"Sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the Commissioner of Agriculture herewith contains suggestions of much interest to the general public, and refers to the sly approaching Centennial and the part his Department is ready to take in it. I feel that the nation at large is interested in having this exposition a success, and commend to Congress such action as will secure a greater general interest in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... way among them, and became acquainted with their children, there had sprung up a most curious sort of understanding between the Butterfly Man on the one side, and the half-articulate foreigners in the factory and the sly secretive ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... we would sit down to chess and then Fyne's everlasting gravity became faintly tinged by an attenuated gleam of something inward which resembled sly satisfaction. Of the divine frivolity of laughter he was only capable over a chess-board. Certain positions of the game struck him as humorous, which nothing else on earth ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... taboo of the names of the dead, how differently would he have gone to work! how eager would he have been to display and explain his knowledge of this remarkable Romany superstition! The same remark may be made upon the gipsy heroine’s sly allusion in ‘Kriegspiel’ to “Squire Lucas,” the Romany equivalent of Baron Munchausen, an allusion which none but ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... out very oddly; don't they?' said Mark with a sly glance of complacency, and his hands in his pockets. 'But I know you'll hold the tiller till I get through; hang me if I know the soundings, or where I'm going; and you have ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... ante-railway days. My curiosity was excited on the way, by seeing a body of men looking like a regiment of fox-hunters—all well got up, fine stout fellows—who entered, and filled two of the carriages. On inquiring who kept the hounds, and if they had good runs, a sly smile stole across my friend's cheek as he told me they were merely the firemen of the city going to fraternize with the ditto ditto of Boston. It stupidly never occurred to me to ask him whether any provision was made in case of a quiet little fire developing ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... pretty fellow as he?" nodding her head towards his Grace. "Never in my days saw I a thing so out of nature! 'Tis as though they were not flesh and blood, but—but of some stuff we are not made of. 'Tis but human he should make sly love to her, and her eyes wander after him despite herself wheresoever he goes. All know how a woman's eyes will follow a man, and his hers, but when these look at each other 'tis steadfast honesty that looks out of them—and 'tis scarce ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fine peep-holes through which, by standing or kneeling upon "the shelf," a child might gaze at his neighbor; and also through which sly missiles—little balls of twisted paper—could be snapped, to the annoyance of some meek girl or retaliating boy, until the young marksman was ignominiously pulled down by his mother from his post of attack. And through these balustrades the same boy a few years later ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... fought his way through it all—where fighting was the better part of valour—and made horsehair chains for Ellen and cut lockets for her out of coffee beans, and with a red-hot poker made a ring for her from a rubber button as a return for the smile he got at the sly twist he gave her hair as he passed her desk on his way to the spelling class. As for Miss Lucy, who saw herself displaced, she wrote to Philemon Ward, and told him of her jilting, and railed at the fickleness and frailty ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... it was, already too near at hand, creeping up in that soft, sly way peculiar to animals of the cat family whenever they have a victim in view. A wild-cat—fat; sleek sides, all ribbed with stripes of black and white; white teeth, very long and sharp; black claws, longer and sharper ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... I shall know I have secured all I would wish," added Harry Bennett, with rather a sly twinkle in his eyes. ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... the air of a chance meeting in the little attorney's office. One day Razumov, coming in by appointment, found a stranger standing there—a tall, aristocratic-looking Personage with silky, grey sidewhiskers. The bald-headed, sly little lawyer-fellow called out, "Come in—come in, Mr. Razumov," with a sort of ironic heartiness. Then turning deferentially to the stranger with the grand air, "A ward of mine, your Excellency. One of the most promising students of his faculty in ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... his pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... to put forth buds, And there is timidity in the grass; The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds, And whether next week will pass Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush Of barberry ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... weak little Reverend has already got on this town," he went on. "He's a sly one. Preaching ain't in it with the undercurrent he's let loose here. It's just sapping the foundations of society. It's setting free a lot of good stuff, but it's ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... my sly tact," said her husband, laughing. "I will be as innocent as a lamb. I will ask him why I have not seen him at the Sabbath-school ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... support of Mary's cause; he had reduced the Border to temporary quiet by the free use of the gibbet; but he had not ventured to face Lethington's friends and bring him to trial: if he had, many others would have been compromised. Murray was sly and avaricious, but, had he been legitimate, Scotland would have been well governed under his ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... quadruped has sometimes given to describing zoologists, at least so it is said, an opportunity of paying a sly compliment, concealing an allusion to the touchy or supposed irritable disposition of the party after whom the species has been named. When Southey wrote the following paragraph, he happily expressed what is too commonly the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... saw through it very plainly! How simple he had been! Of course, she could not permit him to feel that she had ever displayed the slightest interest in him! His spirits shot upward so suddenly that Baggs accused him of "negotiating a drink on the sly" and felt very much injured that ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... human form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... approached. Soon he stood before the hole in which Kuna lay hiding. Catching sight of the ugly monster within, Maui let out a deafening yell, poised his magic spear, and with one sweep of his mighty arm hurled it into the depths of Kuna's hiding-place. But the dragon was sly and agile, notwithstanding his huge bulk, and slipped out ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... delighted to make any arrangement, although he had a suspicion that the sly Pilot was taking advantage of ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... as his own. The reputation of the friars in the Philippines has been depreciated by the conduct of the native priests. There was a padre named Pastor, an arrant coward, and wholly ignorant and superstitious. Sly old fox, he used to bet his last cent on the cock-fights, hiding up in the back window of Don Julian's. Once, on a drunken spree, he let a layman wear his gown and rosary. The natives, showing more respect for the sacred vestments than the priest had shown, went ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... you. You might have knocked me down with a feather yesterday, when that fine funeral came out of the park gates, and I saw your face at the window of one of the coaches. You must have been an uncommonly clever young woman, and an uncommonly sly one, to get a baronite for your husband, and to get a spooney old cove to leave you all his fortune, after behaving so precious bad to him. Did your husband know who you ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... these things to myself over and over again, while the night was fast verging toward day. It seemed best to me, therefore, to escape on the sly before daylight and pursue my journey, though I was all in a tremble. I took up my bundle, put the key in the door, and drew back the bolts. But this good and faithful door, which had opened of its own accord in the night, would not open now till ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sly wink. "You'd think it ought to be in apple-pie order," he said, "by the way they have been tearing up the place. Couldn't find my papers, my sticks, my umbrella or anything when I wanted them. I am glad you all have come so you can help ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... in silence they ate, occasionally stealing sly glances at one another, until finally Jane broke into a merry ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ever did with a bear was one night over in Devil's Gulch. A big storm come up just about dark an' I found a sort o' cave to crawl into. A big tree, a Pinus Lamberteeny" (another sly glance at the professor), "had fell alongside o' some rocks an' made a fine dry den. A lot of dry leaves was made into a bed, an' I says to Sunday: 'Reckon we 'll have company before long. Wonder whether it 'll be a brown or a grizzly.' Sunday, he curled ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... Attorney-general, Mr. Copley, afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, who conducted his case with surpassing ability. The cross-examination of a foreign artist, employed by the Duke to repaint some portraits of the Cornaro family by Titian, is said to have been one of the finest things on record. The sly and pungent humour, and the banter with which the counsel derided and laughed down this witness, were inimitable. The printer won his case; but he eventually consented to remove his steam presses from the neighbourhood, on the Duke paying him a certain sum to ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... imitate some insects; mightn't he, Professor Skillings?" suggested Frank, with a sly look. "You know there are insects ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... came up with them near a large log lying upon the ground, and felt much surprised to find them taking a circuit of a few rods without an object, every trace of the game seeming to have been lost, while they kept still yelping. On looking about him, he discovered sly Reynard stretched upon the log, apparently lifeless. The master made several efforts to direct the attention of his dogs towards the fox but failed; at length he approached so near the artful object of his pursuit as to see him breathe. Even then no alarm was exhibited; ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... talked boldly. But after the 18th Brumaire he maintained an unbroken silence, the philosophy of the strong; he struggled no longer against public opinion, and contented himself with attending to his own affairs,—wise conduct, which led his neighbors to pronounce him sly, for he owned, it was said, a fortune of not less than a hundred thousand francs in landed property. In the first place, he spent nothing; next, this property was legitimately acquired, partly from the inheritance of his father-in-law's estate, and partly from the savings of six-thousand ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... said right out to Is'iah, before a roomful o' the neighbors, that I expected it of him to git me home an' bury me when my time come, and do it respectable; but I wanted to airn my livin', if 'twas so I could, till then. He'd made sly talk, you see, about my electin' to leave the farm and go 'long some o' my own folks; but"—and she whispered this carefully—"he didn't give me no chance to stay there without hurtin' my pride and dependin' ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... conscious of never having heard of him, inclines to condemn the whole business beforehand as an impossible fable. I fancy Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM felt something of this difficulty with regard to the protagonist of his quaintly-called The Moon and Sixpence (HEINEMANN), since, for all his sly pretence of quoting imaginary authorities, we have really only his unsupported word for the superlative genius of Charles Strickland, the stockbroker who abandoned respectable London to become a Post-impressionist master, a vagabond and ultimately ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... about proudly among the juicy reeds, stole sly glances at the other young storks, made acquaintances, and slaughtered a frog at every third step, or went lounging about with little snakes in their bills, which they fancied looked well, and which they knew ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... be cross," she pleaded. "I 'm not mad, and I 'm not sly. But I 'm free and independent. What's the good of being free and independent," she largely argued, "if you can't do the things you want to? I 'm going to Craford to realise the aspiration of a lifetime. I 'm going to find out ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... out," he said grimly; "it is a very evil way, the way of destruction. I wish you would not make such a friend of that sly black nurse-girl who tells me a lie once out of every three times she opens ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... birds as robins, tanagers, flycatchers, and vireos make war upon him whenever he comes within their breeding districts, and this would indicate that they are only too well aware of his predatory habits. More than that, he has the sly and stealthy manners of the sneak-thief and the brigand. Of course, he is by no means an unmixed evil, for you will often see him leaping about on the lawns, capturing beetles and worms which would surely be injurious to vegetation if ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... the more angry upon this occasion, because she recollected having formerly reproached Emilie, at the installation, for complaining of the heat; and she persuaded herself, that this was an instance of perversity in Emilie's temper, and a sly method of revenging herself for the past. Nothing could be more improbable, from a girl of such a frank, forgiving, sweet disposition; and no one would have been so ready to say so as Mrs. Somers in another mood; but the moment that she was irritated, she judged without common sense—never from ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... the face of the other. It was a peculiar and rememberable face, notable because of a long, sharp, hooked nose and very little, foxy, brown eyes; a sly face to which a small, fair moustache only added insignificance. It was crowned by a wide-brimmed bowler hat which the man wore pressed down upon his ears like a ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... to be sent to," muttered Jock, running round to give a sly puff to the white heap, diffusing a sprinkling of white powder over ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the estate over the hedge, and of the old manor-house. It was only finally settled between us when I went to Stratleigh a few days ago.' He lowered his voice to a sly tone of merriment. 'Now, as to your stepmother, you'll find she is not much to look at, though a good deal to listen to. She is twenty years older than myself, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... 'im, wouldn't you?" said Em's sister, and she brushed past Laura over to the bed. "Don't be afraid, my lass,"—and now her voice sounded fond and sly, and fondly she drew down the sheet—"'e looks a picture. There's nothing to ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... Berkshire;—that, and some sway towards superstition, which he had by temperament, rendered him unworthy the company of a good fellow. And now he has earthed himself here, in a den just befitting such a sly fox as himself." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... him. The wrinkles were deep about his mouth and eyes. His brown hair, simply dressed, was gray already at the temples. His plain black coat and knee breeches were wrinkled from travel. As he often put it, he had no time to care for clothes. Yet his cheeks glowed from quiet living, and there was a sly, good humored twinkle in his brown eyes which went well with his broad shoulders and his strongly knit body. His reputation for genial good nature was with ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... one," replied the conjurer, with a sly smile. "Give me the piece of stuff to-day, that, when I come back in a month, I may have suitable garments when I amuse the guests at the feast given for your recovery. I'm no giant, and shall ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... interest by anybody in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae's gaze, it is true, was now attracted by the Mayor's so-called step-daughter, but he was only one. The truth is that she was but a poor illustrative instance of the prophet Baruch's sly definition: "The virgin that loveth to ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... ever so much nicer than she was," Mollie said, "for she doesn't do anything now that seems,—why not quite true. That doesn't sound just as I mean it. I know how to say it now. I mean that she isn't sly. She is a good playmate, and ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... worried by the sight of another fellow trailing her, he'll be doing more thinking about her than he will about the partner-people, as he calls that dream of his about something that isn't so! I wish I could know just how sly the Senator is! I wish I could get a line on what's underneath that girl's curly ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... was the locus in quo for little dears whose young ideas were taught to shoot at threepence a week, uncle took breath, and a pinch of snuff together: he smiled as I observed, that he'd be sure to take a refresher when her Majesty passed; and though he shook his head and designated me a sly young rogue, I could clearly perceive that he was plotting to perform, as if by chance, what I had predicated as a certainty; and although nineteen persons out of twenty would have marked (in this instance) his puerility, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the demons interpret as a direction to come athwart the proceedings of the Institute by a sly trick. Until we saw this, we were suspicious of M. Libri,[20] the unvarying blunders of the correspondence look like knowledge. To be always out of the road requires a map: genuine ignorance occasionally lapses into truth. We thought it possible M. Libri might have played ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... herself back in her corner, feeling perfectly justified in making as many agreeable signs of recognition as she liked to Malicorne, since the latter had had the happiness of pleasing the king. As will readily be believed, Montalais was not mistaken; and Malicorne, with his quick ear and his sly look, seemed to interpret her remark as "All goes on well," the whole being accompanied by a pantomimic action, which he fancied conveyed ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he was, forsooth, of corn and meal, A sly one, too, and used long since to steal. Disdainful Simkin was he called by name. A wife he had; of noble kin she came: The rector of the town her father was. With her he gave full many a pan of brass, That Simkin with ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... by the narrator as meaning "a large strong man that is always laughing." The word is derived from the root ngisi, "to show the teeth" (Tag.). This giant has been described to me as being of herculean size and strength, sly, and possessing an upper lip so large that when it is thrown back it completely covers the demon's face. The Bungisngis can lift a huge animal as easily as if it were ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... on the sly, or else somebody may ask some unpleasant questions," remarked Slugger Brown on the way ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... at twopence-halfpenny or threepence a pair according to the customer. And now, her wry sly smile, peeping from underneath her battered hat-brim, meets ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... visioning Miriam Kirkstone as he had seen her in the inspector's office. He recalled vividly the slim, golden beauty of her, the wonderful gray of her eyes, and the shimmer of her hair as she stood in the light of the window—and then he saw Shan Tung, effeminate, with his sly, creeping hands and his narrowed eyes, and the thing which McDowell had suggested rose up ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... axe of shining steel For the sly wolf left many a meal. The ill-shaped Saxon corpses lay Heap'd up—the witch-wife's horses' prey. She rides by night, at pools of blood, Where Friesland men in daylight stood, Her horses slake their thirst, and fly On to the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... window he took a slow, uncertain step towards the door; when there he turned half round, and there came over his close-shaven, round face the rather sly, pleading look with which a child about to do something naughty glances at ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... write-up, it was Sam Corpenshire. From one mouth to another they passed the word of his shrewd dealings, of his good-will to his neighbors, of his ripe judgment, of his friendliness to all sound things and sound men, of his shy, sly charities, of the thwarted romance, which, many years before, had left him lonely but unembittered; and out of it Banneker, with pen too slow for his eager will, wove not a two-stick obit, but a rounded column shot through with lights that played upon the little ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... frankly I'm not satisfied with the men we have. Few of them will be any use to us. Birinus, Anselm, Giles, Chad, Athanasius if properly suppressed, Mark, these in varying degrees, have something in them, but look at the others! Dominic, ambitious and sly, Jerome, a pompous prig, Dunstan, a nincompoop, Raymond, a milliner, Nicholas, a—well, you know what I think Nicholas is, Augustine, another nincompoop, Lawrence, still at Sunday School, and poor Simon, a clown. I've had a dozen probationers ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... would have made Edwin sick. They knew all about cigars and about drinks, and they implied by their demeanour, though they never said, that a first-class drink and a first-class smoke were the 'good things' of life, the ultimate rewards; the references to women were sly... Edwin was like a demure cat among a company of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... I took him the time before, I told him what he would come to if he did not mend his Hand. This is Death without Reprieve. I may venture to Book him [writes.] For Tom Gagg, forty Pounds. Let Betty Sly know that I'll save her from Transportation, for I can get more by ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... various conveniences which have accumulated, for some must be left. One fellow picks up the skillet, holds it awhile, mentally determining how much it weighs, and what will be the weight of it after carrying it five miles, and reluctantly, with a half-ashamed, sly look, drops it and takes his place in ranks. Another having added to his store of blankets too freely, now has to decide which of the two or three he will leave. The old water-bucket looks large and heavy, but one stout-hearted, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... tollerably well convinc'd themselves when no Body else could see any thing of the Matter, as particularly the famous Mr. W—-ly about the Antimonarchical Principles taught in the Dissenters Accademies; ditto in L——sly, about the Dissenters burning the City, and setting Fire to their own Houses to destroy their Neighbours; and another famous Author, who prov'd that Christopher Love lost his Head for attempting to pull down Monarchy by restoring King Charles ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... hanging hair prevents the twinkling shine Of fawn-eyes that forget their glances sly, Lost to the friendly aid of rouge and wine— Yet the eyelids quiver when thou drawest nigh As water-lilies do when fish go ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... sleek, well-fed, sly, 'white' mouse, and the country mouse with its rough, weather-worn face and grey hairs; the town mouse displaying its delicate little rolls and pyramids of glistening strawberries, the country mouse exulting in its hollow tree, its crust of bread and liberty, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... heard afterwards some pretty stories of this gentleman. He had been a contractor to the late Republic, in horse-forage, and had swindled the Government (people said) to the tune of some millions of francs. Marengo finished him: he had been speculating against it on the sly, which lost his plunder and the most of his credit. On the remains of it he had managed to scrape into this prefecture. A nice sort of ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to see the loveliest woman in Europe?' said the officer. 'Ah! you sly rogue, I see THAT will influence you;' and, truth to say, such a proposal WAS always welcome to me, as I don't care to own. 'The people are great farmers,' said the Captain, 'as well as innkeepers;' and, indeed, the place seemed more a farm than ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hangs about his neck, Smiles in his face, and whispers in his ears; And, when I come, he frowns, as who should say, "Go whither thou wilt, seeing I have Gaveston." E. Mor. Is it not strange that he is thus bewitch'd? Y. Mor. Madam, return unto the court again: That sly inveigling Frenchman we'll exile, Or lose our lives; and yet, ere that day come, The king shall lose his crown; for we have power, And courage too, to be reveng'd at full. Archb. of Cant. But yet lift not your swords against the king. Lan. No; but we will ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... he read on his features the unvarying glance of undisguised contempt. He dared not come across him openly, since Montagu was so high in the school; and besides, though much the bigger of the two, Brigson was decidedly afraid of him. But he chose sly methods of perpetual annoyance. He nicknamed him "Rosebud," he talked at him whenever he had an opportunity; he poisoned the minds of the gang of youngsters against him; he spread malicious reports about him; he diminished his popularity, and embittered his feelings, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Pat, and his small gray eyes twinkled as he cast a sly glance at me, 'Sathurday noight I fought I'd call on me cousin, who has just coom from the ould counthry, an' ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... is telling me all about it," muttered this sly, adaptable fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly very close together. "Not touch her? See here!" Sweetwater had his arm round the filly's neck and was looking straight into her fiery and intelligent eye. "Shall I pass her story on?" he asked, with a magnetic smile at ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... noted the sly, brown squirrel peep at him from her hole, and then hop quickly out of sight; and the hardy little snow-bird light at his feet and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... me," she said, with a sly inclination towards the sick bed. "Misc Somers made it. Uncle, he bought all the stuff; Misc Somers draw'd it. Did you ever see ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... put it in her hand, or would sweep the dust out of her way. The poor girl simply did not know how to behave or what to do. Soon the whole household knew of the dumb porter's wiles; jeers, jokes, sly hints, were showered upon Tatiana. At Gerasim, however, it was not every one who would dare to scoff; he did not like jokes; indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in peace. Whether she liked ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... Richard's quick steps were heard on the gravel walk; "I am proud of him, we all ought to be proud of him. He is a whole-souled, whole-hearted, right-minded young man, worth a dozen of your fashionable milk-sops. He is a right down splendid fellow. I cannot imagine why this sly little puss was so blind to his merits; but I suppose the greater glory dimmed ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... This sly satire of the eloquent Quaker was received by the men of Bradford with cheers; and, indeed, it is true that college education sometimes weakens more than it refines, and many of the masters of our generation have been so lucky as to escape ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... from slippery ground Not half a fling from Wiwst's bound. And the cheat—behold her! for there she stands With the prize that is mine in her treacherous hands. The fawn may fly, but the wolf is fleet; The fox creeps sly on Mag's [10] retreat; And a woman's revenge—it is swift and sweet." She turned to her lodge, but a roar of laughter And merry mockery followed after. Little they heeded the words she said, Little they cared for her haughty tread, For maidens and warriors and chieftain knew That her lips were ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... red-handed, it is easy to know where the larders o' Elibank get their plenishing. Turn about is fair play, say I, and now that the pastures at Harden are empty, 'tis time that we thought of taking our revenge. Sir Juden was a wily man in his youth, and sly as a pole-cat, but men say that nowadays he hath grown doited,[4] and does nought but sit with his wife and his three ugly daughters from morning till night. All the same, he hath managed to feather ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... so much if it 'adn't ha' been for that boy. He used to pass me, as 'e went off of a evening, with a little sly smile on 'is ugly little face, and sometimes when I was standing at the gate he'd give a sniff or two and say that he could smell beer, and he supposed it came from the ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... to sneak it on the sly," explained the big boy. "I didn't know you cared to go out with him," he added, to Jack, with a toss of ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... with sarcasm in his tones. "Wall now yuh see me, p'raps yuh don't jest like my looks. If so be I thort them coward hounds up-river sent yuh down hyah tuh spy on us, an' inform thet rail-rid sheriff how he cud git tuh cotch us on the sly, I'd jest lay a cowhide acrost yer backs till the welts they stood up ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... title-page of his Apollonius; and in the last hour he expressed his joy, that now, in the bosom of God, he should arrive at the solution of many problems of the highest interest, without pain or weariness. The comment of the French historian conveys a sly sarcasm on the Encyclopedists:—"On voit au reste, par-la, que Barrow etoit un pauvre philosophe; car il croiroit en l'immortalite de l'ame, et une Divinite, autre que la ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... for Roosevelt to take steps which the public would not notice or understand but which would inescapably involve the nation in the foreign war. When enough such sly involvement had been manipulated, there would come, eventually, some incident to push us over the brink into open participation. Then, any American who continued to advocate our traditional foreign policy of benign neutrality would ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... which are admitted to be in the handwriting of the defendant, and which speak volumes indeed. These letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fervent, eloquent epistles, breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, underhanded communications; but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language and the most poetic imagery—letters that must be viewed with a cautious and suspicious eye—letters that were evidently ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... not proposed it. But she talks of it, saying that it would not do. Then when I tell her that of course it would not do, she shows me all that would make it expedient. She is so sly and so false, that with all my eyes open I cannot quite understand her, or quite know what she is doing. I do not feel sure that she wishes ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... guests; the Georges and garters, jewels, bracelets, moulted upon the occasion! The fans dropt, and picked up the next morning by the sly court pages! Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name fainting, and the Countess of **** holding the smelling bottle, till the good-humoured Prince caused harmony to be restored by calling in fresh candles, and declaring that the whole was nothing but a pantomime hoax, got up by the ingenious ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... yet satisfied. "But, oh ma," she said, as she hastily worked a buttonhole. "You don't know about the diseases that are goin' 'round. Mind ye, there's tuberoses in the cows even, and them that sly about it, and there's diseases in the milk as big as a chew o' gum and us not seein' them. Every drop of it we use should be scalded well, and oh, ma, I wonder anyone of us is alive for we're not half clean! The poison pours out of the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... last, and as he did, Alexander looked at him with a sly grin distorting the smooth pallor ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... course, he saw little. There was some slight apprehension that if he were bidden to social entertainments he might forget his coat, or arrive without some other essential part of his dress; and there is a sly tradition in the Titbottom family that, having been invited to a ball in honor of the new governor of the island, my grandfather Titbottom sauntered into the hall towards midnight, wrapped in the gorgeous ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... elders.—The little girl upon the beach invests the tiny wavelets not only with life and intelligence, but, also, with a sense of humor as she eludes their sly advances to engulf her feet. She laughs in glee at their watery pranks as they twinkle and sparkle, now advancing, now receding, trying to take her by surprise. She chides them for their duplicity, then extols them for their prankish playfulness. She makes them her ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... things; 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 ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... intended to mention them to thee when I saw thee. To say the truth, I always suspected her eye: the eye, thou knowest, is the casement at which the heart generally looks out. Many a woman, who will not show herself at the door, has tipt the sly, the intelligible wink from ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... evidence that a man is rotten in some portion of his character, or rotten clean through his character, cannot be found than real, or pretended, loss of faith in his fellows. When a young man tells me that he has no doubt that certain persons, publicly reputed to be good, take sly drinks in their own closets, and descend into grosser indulgences when in strange places; that the best men are hypocrites; that there is no such thing as womanly virtue; and that appetite and selfishness outweigh everywhere principle and manly honor, I know that, ninety-nine times in one hundred, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... still while the shoes do their best. Let us call to mind a classic fairy-tale involving shoes that are magical: The Seven Leagued Boots, for example, or The Enchanted Moccasins, or the footwear of Puss in Boots. How gorgeous and embroidered any of these should be, and at a crisis what sly antics they should be brought to play, without fidgeting all over the shop! Cinderella's Slipper is not sufficiently the heroine in moving pictures of that story. It should be the tiny leading lady of the piece, in the same sense the mighty steam-engine is the hero of the story in chapter ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... something dropping on his head,—some moss belike. Alas for Thor and his weapon! For once he found himself worsted, and his mightiest efforts regarded as mere flea-bites; for Skrymir's talk about leaves and acorns and moss was merely a sly piece of humor, levelled at poor crestfallen Thor, as he afterwards acknowledged. After this incident, Thor and his two companions, the peasant's children, Thjalfi and Roeska, and Skrymir went their ways, and came to the high-gated city of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... sacrificial altars, and great beasts, along its sides, were made living by the very mystery of light and darkness, on that violent day of spring—I remember sitting there, and an old gentleman passing close behind, leaning towards me and saying in a sly, gentle voice: "How are you going to tell it to the folks at home?" America has so much that one despairs of telling to the folks at home, so much grand beauty to be to her an inspiration and uplift ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... mood the lover sought his mistress at the farmhouse. He went into the kitchen, and not finding Lucy there, inquired of one of the maids where she was. With a sly ominous expression the girl replied 'that Miss Lucy was in the best parlour making tea for master.' This information gave poor Luke a sort of panic. He trembled, turned pale, and hastily retreated from the house. Discontented thoughts filled his mind. 'No doubt,' he said almost aloud, ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... I liked his mission. He kept his station near the door, where the light was dim—for the illumination was concentrated on the table and the patient's chair—but I could see that he had a somewhat sly, unprepossessing face and a greasy, red moustache that seemed out of character with his rather perfunctory livery; though this was mere prejudice. He wore a wig, too—not that there was anything discreditable in that—and ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... effect. Governor Oglesby arranged with Lincoln's stepbrother, John D. Johnston, to provide two rails, and with Lincoln's mother's cousin, Dennis Hanks, for the latter to bring in the rails at the telling juncture. Lincoln's guarded manner about identifying the rails, and sly slap at his ability to make better ones, show that he was in the scheme, though recognizing that the dodge ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... at least one-third of the people are raw foreigners or rawly extracted natives. The old New England ideal characterises them all, up to a certain point, socially; it puts a decent outside on most of 'em; it makes 'em keep Sunday, and drink on the sly. We got in the Irish long ago, and now they're part of the conservative element. We got in the French Canadians, and some of them are our best mechanics and citizens. We're getting in the Italians, and as soon as they want something ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... guerre[Fr]; finesse, side blow, thin end of the wedge, shift, go by, subterfuge, evasion; white lie &c (untruth) 546; juggle, tour de force; tricks of the trade, tricks upon travelers; espieglerie[Fr]; net, trap &c. 545. Ulysses, Machiavel, sly boots, fox, reynard; Scotchman; Jew, Yankee; intriguer, intrigant[obs3]; floater [U.S.], Indian giver [U.S.], keener [U.S.], repeater [U.S. politics]. V. be cunning &c. adj.; have cut one's eyeteeth; contrive &c (plan) 626; live by one's wits; maneuver; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... not much limit to the evidence a man could bring if he was experienced enough to be circumstantial, and knew whom he was dealing with. The very fact that the little fool could be made to appear to have been so sly and sanctimonious would stir the gall of any jury of men. His own condoning the matter for the sake of his sensitive boy, deformed by his mother's unrestrained and violent hysteria before his birth, would go a long way. Let them get their divorce, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... intrigues of his friend, only serves to augment his difficulties, and occasions many an awkward dilemma. On the other hand, the shrewdness of the heroine's confidantes never seem to fail them under the most trying circumstances; while their sly jokes and innuendos, their love of fun, their girlish sympathy with the progress of the love-affair, their warm affection for their friend, heighten the interest of the plot, and contribute not a little to ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... They were straining forward in the harness, their bellies almost level with the ground, their muscles standing out like whalebone. Great, gaunt brutes they were, with ribs like barrel-staves, and hip-bones sharp as stakes. Their woolly coats were white with frost, their sly, slit-eyed faces ice-sheathed, their feet torn so that they left a bloody track on the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... to himself, "It has an effect on him, I can see it myself. That's enough for one time, I reckon. He's not very solid, yet, I suppose, and I might disintegrate him. I'll just put a sly question or two at him, now, and see if I can find out what his condition is, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... county over—and last, the Honorable Prim. Not because old Seymour possessed any especial fitness one way or the other for a dinner of this kind, but because his presence would afford an underground communication by which Kate could learn how fine and splendid Harry was—(sly old diplomat St. George!)—and how well he had appeared at a table about which were seated the best Kennedy Square ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tranquil exterior of these men. The rapid, keen, and lively glance—the suppressed sneer of exultation—the half start of surprise—the low, guttural, and almost inaudible "Ugh!"—all these indicated the eagerness with which, at one sly but compendious view, they embraced the whole interior of a fort which it was of such vital importance to their future interests they should become possessed of, yet which they had so long and so unsuccessfully attempted to subdue. As they advanced into the square, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... freckled hands, and his stumpy legs terminating in large flat feet, are awkwardly short and muscular. He walks with a clumsy, rolling gait. His voice, when not raised in a hollow boom, is toned down to a sly, confidential half-whisper with something vaguely plaintive in its quality. He is dressed in a wrinkled, ill-fitting dark suit of shore clothes, and wears a faded cap of gray cloth over his mop of grizzled, blond hair. Just now his face beams ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... Muir in his sly Scotch way; "it would be far safer to promise to influence him to his injury. Mankind, pretty Mabel, have their peculiarities; and to influence a fellow-being to his own good is one of the most difficult tasks of human nature, while the opposite is just the easiest. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... them to the frozen creek, where they picked up a splendid mink and an otter as well. Shrewd and sly though these little wearers of fur coats were, they had not been able to withstand the temptation of the bait the trapper had placed in their haunts, with the result that they paid the penalty of their greed ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... credits him only with the courage of despair. Byron's Sardanapalus, with his sudden transition from voluptuous abandonment to heroic chivalry, his remorseful recognition of the sanctities of wedlock, his general good nature, his "sly, insinuating sarcasms" (Moore's Diary, September 30, 1821, Memoirs, iii. 282), "all made out of the carver's brain," resembles history as little as history resembles the Assyrian record. Fortunately, the genius of the poet escaped from ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... generation have grown awfully sly,' remarked Bazarov, and he too laughed. 'Good-bye,' he began again after a short silence. 'I hope you will bring the matter to the most satisfactory conclusion; and I will rejoice from ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the Turin figure. They wear full dress, as, indeed, they should, for one was a king's favourite named Hori, and surnamed Ra. They are walking with calm and measured tread, the bust thrown forward, and the head high. The expression upon their faces is knowing, and somewhat sly. An officer who has retired on half-pay at the Louvre (fig. 243) wears an undress uniform of the time of Amenhotep III.; that is to say, a small wig, a close-fitting vest with short sleeves, and a kilt drawn ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... was a ruddy young man, with a very good-humoured face, and a sly smile constantly playing at the corners of his mouth. He no doubt guessed the cause of the disturbance, for he asked, "Was any ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... of these little fellows, who hardly reached his knee. The owner of the cap now came up very humbly to the finder, and begged in as supplicating a tone as if his life depended upon it, that he would give him back his cap. "No," said John, "you sly little rogue, you'll get the cap no more. That's not the sort of thing: I should be in a nice perplexity if I had not something of yours; now you have no power over me, but must do what I please. And I will go down with you, and ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... known this?" demanded Miss Mitty, her countenance expressing injury and jealousy. Fancy Mrs. Billing knowing this story all that time and keeping it to herself; how sly! ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... very wise people more or less are. I had given Laura her lesson; that is, had told her that I had something very serious to say to her mistress that morning, and desired her to take care to be out of the way, that she might be sure not to interrupt us. The sly jade looked with that arch significance which her own experience had taught her, and left me with—'Oh! ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... are compared with Western mystics. Both characteristics belong to all Chinese literature and art, and to the conversation of cultivated Chinese in the present day. All classes in China are fond of laughter, and never miss a chance of a joke. In the educated classes, the humour is sly and delicate, so that Europeans often fail to see it, which adds to the enjoyment of the Chinese. Their habit of under-statement is remarkable. I met one day in Peking a middle-aged man who told me he was academically interested in the theory of politics; being new to the country, ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell |
