joe made note of this, as it was an unusual circumstance. Nearly all the streams, when not flooded, were green in color. He remembered that during his wanderings with Wetzel they had found one stream of this brown, copper-colored water. The lad knew he must take a roundabout way to the village so that he might avoid Indian runners or scouts, and he hoped this stream would prove to be the one he had ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... was on shore. He admitted that it was in the hotel, but declined to say when he would send it on to you, Professor. When he closed the window, I afterwards went into the hotel and had a drink in order to ask casually when Mr. Bolton intended to leave. I gathered—not directly, of course, but in a roundabout way—that he had arranged to go next morning and to send on his luggage. Then I left and went to London. In the course of time I returned here and learned of the murder and the disappearance of the corpse of Inca Caxas. And now," Random stood up, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Judith, after the ceremony, Douglas, on sudden impulse, took a roundabout way to the post-office, thence toward the Browns' ranch. Dusk was settling in the valley. The quivering aspens along Lost Chief creek were etched gray rose on the deep blue snow. Far to the east a single scarlet mountain-top pierced through the twilight ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... demurred from some proposition that the bearded one made, but an instant later something passed from the hand of the caller to the hand of the servant. Then the latter turned and led the visitor by a roundabout way to a little curtained alcove off the apartment in which the countess was wont to serve tea ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cablegram. It was sent in a roundabout way through other people's hands and took some time to reach me. Herr Kenwardine left ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... hailed the proposal. It seemed a roundabout way to St. Enimie, but it did seem a way; and, at any rate, if we were going back, we were not going back to the precise point from which ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... breath or effluvial emanations from the body or other sources. Small-pox, measles, influenza, etc., are examples of this group. By infectious diseases are meant those which are disseminated indirectly, that is, in a roundabout way by means of water or food or other substances taken into or introduced into the body in some way. Typhoid, malaria, and yellow fever, cholera and others are examples of this class. Thus it is evident that all of the contagious diseases may be infectious, ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... And, after a good while and in a roundabout way, I heard that the whole dinner party vowed 'twas the best wild goose they ever ate. So I ain't sure just who the joke was on. However, I'm satisfied with my end. Well, there! I guess you must think I'm pretty talky on short acquaintance, Mr. Sylvester. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... local usage. But indirectly Roman law did exert a by no means insignificant influence through the medium of the Church, which, for all its insular character, was still permeated with Roman ideas and forms of culture. The Old English "books" are derived in a roundabout way from Roman models, and the tribal law of real property was deeply modified by the introduction of individualistic notions as to ownership, donations, wills, rights of women, &c. Yet in this respect also the Norman Conquest increased the store of Roman conceptions by breaking the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... for it was horrible to think that his chum was lost under the sea, not knowing his way back to the Searcher, for they had come a roundabout way. ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... to draw you away. When pursued we were surprised to find that just when we were on the point of overtaking them they were always able to flutter a few yards farther, until they had led us about a quarter of a mile from the nest; then, suddenly getting well, they quietly flew home by a roundabout way to their precious babies or eggs, o'er a' the ills of life victorious, bad boys among the worst. The Yankee took particular pleasure in encouraging ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... of his wife had led to the mischief, and his desertion of his country's flag seemed to merit censure. It was, however, finally decided that when he ran away he "acted rather from levity than malice;" and as he had entered the Spanish army in a roundabout way, and after considerable persuasion, that the loss of his leg in that service was sufficient punishment. The guilt of his wife, Bertrande de Rols, was thought even more apparent, and that a woman could be deceived in her husband was a proposition few could digest. Yet, as the woman's life-long character ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... the shadowy wall of the building, they turned a corner and by a roundabout way reached ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... when I run across the cabin, an' they didn't even ask me in ter warm my bones. An' that was me you heard outside that night. I was tryin' ter diskiver the mystery. I reckon I didn't git back until arter you fell, else I'd a' heard you screech. You see, I took a roundabout way so as ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... the governor, was sitting alone reading the Oolos, paying no attention, of course, to what was taking place in the waiting-room; in fact, he had his back turned. Ivan Ossipovitch approached the subject in a roundabout way, almost in a "whisper, but kept getting a little muddled. Nikolay looked anything but cordial, not at all as a relation should. He was pale and sat looking down and continually moving his eyebrows as though ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... case was mentioned to me yesterday, which illustrates the very roundabout way in which justice is arrived at among us all here. The coolies in a French coolie ship rose. The master and mate jumped overboard, and the coolies ran the ship on shore, where the crew had their clothes, &c., taken from them, but were otherwise well treated. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... with the sense of rocking violently at her side. More than prepared, however, for that excitement, Mrs. Stringham mainly failed of ease in respect to her own consistency. To attach herself for an indefinite time seemed a roundabout way of holding her hands off. If she wished to be sure of neither touching nor smutching, the straighter plan would doubtless have been not to keep her friend within reach. This in fact she fully recognised, and with it the degree to which ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... over, however, this weighty problem without saying a word. We shall try in this chapter to present Enlightenment before the reader in a roundabout way, just as the painter gives the fragmentary sketches of a beautiful city, being unable to give even a bird's-eye view of it. Enlightenment, first of all, implies an insight into the nature of Self. It is an emancipation ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... of it," returned Carton excitedly, "The story is to be, as I understand it, that the fake pictures were among those stolen from me and that in a roundabout way they came into the possession of someone in the organization, without their knowing who the thief was. Of course they don't know who took them and the original plates or films are destroyed, but they've concocted some means of putting a date on them ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... the station and escorted him in a roundabout way to Southlook, carefully avoiding the main village thoroughfare and High street, where the fashionable colony was intrenched. Mr. Smith, being an experienced detective, was not surprised to find (after the introduction), that Mr. Wrandall's attorney had been a fellow-passenger from town. If he was ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... follow it. It is good. When Carnival is over I will go away, and perhaps get to Saracinesca by a roundabout way, so that no one will know where I am. Will ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... discern, lurking under the comely vesture of Italy, the clumsy form of the Teuton. It is amusing to reflect that the recent railway concessions in Asia Minor, for which Italian statesmen laboured so hard and so long, went in reality to the Banca Commerciale, which is but a roundabout way of saying to Germany. And in order to win their suit and have those advantages conferred on "Italy," King Victor's Government agreed to renounce their claims for the reimbursement of the expenses incurred during the administration ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... reasoning is exceedingly poetical, and also (mind, also, not therefore) exceedingly nonsensical. No, Sir, the Cat and the Fiddle is of greater antiquity. Did you ever read the History of Rome? Of Rome! yes, of Rome. Thence comes the Cat and the Fiddle, in somewhat a roundabout way perhaps, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... had gone out to look after his horses. When questioned, he stated that they might return by a roundabout way through the village of Neckbury, but that it might take half an ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... could be spared from Quebec; he detached a body of troops under Colonel Haviland from Crown Point, to cross Lake Champlain, take possession of the Isle Aux Noix, and push on to the St. Lawrence, while he took the roundabout way with his main army by the Mohawk and Oneida rivers to Lake Ontario; thence to descend the St. Lawrence ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... with Levi Bedford and Artie before we make another move. Keep your eyes open while I am gone," said the major, and moved off in a roundabout way for Fort Bedford. ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... at Monte Carlo, he said, with his old friends, the Comte et Comtesse de Lorgnes, had resulted in their yielding to his insistence that they tour with him back to Paris by this roundabout way. ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... straightforward a way for you,—ever the roundabout way for you. I wish to God you would sometimes let your Campbell tongue come out of the kink, and say what ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... might have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit. He acquainted the Third National Bank with this fact, and of course the information came to Cowperwood as teller. He told his wife about it, and so his son, in this roundabout way, heard it, and his clear, big eyes glistened. He wondered why his father did not take advantage of the situation and buy some Texas certificates for himself. Grund, so his father said, and possibly three or four others, had made over a hundred thousand dollars ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... fittings, though frayed, were of rich quality. Mr. Latimer seated himself opposite to me and we started off through Charing Cross and up the Shaftesbury Avenue. We had come out upon Oxford Street and I had ventured some remark as to this being a roundabout way to Kensington, when my words were arrested by the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... deliberating how to begin. He felt that he could not show his bundle of clothes to so fair and fine a creature as this, whose manners were so soft and whose smile so pleasant. He would do anything first. He would try a roundabout way of making known his wishes, trusting to his own powers and the intelligence of the lady for a full and complete understanding. Just as he had come to this conclusion there was a timid knock at ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... admit. But all I can tell you is we had a telegram from him an hour or two ago which doesn't look as if he was doing much good. It was sent from Lyons, a roundabout way of getting to Paris from here, and now he's going south! Of all ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... reaching the same place he perceived that a new route had been made, and that instead of a roundabout way of approach, as in the past, the house was now in a straight line from the point where he was looking at it, it would be possible to estimate approximately the number of minutes which he could gain on the time employed ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... that those very savages rode out on the plains in a roundabout way, so as to get in advance of the Cheyennes, and then had hidden themselves on the top of a bluff overlooking the trail they knew the Cheyennes to be following, and had fired upon them as they passed below, killing two and wounding a number of others. You can see how treacherous ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... our backs on the road we came," he said, "and on another road that leads in a roundabout way to the Grande Avenue again. So now we must look into the unknown ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... to New Zealand. I had a letter from him this morning. Here it is. "I heard yesterday that H. W. is dead. She died a fortnight ago, and a letter from her mother has only just reached me in a roundabout way. She had been ailing for some time. They suspected drains, and had workmen in, with assurance that all had been put right. Since H.'s death the drains have again been examined, and it was found that the men ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... off, and begin as before? It is fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the day. But, alas! when I see 'works of the late J. A. S.,' I can see no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think, three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it, waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night, and the voice is silent ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the tree in the orchard where Mitch was. Then we walked clear to the back of the orchard, clumb the rail fence, walked through the meadow a roundabout way and came to the road on the other side of the Tate farm. So here we struck out for Atterberry, so as to walk the railroad to Havaner. We thought we could make Oakford ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... advisers, it is not {17} surprising that Sir James Craig soon took umbrage at the language and policy of Le Canadien. At first he made his displeasure felt in a somewhat roundabout way. In the summer of 1808 he dismissed from the militia five officers who were reputed to have a connection with that newspaper, on the ground that they were helping a 'seditious and defamatory journal.' One ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... Edwin murmured, after reflection, "that they should bring clay all that roundabout way just to make crocks of it here. Why should they choose just this place to make crocks in? ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... as the doctor came and examined the injury Agnes had sustained, he found that, independent of the fracture of the spine, she was much hurt internally. He had no hopes of her recovery, and he commenced, in a roundabout way to break the opinion to her; but she saw it already in his face, and ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... the man who had shown him the pianos and was now accompanying him to the door that this package under his arm represented potentially the price of the piano he was going to have. He did it in a roundabout way, with one of his droll, hesitating smiles. The man did not understand at all, and Theron had not the temerity to repeat the remark. He strode home with the precious bundle as fast ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... when the rainfall was greater, Death Valley was a saline lake and received a number of streams, two of which were large enough to be called rivers. The Amargoza River, starting from Nevada and pursuing a roundabout way, entered the southern end of the valley. The Mohave River, which rises in the San Bernardino Range, also emptied into the valley at one time, but now its waters, absorbed by the thirsty air and by the sands, disappear in the sink ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... a space, stole back to where he could hear any sound from the porch even if he could not see, and when he was certain that Baumberger had gone back to his bed, he got his horse, took him by a roundabout way to the stable, and himself slept in a haystack. At least, he made himself a soft place beside one, and lay there until the sun rose, and if he did not sleep it was not his fault, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... This is a roundabout way of saying that nature, human beings and human society are part and parcel of a total relationship which includes the planet earth, the solar system and an immense range of celestia which includes minute particles of celestial ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... stupor until Milo, my host, himself approached and clapping me on the shoulder, drew me away with gentle violence, my tears now flowing freely and sobs choking my voice. He led me back to the house by a roundabout way through the least frequented streets, doing his best meanwhile to soothe my nerves and heal my wounded feelings. But nothing he could say availed to lessen my bitter indignation at having been made so undeservedly ridiculous. But ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... it was, he swerved hurriedly in another direction, and got to his destination by a roundabout way, feeling as he reached it about as miserable and hopeless as it was possible for ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... down the slope of the hill and around its base to the private car, but they made it still longer by walking slowly and taking the most roundabout way. Three persons saw them coming—Agatha, standing rigid on the platform; the negro attendant, standing behind Agatha in the doorway, his eyes wide with interest; and Carson, seated on a boulder a little distance down the cut, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... army people would choose that roundabout way from Manila when they can come direct by transport, and have ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... time to be remembered as long as they lived. All of Europe was plunged in gloom. Even the neutral countries they touched or crossed in their roundabout way were oppressed by such sorrow that it was almost ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... wished to enlarge his castle, he had the walls and towers built down to the river's edge. This closed up the big road, so that people had to go far around and up over the hill, or by boat along the river. Such a roundabout way took much time and toil, and was ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... his hat over his eyes and slunk away, not to be recognized. He went in a roundabout way past the chapel. He had just one desire, to stand under the goalposts they had defended and to feel again ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... stop the butcher's man who had just been delivering some meat at the back door. Nancy had heard her ask the man to post the letter when he got back to Frizinghall. The man had looked at the address, and had said it was a roundabout way of delivering a letter directed to Cobb's Hole, to post it at Frizinghall—and that, moreover, on a Saturday, which would prevent the letter from getting to its destination until Monday morning, Rosanna had answered that the delivery of the letter being delayed ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... this:—'These are not Astronomy, but to convey the idea that I have forgotten where I was, and that we have to make it a rule never to re-read, for fear I should tear it up. I believe I was trying to find a new roundabout way of saying how much more to me you were than anything in Heaven or Earth.'" ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... back quickly, by a roundabout way, and walked into the bar of the Royal, through the back entrance from the stables, and stared, and wanted to know where all the chaps had gone to, and what the noise was about, and whose trap had run away, and if ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... gentlemen! And I wish you had been with us, Mamma. I came a roundabout way back alone with my "partner-in-sauce" as we called him, in his automobile, an open one, and we just tore along for miles as fast as we could, and though he was driving himself, he managed to say all sorts of charming things; and when we got ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... comes in a roundabout way," he replied slowly. "Penfield, who is known all over the Southwestern as Mr. North's private detective and spy, is with Mr. Colbrith acting as the president's secretary. Yesterday, while the Nadia was side-tracked ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... say to you is something very general, and yet I prefer to choose this roundabout way. I do not know whether it is false or true delicacy, but I should find it very hard to talk with you, face to face, about friendship. And yet it is thoughts on that subject that I wish to convey to you. The application—and it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in a roundabout way, and only after repeated failures. The first attempt to obtain an assembly of representatives was made at Annapolis, Maryland. Only five States sent representatives, and the convention accordingly adjourned to Philadelphia, where in May, 1778, delegates from all the States, except Rhode ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... "Joe thinks he saw a bunch of horsemen trailing us. My eyes are bad and I can't see far. The Indian will find out. I took a roundabout way to reach the village because I'm ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... skimmed in a great circle and came by a roundabout way back to the little fuzz-balls she had left ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... amused the other day with a young lady who came and sat on my bed when I was sick (for I am just getting well from a quite serious illness), and after some half dozen sighs, wished she were Anna Prentiss that she might be loved as intensely as she desired. This is a roundabout way of saying how very dear you are to me. What chatter-boxes girls are! I wonder how many times I've stopped to say "My dear, don't talk so much—for I am writing ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... fiendishly cold-blooded and calculating that it made his blood boil, for it was perfectly evident now to Buck that he had thwarted a deliberate plot to introduce the blackleg scourge among the Shoe-Bar cattle. Instead of riding fence, the two punchers must have made their roundabout way immediately to the stricken T-T ranch, secured in some manner an infected yearling and brought it back through the twisting mountain trail Bud had spoken of a ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... a somewhat roundabout way to the gate, opened it and closed it behind them before she attempted to mount. Jake was very tall—much taller than he had ever before seemed to be. She had to hunt a high spot and coax him to stand on the lower ground beside it before she could feel confidence enough to lift her ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... the Russians from Grodno there were available two railroads, one running north to Vilna and another running at first southeast to Mosty, and there dividing into two branches by both of which finally in a roundabout way either Minsk or Kieff could be reached. The Germans, of course, were eager to cut off these lines of retreat. The latter road was threatened by the forces approaching Grodno from the south. Before they reached it, however, troops from Von ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... entered it by a small side door, desiring the young man to be seated, whilst he gave some directions. In a few minutes he reappeared, bringing Von Kapell with him. The worthy Hamburgher having no talent for a roundabout way of doing business, said bluntly, "So Mynheer! we are well met; it will be useless to attempt disguise with me; look at this!" and he put into his hand the letter he had the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... consultation, the guide announced that he was ready for the attempt, and advanced, followed by the others. They took a roundabout way, so as to get at the pagoda on the rear. They reached the walls about half-past twelve, without having met anyone; here there was no guard, nor were there either windows ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... settled yet; and one does not see anything certain, or even promising, of a settlement. But I do not lose the solid feeling, in myself, that the Union triumph is assured, whether it be sooner or whether it be later, or whatever roundabout way we may be led there; and I find I don't change that conviction from any reverses we meet, nor delays, nor blunders. One realizes here in Washington the great labors, even the negative ones, of Lincoln; that it is a big thing to have just kept the United States ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a roundabout way to tackle the question. If I were you, I'd just shoot him and let it go at that," ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... entrance gate to the old family mansion of Midbranch, but it was never opened to admit the family or visitors; although occasionally a load of wood, drawn by two horses and two mules, came between its tall chestnut posts, and was taken by a roundabout way among the trees to a spot at the back of the house, where the chips of several generations of sturdy wood-choppers had formed a ligneous soil deeper than the arable surface of any portion of the nine hundred ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... thus, with accumulations, it had become more definite to her that the unspoken was, unspeakably, the completeness of the sacrifice of Mrs. Beale. There were times when every minute that Sir Claude stayed away was like a nail in Mrs. Beale's coffin. That brought back to Maisie—it was a roundabout way—the beauty and antiquity of her connexion with the flower of the Overmores as well as that lady's own grace and charm, her peculiar prettiness and cleverness and even her peculiar tribulations. A hundred things hummed at the back ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... have had no orders to return. Sir John expects me to stay. At least, so I've heard in a roundabout way." ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... political struggles at home—the Corn Law Repeal and the vexed question of Ireland—had still no anxiety over Franklin. No message could have come except {118} by the chance of a whaling ship or in some roundabout way through the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company, after all but a slender chance. The summer of 1846 came and went and then another winter, and now with the opening of the new year, 1847, the ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... face as the curtain came down, it was not that of one indifferent to him or to what he did. He neared the town half-way between midnight and morning. Almost unconsciously avoiding the main streets, he rode a roundabout way towards the little house where Constantine Jopp lived. He could hear loud noises in the streets, singing, and hoarse shouts. Then silence came, then shouts, and silence again. It was all quiet as he rode up to Jopp's house, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Polly; but her motherly instinct won the day and she urged him to eat before disturbing him with her own anxieties. It was no use. He only toyed with his food; he was clearly ill at ease and eager to be alone. She gave up trying to tempt his appetite, and began to lead up in a roundabout way to the things which ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... shrewd Roman said: "The gods will give us what is most appropriate; man is dearer to them than to himself." But the faithful Anglo-Saxon maintains that his prayer is none the less answered even if it be denied, and that it is made up to him in some roundabout way. It is inconceivable to the Anglo-Saxon that there may be a strain of sadness and melancholy in the very mind of God; he cannot understand that there can be any beauty in sorrow. To the Celt, sorrow itself is dear and beautiful, and the mournful ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "You better be careful how you talk to me, Mr. Farnum. I might want to know what Big Tim was doing in your office yesterday. I might want to know what business took you up to The Brakes by a mighty roundabout way." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Well, I'll tell you. It's a queer story, and most people wouldn't see anything in it. My enemies might say it was a roundabout way of explaining a failure; but you know better than that. Mrs. Mellish was right. Between me and Vard there could be no question of failure. The man was made for me—I felt that the first time I clapped eyes on him. I could hardly keep from asking him to sit to me on the spot; but somehow ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... a roundabout way, but I think you would find it far the safest, for there are no armies operating upon that line. The population, at any rate as you get south, are for us, and there are, so far as I have heard, very few of these bushwhacking bands about either on one ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the gorgeous sunshine and her youth and health put her in a steadily less cheerless mood as by a roundabout way she sought the shop of the jeweler who sold the general the gold bag she had selected. The proprietor himself was in the front part of the shop and received "Madame la Generale" with all the honors of her husband's wealth. She brought no experience and no natural trading ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... supposing that they secretly entertain a hope that the very act of having made a peace with the Regicides will give a stability to the Regicide system. This will not clear the discourse from the absurdity, but it will account for the conduct, which such reasoning so ill defends. What a roundabout way is this to peace,—to make war for the destruction of regicides, and then to give them peace in order to insure a stability that will enable them to observe it! I say nothing of the honor displayed in such a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it in a roundabout way. Was there any money in the job, and what was he expected ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... depended on the vexed question of means of communication. There was no cross-country railway linking the eastern German wing to the western German wing. As has been previously remarked, all supplies and munitions had to come in a roundabout way. Verdun was a desired goal, but Field Marshal von Heeringen was wise enough to know that if the crown prince's effort against General Sarrail had failed, if the Third French Army had secured heavy reenforcement, and if it had been left unmolested ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... spirit I like to see," he answered. "We shall do, depend upon it. I've no great fancy for being caught by the Spaniards and clapped into prison; and they are certain to be looking for us all along the western coast. We shall have to go rather a roundabout way, but that can't be helped. Now, from what I hear, the Indians have pretty well cleared the country of the white men to the south of this, so we shall have little to fear from the Spaniards; and as you say the Indians are your friends, if we fall in with ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... says. Ug-g-h! No, it isn't that. It's the lugging the poor girl into his ma's sphere of influence. He's conscious of his ma, but adores her. Only he's aware she's overwhelming, and always gets her own roundabout way. I prefer Tishy's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... proposals of marriage. When Samuel Marlowe's grandfather had convinced himself, after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe's grandmother-to-be was love, the fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having noted ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... senseless when he had arrested Moriarity, and took him to old Nance, the widow. Still later, you, Cook and Moriarity took refuge at Swanson's ranche in the Indian Territory, and after attempting to rob your host, which attempt was frustrated by my men, you came, in some roundabout way, to Chicago, where you put up at the Commercial Hotel, disguised by a false mustache. Every evening you went to West Lake street, and last night you were arrested. Now, Mr. Wittrock, what have you ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... accomplished, but manifestly this kind of a discharge can only be effective from a very small field. Where the relief is not brought about by these tumbles of snow, another mode of gravitative action accomplishes the result, though in a more roundabout way, through ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... then asked him in a roundabout way if he thought any of his guests could have had anything to say to it. Phew! How furious Sir Roland became with them! You should have seen him—I was with him at the time. Then suddenly he grew quite calm, realizing that they ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... here just a bit?" King asked pleadingly. "It won't take us more than an hour to get back if we go along at a fair pace. We came by a roundabout way." ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... as it happened to be the wrong bell, he obtained the presence of Joseph in a roundabout way, through the agency of a gentleman-in-waiting. Such, however, is the human faculty of adaptation to environment that he was merely amused in the morning by an error which, on the previous night, would have put him ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... hanging out lights, firing guns, and shrieking vainly for the General, who is gone on a new course, in which he might have caught the fleet after all, in spite of his two mistakes, but that he chooses to go a roundabout way instead of a short one; and away goes the whole fleet, save one Carack, which runs itself on shore and burns, and the game is played ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... into a life of her own, which had all the external signs of enjoyment. I doubt if he was ever very selfish where she was concerned, and love can forgive almost any conduct where there is personal indulgence. I had a glimpse of the real state of things in a roundabout way. Henderson loved his wife and was proud of her, and he was not unkind, but he might have been a brute and tied her up to the bedpost, and she never would have shown by the least sign to the world that she was not the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the path he had first chosen would take him directly among the hunters; and, in spite of his insolence, he feared the Baron too much to wish to expose himself to the danger of another chastisement. He therefore retraced his steps and took a roundabout way through the thickets, whose paths were all familiar to him; he descended to the banks of the river ready to ascend to the place appointed for the rendezvous as soon as the hunting ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the lawyer that he knew nothing of this, although he had heard in a roundabout way that such an intention had been talked of; and he also at length succeeded in making Sir Abraham understand that even this did not satisfy him. The attorney-general stood up, put his hands into his breeches' pockets, and raised his eyebrows, as Mr Harding proceeded to detail the grievance ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... with an uncomfortable memory of a conversation with Mary the day before. They had been shopping, and had lunched together at a popular tea room. It was while they sat in their secluded corner that Aunt Frances had introduced in a roundabout way the ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... quiet Sunday evening, when her fickle passion had reached its short-lived height, he had even been allowed the felicity of accompanying her to vespers at the quaint old Norman Church, which lay snuggled away in woods behind the Thames. They had returned to the inn by a roundabout way, through the meadows beneath the twilight, speaking all manner of intense things, and, very wonderfully, believing both themselves and their sayings to be sincere. When he had entered his skiff and pushed out from the bank, she had called him back and royally permitted him to give her his first and, ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... a singular state of mind, for although filled with an intense longing, this was balanced by a curious sensation of dread, consequent upon his somewhat nervous temperament, which is a roundabout way of saying ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... there doesn't I shall be disappointed! We're all eager for adventures, and that's why I took this long, roundabout way to the ranch. We could have gone there in next to no time, by rail, but that's too humdrum a thing. Anyhow, I bow to Miss Milliken's prejudices for the time being. We shall be in sight of each other all the time, I expect, and meet at Roderick's for our suppers ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... chimney-tops included,) all white-capt, black- hooded, and periwigg'd, or crop-ear'd up by the immobile vulgus: while the floating street-swarmers, who have seen us pass by at one place, run with stretched-out necks, and strained eye-balls, a roundabout way, and elbow and shoulder themselves into places by which we have not passed, in order to obtain another sight of us; every street continuing to pour out its swarms of late-comers, to add to the gathering snowball; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... close them at time of service would have been to plunge the church into utter darkness. Permission was sometimes given, as in Haverhill, to "sett up a shed outside of the window to keep out the heat of the sun there,"—a very roundabout way to accomplish a very simple end. As years passed on, trees sprang up and grew apace, and too often the churches became overhung and heavily shadowed by dense, sombre spruce, cedar, and fir trees. A New England parson was preaching in a neighboring church ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... going! I have been to just about every country but Japan. I believe father would rather have skipped off alone this time. It seems to be some suddenly important international crisis that we are going over to settle. That's why we are going East the roundabout way. We must stop at Washington for instructions, then again at London ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... spoiled for work, I chose a roundabout way, in fact the longest, and took the high-road to Dives, but neither the road nor the town itself (when I passed through it) rewarded my vague hope that I might meet Mrs. Harman, and I strode the long miles in considerable disgruntlement, for it was largely in that hope that I had ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... hardly call this, holding the mirror up to Nature, yet, in a curious roundabout way, the stage seems to justify itself and become true after the event. There was a rather bitter discussion some time ago between an author and a critic; the latter had remarked that the language of the dramatist's people did not sound true, that it seemed composed of scraps from the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... popularity, fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word "step" is somewhat misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from the South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with a carefree negroid ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... air, and was rather glad to get rid of me. It was a dark night when I bade her good-bye, and taking with me, as aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so much trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements, by a roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded immediately ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... perception of this startling fact, according to a newspaper account, came in a very strange, roundabout way to a man living on the outskirts of the vast area of made ground where the great city had spread over what was formerly the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... right out and say "Do you need anything in my line?" for if he answers "No" I ought to turn about and leave him, so I casually remark that it is a good day, or a stormy day, and he says "Yes," as if he had heard that before. I take a roundabout way of getting to my business, and all the time he would be very glad if I was in Halifax. I may interest him in my goods before I get through, but if he could have had his way he would have omitted the interview until a better ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... new buildings rise so swiftly, that I shall have not a shilling left, so far from giving commissions on Amsterdam. When I have made my house so big that I don't know what to do with it, and am entirely undone, I propose, like King Pyrrhus, who took such a roundabout way to a bowl of punch, to sit down and enjoy myself; but with this difference, that it is better to ruin one's self than all the world. I am sure you would think as I do, though Pyrrhus were King of Prussia. I long to have you bring back the only hero that ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... ingenuity. Our white pre-eminence owes much to this faculty, and the lower races are reckoned defective in it. But the lower races do invent, and it is doubtful whether one invention is ever much more difficult than another. On the psychological side, an invention means that the mind sees a roundabout way of reaching an end when it cannot be reached directly. It brings into play the associative memory, and involves the recognition of analogies. There is a certain likeness between the flying back of a bough in one's ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... my first master, was not fated to be relieved of his treasure, as my story will tell, even though a skilful plot had been laid for his spoliation. Which is the very point of my tale, although I may seem to come to it by a roundabout way of telling." ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... clay banks, as the coroner had attested after an autopsy; and a miserable county prosecutor was looking for John Barclay. So he hid all the next day in his offices, and that evening took Neal Ward on a special train in his private car, on a roundabout way home to Sycamore Ridge. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... the earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson took the roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making the circuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her out at the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting on her front porch, placidly crocheting, when the phaeton ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... follow the lead of the others, without compromising, and even to go so far as to deny their true opinion of me. Berlioz aroused a universal feeling of anger amongst my adherents, by an article which began in a roundabout way, but ended with an open attack on me which he published in the Journal des Debats. As he had once been an old friend, I was determined not to overlook this treatment, and answered his onslaught in a letter which, with the greatest difficulty, I managed to get translated ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... of country without a sign of civilization, though of course a train went so much faster than a horse that he had no adequate means of judging. Then, besides, they were on no trail now, and had probably gone in a most roundabout way to anywhere. In reality they had twice come within five miles of little homesteads, tucked away beside a stream in a fertile spot; but they had not known it. A mile further to the right at one spot would have put them ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... Susan myself—there was no time to tackle her in a roundabout way through mother. I wrote to her and got her reply this morning. She sent me—what do you think? Instead of the beautiful ribbons which I asked for, three yards of which are absolutely necessary to make even a show of a decent appearance, six stamps! Six stamps, I assure you, ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... with any one else,—it would have been difficult to deny to him what was apparent to an entire summer colony,—but she explained that that did not mean she would marry him. She announced this when the signs she knew made it seem necessary. She announced it in what was for her a roundabout way, by remarking suddenly that she did not intend to ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... like to explain to you some of my doings; and I must go a roundabout way to do it. Miss Hazel, do you read ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... explained. "The Government is accused, in certain hostile foreign circles, of conspiring with the leaders of the revolution now brewing in China. He declared that the Washington officials were even charged with sending the gold to the rebels by the roundabout way of the present ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... south, a few furlongs distant, the Williamsburg and Richmond turnpike ran, parallel with the railway, toward the field of Seven Pines. The latter site, was simply the junction of the turnpike with a roundabout way to Richmond, called the "Nine Mile Road," and Fairoaks was the junction of the diverging road with the railroad. Toward the latter I proceeded, and soon came to the Irish brigade, located on both sides of the way, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... name before the invention of the telephone, but the reasoning is the same. It puts the world at one remove, shutting the mind up to the circle of its ideas; and then it doubts or denies the world, or, at least, holds that its existence must be proved in some roundabout way. Compare Descartes, "Of the Existence of ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... the sack upon his shoulders. It wobbled a good deal, and the Kid came near falling sidewise off the last step before he could balance his burden. But he managed it, being the child of his parents and having a good deal of persistence in his makeup; and he went, by a roundabout way, to the stable with the grub-sack bending him double. Still it was not so very heavy; it was made bulky by about two dozen fresh-made doughnuts and a loaf of bread and a jar of honey and a glass of wild-currant jelly and a pound or so ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... as much. That would settle the obnoxious critic, wouldn't it! Though it's rather a roundabout way." ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in 'er I don't know. I asked 'im one evening—in a roundabout way—and he answered in such a long, roundabout way that I didn't know wot to make of it till I see that she was standing just behind me, listening. Arter that I heard 'er asking questions about me, but I didn't 'ave ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... the Robert-Menela-Twins visit was that, having arrived at Utrecht, they should be taken on by us to Rotterdam, before "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" bore us northward again to Zeeland. This roundabout way of journeying was the penalty of our beautiful day on the Vecht; because, to see the Vecht after Utrecht, we were obliged to land at Amsterdam; and as there was no nearer way of reaching Zeeland than by passing ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... for gulled we will be. It is better to be caught at once, than to have our gills torn by wriggling off the hook the twenty times, to be caught at last. It is better to walk straight into the net than to fatigue ourselves by coming to it in a roundabout way. A Nova-Scotian once rallied a Down-Easter on the famous wooden hams. 'Yaas,' was the reply, 'and they say that one of you actilly ate one and didn't know the difference.' Well, it is better to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the testimony of a neighbor who professed to have overheard what he deemed an incriminating statement. As a matter of fact the remark, if made, was harmless enough.[17] Expert evidence was introduced in a roundabout way by the statement offered in court that a physician had suspected that a certain case was witchcraft. Nothing was excluded. The garrulous women had been give free rein to pile up their silly accusations against one another. Not until the trial was nearing its ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... the information she had taken such a roundabout way to communicate! It was to this end she had purposely led the conversation by adroit stages, studying him gaily, impatiently or maliciously, as she marked the effect of her words upon him. All alive, she stepped back laughing; ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... (mentioned by Vancouver as a youth), was found to be able to interpret some of the signs made by the strangers, and after a little practice he entered into a continued conversation with them in rather a roundabout way, being himself blind. He informed me that it was the second or third time within his recollection that strangers like those then present had come to Kinnik from the northeast, but that in his youth he had frequently "talked with his hands" to their ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... roundabout way I met the fellow who had the papers. For a consideration he let me have them. If you want them you can have them—-provided you will ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... "perjured traitor" and cried that, if it were not for his priestly robes and the wickedness of the act, he would know how to answer in arms such an accusation. During the night that followed, Becket secretly left Northampton, and by a roundabout way after two weeks succeeded in escaping to the continent in disguise. The next day the court held its last session. After some discussion it was resolved to allow the case to stand as it was, and not even to take the archbishop's fief into the king's hands until ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... fearful in reporting the dangerous part of this interview, on account of the many spies not only in my own Embassy but also in the State Department, that I sent but a very few words in a roundabout way by ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... the good?" returned Andrews. "The enemy's engine will reach Dalton in a minute or two—perhaps they are there now—and they can telegraph on to Chattanooga by way of the wires on the Cleveland line. It's a roundabout way, but it will answer their purpose ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... years' boarding there, one of the Somerset Exhibitions to Brasenose. As a separate income of L150 had been left by De Quincey's father to each of his sons, as this income, or part of it, must have been accumulating, and as the mother was very well off, this roundabout way of securing for him a miserable forty or fifty pounds a year seems strange enough. But it has to be remembered that for all these details we have little security but De Quincey himself. However, that he did go to Manchester, and did, after rather more than two ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... escorted to and from school, for I had persuaded my family to discontinue a custom that made me ridiculous in the eyes of my companions. Often, before returning home, I would take a long and roundabout way and pass by the peaceful ramparts from where I had glimpses of other provinces, and a sight ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... dropped into the road by the vicarage letter-box, and looking carefully about, to ascertain that no person was near, he restored the letter to its nook, placed the key in its hiding-place, as he had promised the postman, and again rode homewards by a roundabout way. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... proportionals when in 5, x, y, 20, x {120} is a mean proportional between 5 and y, and y is a mean proportional between x and 20. And these means are x 5 [cuberoot]4, y 5 [cuberoot]16. But Mr. Smith finds one mean, finds it again in a roundabout way, and produces 10 and 10 as the two (equal!) means, in solution of the "famous old problem." This is enough: if more were wanted, there is more where this came from. Let it not be forgotten that Mr. Smith has found a translator abroad, two, perhaps three, followers at home, and—most ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... to be extraordinary, and then began exploring the Harz mountains. He sent me some of the ores he found; it appears that there is nearly everything in those ranges. I heard no more until the news came, in a roundabout way, that he was dead and his ashes cast to the four winds. His writings were supposed to have been burned at the same time, but not all of them were, for three manuscripts at least must have gone to make up the fragments we found among our bezants. I wish for your sake, Alan, ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... kind of an opinion can you have of me? But I did so intentionally, I have been burning to find an opportunity to say what I did for a long time. Believe me, if I got a two-shilling bit every time I've been questioned about the boy's parentage—either openly or in a roundabout way—I should be a well-to-do man by now. I've often felt annoyed at the questions; what I said just now was the answer to them all. I trust they have understood it. They can keep their surmises to themselves ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... in a somewhat roundabout way. They had gone from Greece to Alexandria. They had then been translated from the Greek into the Arabic language by the Mohammedans who conquered Egypt in the seventh century. They had followed the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon |
