"Surreptitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the thing. The steamboat-captain declared that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a camp-fire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the men he threw a gruff nod of fellowship, and Dick having relieved him of his encumbrances, he retreated behind the shelter of Mrs. Peyton's welcome. The latter judiciously gave him time to recover, and when she turned to him he was engaged in a surreptitious inspection of Miss Verney, whose dusky slenderness, relieved against the bare walls of the office, made her look like a young St. John of Donatello's. The girl returned his look with one of her clear glances, and the group having presently broken up again, Mrs. Peyton ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... bent and motionless, as if picking out a pattern with his fingers. He seems to keep surreptitious watch upon them, as they run swiftly on their appointed errands. There is no errand they are not nimble enough to carry without a stumble to the journey's end. They obey him as if in fear; they dare not turn ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... what effect all this would have on Bill. She stole a surreptitious glance at him, but he, too, seemed to have been caught up by Rose's gay, good humor. Mrs. Wade sighed as she remembered how everyone had flocked around Norah. Rose had inherited her mother's charm. Such women were a race apart. They could no more be held responsible for trying ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... very glad to hear that," she said. "I was in here arranging some flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down, and fancied I detected something surreptitious in your step ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... apparition cried out to his surreptitious representative—"Nay, miscreant; but one. This thou shalt know, and feel too. Fool and impostor, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... lyre-bird of Australia had been almost exterminated for its tail feathers, its open slaughter was stopped by law, and a heavy fine was imposed on exportation, amounting, I have been told, to $250 for each offense. My latest news of the lyre-bird was of the surreptitious exportation of 200 skins to the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... controversy with BOSSUET (q. v.) regarding the doctrines of QUIETISM (q. v.), a dispute which brought him into disfavour with the king and provoked the Pope's condemnation of his "Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie interieure"; the surreptitious publication of his most famous work "Telemache," the MS. of which was stolen by his servant, accentuated the king's disfavour, who regarded it as a veiled attack on his court, and led to an order confining the author to his own diocese; the rest of his life was spent in the service ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... had been staring at the fire all evening, moved uneasily in his lounging chair. Several quick glances were sent to where he sat moodily apart from the others, and then surreptitious winks ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... unhaunted by its spectres, undisturbed by its secret. In one of its darkened rooms they had set up a "workshop," a "playhouse." A glaze came over his eyes as he wondered what had transpired in that room during the surreptitious six weeks' tenancy. Had David Strong kissed her? Had she kissed David Strong? Were promises made and futures planned? His throat was tight with the ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... a large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and physical discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her to make that surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two days later, I have never been able to imagine. The accommodations aboard the schooner were cramped, to say the least, and the good lady had a perfect horror ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... had been in the custody of the gunsmith from whom he had bought them. The gunsmith, however, M. Devismes, said that this was not the case; and another witness declared that he had seen de Beauvallon having a little surreptitious practice with them in ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... company rose Savage manoeuvred to the side of the girl, detaining her long enough to convey a surreptitious message under cover of apparently ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the Library's existence it remained a reference library, and books were not lent, but surreptitious borrowing probably took place occasionally. At any rate on December 2nd, 1684, the following memorandum was made: "That BP J. Ushers treatise de Macedonum et Assyriorum [Asianorum] anno solari was missing this meeting yt was, by ye under-library-keepers ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... resolution, Isabella did not refuse to coincide in their plans for securing her succession. To this measure Henry himself consented, thus appearing tacitly to acknowledge the truth of the reports that Joanna was a surreptitious child, and for a brief period Castile was delivered from the horrors of war. Once declared heiress of Castile and Leon, Isabella's hand was sought by many noble suitors, and her choice fell on Ferdinand, the young King of Sicily, and heir-apparent to the crown of Arragon. Love was ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... across was slight; still slighter when he returned with a sack of lentils, a basket of eggs, some pounds of honey and many misgivings as to whether he should announce this last commodity to the curator or introduce it surreptitiously. To begin his probationship with a surreptitious act would disgrace him in the eyes of the prior, whose good opinion he valued above all. So did his thoughts run on till he came within sight of a curator, who told him that sometimes, on the first day of probationship, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a fool—and there was no fool like an old one. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... library, the conditions of ballad-production are past and gone. Yet there are still a few isolated communities in Europe where genuine folk-songs of spontaneous composition may be heard by the eavesdropper and jotted down with a surreptitious pencil; for the rustics shrink from the curiosity of the learned and are silent in the presence of strangers. The most precious contribution to our literature from such a, source is The Bard of the Dimbovitza, an English translation of folk-songs ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... bird forms a striking contrast to other feathered neighbors, and indeed is almost an anomaly in the animal kingdom. In the breeding season an unnatural mother may be seen skulking about in the trees and shrubbery, seeking for nests in which to place a surreptitious egg, never imposing it upon a bird of its size, but selecting in a cowardly way a small nest, as that of the vireos or warblers or chipping sparrows, and there leaving the hatching and care of its young to the tender mercies of some already burdened little ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... perversions. The comic sheet of the metropolis, Vanity Fair, enframing the witty scintillations of "Artemus Ward," George Arnold, and a brilliant band, complained that this "nigger comedian" used or anticipated their best effusions. On the whole the public saw in the surreptitious flight of the ruler into his due seat only a farce, in keeping with his jesting humor—he was regarded as a Don Quixote in figure, but a Sancho Panza, for his philosophic proverbs, widely retailed and considered opportune. So the indignation proper ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... and waited while I sealed it up and gave it to the porter. Then, with a surreptitious squeeze of the hand, he left me to go to ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... Rivas, and this efficiently did. Both talking the tongue of the country, their war of words, with some grotesque gestures which Kearney affected, engrossed the attention of all within sight or hearing; so that not an eye was left for the surreptitious reader of ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... works as had remained to that time unprinted would have been irrecoverably lost, and among them were "Julius Caesar," "The Tempest," and "Macbeth." But are we to believe them when they assert that they present to us the plays which they reprinted from stolen and surreptitious copies "cured and perfect of their limbs," and those which are original in their edition "absolute in their numbers as he [Shakespeare] conceived them"? Alas, we have read too many theatrical announcements, have been taught too often that the value of the promise was in an inverse ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... inspecting the ancient oak furniture in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam I became interested in an old catechumen's settle, and was surprised to find the game diagram cut in the centre of the seat—quite conveniently for surreptitious play. It has been discovered cut in the choir stalls of several of our English cathedrals. In the early eighties it was found scratched upon a stone built into a wall (probably about the date 1200), during the restoration of Hargrave ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... by dishonest means. The newspapers were used to give fictitious credit to some and to injure others. If the regular correspondents of the press had been excluded from the camps, there would no doubt have been surreptitious correspondence which would have found its way into print through private and roundabout channels. But this again was not a vice peculiar to officers appointed from civil life. It should be always remembered that honorable conduct and devoted patriotism ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... theology or canon law contained many sheets, these charges constituted no inconsiderable part of the cost of instruction. The books must be returned before the student left the university; sales were at first surreptitious and illegal, but became common early in the fourteenth century. Reasonable accuracy among the stationers was secured by a system of fines for errors, half of which went to the university, the other half being divided ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... may soon grow and ripen into the open and avowed denial of religious truth. At the very least, it will issue in that heartless indifference to all creeds and all definite articles of faith, which, under the plausible but surreptitious disguise of "freethinking" and "liberalism," is the nearest practical approximation ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... had been narrated to me by the child's mother, who had worked as a packer of "beers," and who had loved little Angelo. As I repeated her broken words about the little mangled body, I saw some of my auditors wipe away a surreptitious tear. ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... expressionless of men-servants. He was the ultimate development of his kind. It seems almost a sacrilege to add that he was past man's perfect prime, and to hint that perhaps his scanty, unstreaked hair sought surreptitious rejuvenation ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... itself familiarly into the minds of the range men. More than one voice was heard to begin a surreptitious humming of the old tune, and to cease abruptly with the sudden self-consciousness of ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... and the measure is defeated. This neglect of duty may be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of course not to excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage. But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if ...
— The Federalist Papers
... in the collection is none other than the manuscript of the "Observations on the Conduct of the Minority," being the identical copy from which the surreptitious publication was made which disturbed the last hours of Burke. The body of it is in the handwriting of the amanuensis to whom the familiar letters were addressed; but it shows the revision of Burke, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fast; he would while away a little time by walking, and then he would go back to the synagogue. Yes, a brisk walk would complete his recovery. There was no warder at the open gate; the keepers of the Ghetto had taken a surreptitious holiday, aware that on this day of days no watching was needed. The guardian barca lay moored to a post unmanned. All was in keeping with the boy's sense of solemn strangeness. But as he walked along the Cannaregio bank, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... time had he come near making a fortune out of storekeeping. For one thing, he had been too squeamish. From the outset he had declined to soil his hands with surreptitious grog-selling; nor would he be a party to that evasion of the law which consisted in overcharging on other goods, and throwing in drinks free. Again, he would rather have been hamstrung than stoop to the tricks in vogue with regard to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... of these was tempered in time by the fact that she freely shared them with us. We were not surprised to discover also, though these revelations came later, that the old house-keeper had difficulty in keeping buttons on the child's frocks, and that Katrina was addicted to surreptitious consumption of large cucumber pickles behind her geography in school hours. These were small faults of an otherwise beautiful nature, and stimulating to our youthful fancy in the possibilities they suggested. Unquestioningly we accepted Katrina as a being ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... superficial; Strether recognised in him the mere portentous rumination to which Miss Barrace had so good-humouredly described herself as assigning a corner of her salon. It was quite as if he knew his surreptitious step had been divined, and it was also as if he missed the chance to explain the purity of his motive; but this privation of relief should be precisely his small penance: it was not amiss for Strether that he should find himself to ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... committee, of which Lem and Gimpy and Stretch were the talking members, he readily consented to a reopening of business for a scrutiny of the various accounts which represented the boys' earnings at selling papers and blacking boots, minus the cost of their keep and of sundry surreptitious flings at "craps" in secret corners. The inquiry developed an available surplus of three dollars and fifty cents. Savoy alone had no account; the run of craps had recently gone heavily against him. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... before,' she said, 'except against that converted Jew who afterwards turned out to be a burglar, and nearly murdered poor dear Mr. Higby, the Baptist preacher, the night he broke into Mr. Higby's house and stole all his hams.' Once when I did manage to give the Maltese a surreptitious kick, and she yelled as if she was half-killed, Susan said, 'I am really afraid I shall have to ask you to leave us now. Poor pussy's nerves are so thoroughly upset that I must devote all my energies to soothing her. I do hope she is mistaken in ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the appearance of this sylvan proprietor and newspaper capitalist to justify Grant's suspicion of a surreptitious foe. A handsome man scarcely older than himself, in spite of a wavy mass of perfectly white hair which contrasted singularly with his brown mustache and dark sunburned face. So disguising was the effect of these contradictions, that he not only looked unlike anybody else, but even his ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... relation to the upper river. Investigations on Rock Creek revealed steady dribbles of raw sewage entering the creek or its tributaries from a large number of storm-sewer outfalls and other places. Partly these flow from malfunctioning individual septic systems in outlying areas, surreptitious connections of house sanitary sewers to the storm system, breaks and leaks in sanitary sewers, and such things. Partly too they seem to come from the fact that some sanitary sewers are having to carry more sewage than they were designed to handle, so that their overflow valves leak ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... entering upon his college course, whose theatre-goings have been limited to the "shows" to which his father has given him tickets, or to which he has escorted his mother or sisters, and whose wildest dissipations have consisted in a surreptitious cigarette and glass of beer, neither of which he enjoyed, but both of which he pretended to revel in for the sake of being "mannish,"—will talk knowingly of "the latest soubrette," "a jolly little ballet-dancer," "the wicked ways of this world," and "the dens of iniquity in our large ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... quite true, for Master Max had quite satisfied his morning appetite by a surreptitious ten minutes at the mulberry tree while the three little girls were having ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... thing. The steamboat captain declared that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a campfire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin, "O no, Gunnel, da's no work at all, Gunnel; dat only ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the Commandant was fairly ramping to be off. No—I can't see the Hospital. There isn't any time to see the Hospital. But Miss —— could not bear me not to see it, and together we made a surreptitious bolt for it, and ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... chapter first, then, opening the book at the page of questions, to write the answers entirely from memory. A few did so, but I fear a large proportion of the girls yielded to the temptation thus placed in their way, and would take surreptitious peeps to supply missing dates or names. It seemed hard that the conscientious ones should often be obliged to lose marks, while those whose standard of right was lower won words of approval from Miss Harper for their correct exercises. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... everywhere as if the sobering influence of the Sabbath had invaded even this exclusive domain of the unholy rich. The uniformed attendants, having nothing to do, yawned lazily in the deserted halls. Some even indulged in surreptitious naps in corners, confident that they would not be disturbed. Callers were so rare that when some one did enter from the street, he was ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Miss Kelly's injunctions she could not help looking out of her window every morning for the aeroplane, and giving a surreptitious wave. She told herself that she was only acting patriotically in cheering on our aerial defenses. The back of the hostel opened into the school playground, and one day Winona, taking a run there for exercise before breakfast, ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." How one envies the "reader" of that office, the compositors—nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and snatched a passage or two about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surreptitious glance! Another great Fleet Street printer was Richard Grafton, the printer, as Mr. Noble says, of the first correct folio English translation of the Bible, by permission of Henry VIII. When in Paris, Grafton had to fly with his books from the Inquisition. After his patron Cromwell's execution, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... so many times to get in," admitted Kenny, "with Frank nippin' me just as my hand was on the knob, that I'm feelin' a bit surreptitious." He held up a ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... formal war-partnership with the signatories of the Pact of London, the impulse to the movement being given by certain important shipments of arms and ammunition from China which were then made. A half-surreptitious attempt to discuss terms in Peking caused no little excitement, the matter being, however, only debated in very general terms. The principal item proposed by the Peking government was characteristically the stipulation that an immediate loan of two million ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... to him. The Crown-Prince reads a great deal; very many French Books, new and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the Henriade of M. Arouet Junior (who now calls himself VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in these years. [London, 1723, in surreptitious incomplete state, La Ligue the title; then at length, London, 1726, as Henriade, in splendid 4to,—by subscription (King, Prince and Princess of Wales at the top of it), which yielded 8,000 pounds: see Voltaire, OEuvres Completes, xiii. 408.] An incomparable piece, patronized by Royalty ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... anti-toxic fluid which is excreted whenever dangerous pathogenic bacilli attempt to enter the pharynx or larynx, constituting in fact the ever watchful sentinels of the oral and nasal portals through which an entrance into the human organism might be surprised by its ever active surreptitious enemies—the bacteria of infection ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... only without the author's consent, but without his knowledge," but it is absurd to call an edition published under those circumstances, as the new Dictionary of National Biography calls it, a "surreptitious edition." It was published by the poet's closest personal friends as a protection for the poet's reputation, and perhaps as ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... also, had learned that papa was gone; for while Bob and Grace were still counting the big lumps of sugar-candy, each employed the while for inward solace with an inch of barley-sugar, the front-door opened, and a big basket, and a bundle done up in a kitchen-cloth, made surreptitious entrance into the house, and were quickly unpacked by Mrs. Robarts herself on the table in Mrs. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... against the door of Mrs. Chowles's blinking old house; but he was too much at home to think of waiting for a reply, and had gone through the ceremony only for the purpose of removing from his entrance all appearance of being underhanded or surreptitious; for no sooner had he knocked with one hand, than with the other he raised the latch and walked without hesitation ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... "Gazette" gained them. It came to pass that the "Herald" missed fire altogether for several weeks; then it came out feebly, two small advertisements occupying the whole of the fourth page. It was breathing its last. The editor was a clay-colored gentleman with a goatee, whose one surreptitious eye betokened both indolence of disposition and a certain furtive shrewdness. He collected all the outstanding subscriptions he could, on the morning of the issue just mentioned, and, thoughtfully neglecting several items on the other side of the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... "tap-tap" of the cobbler's hammer continued for an hour until dusk, and all the while the soldier lay dressed on his bed. Soon after, a creaking of the stairs told of the surreptitious approach of the unwilling host. He listened outside, and even tried the door, but found it bolted. The soldier, open-eyed on the bed, snored aloud. At the sound of the key on the outside of the door he made a grimace ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... of the Pension Magnotte were for the most part of mature age and unattractive appearance—two or three lonely spinsters, eking out their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," Madame Magnotte ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... this, so I crawled back, and when I tried the experiment again, it was with a bit of candle in my hand, and a surreptitious match or two. What I saw, when with a very trembling little hand I had lighted one of the matches, would have been disappointing to most boys, but not to me. The litter and old boards I saw in odd corners about me were full of possibilities, while in the dimness ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... thinking of what might have happened there if those women had carried out their purpose. He was wondering what the lessons might be that this girl might yet find herself confronted with. The matter troubled him. And Joan's surreptitious glance into his face warned her that the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Battalion. It is already dusk as the sanitary men, like so many sorcerers, stoop in the final rites of fire and burial. Some days ago I taxed the band-master, Bond, with the possibility of playing in the dark; for a moment his face was as long as Taylor's bassoon, but since then by means of surreptitious practice and, I fancy, the sheer confiscation of his bandsmen's folios, the impossible has been achieved. Every band is the best in France, but only ours can play in darkness. Thus, as the column swings past the pond and waiting cookers, the Band ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... removing a grave difficulty. This considerable force was scattered in numerous small garrisons throughout the province. From a military point of view this arrangement was bad, but it enabled each separate garrison to do a little surreptitious slave-hunting on its own account. General Gordon called in these garrisons, confined the Bashi-Bazouks to three or four places, peremptorily stopped the arrival of recruits, and gradually replaced them with trustworthy black Soudanese soldiers. Before he laid down the reins ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... nearest communes, all of one tenor. The Republican 'trick' had evidently exasperated the worthy Norman voters, and brought them up to the polls most effectually! By ten o'clock it was clear that M. Pierre de Witt was elected by a majority too large to be 'whittled' away, and that the surreptitious appearance of the Republicans in the field had served only to emphasize their political weakness. In the canton, Cambremer itself, lying at a distance of eight or ten kilometres, and Beuvron only remained ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... basis that officials will be honest, and work for the city and not for themselves. Our city organizations often give the air of living under laws framed to prevent thievery, bribery, blackmailing, and surreptitious murder. We make our municipal laws as though we were in ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... execution of the recitative passages, can mar the beauty of the words. The audience evidently feels their solemn import. The young lady and the young male person who sit immediately in front of me clasp surreptitious hands as they bow their heads to repeat the confession that they are miserable sinners, and she whispers by no means softly to him of the "frightful bonnets the SMITH girls have on." Presently the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... to supplicate her with bowed head, but he gave one surreptitious flick of his stumpy tail, that to me had the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... fresh field of investigation is open to some enterprising and ambitious naturalist who wishes to study several of these species, as comparatively little is known of their habits, and indeed much still remains to be learned of the whole genus, familiar as one or two of the species are. Their sly, surreptitious manners render them exceedingly difficult to study at close range and with anything like ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... bit. Why, in a vague way he had contemplated seeking some surreptitious method of accomplishing the ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... triumph of their Anglo-American tableau at the carnival, the Camellia Buds held up their heads against their rivals, the Starry Circle. There was hot competition between the two sororities, each continually trying to "go one better" than the other. If the Stars held a surreptitious candy party, the Buds, at the risk of detection by Rachel or some other prefect, gave a dormitory stunt, throwing out hints afterwards of the fun they had enjoyed. Both societies produced manuscript magazines, which were read in strict privacy ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... corner of the hearth, to which I proceeded to transfer my rescued cur. He was grateful, as dogs ever are for a kindness, and licked my hands as I put him down. And he found strength somehow to wag his tail in token of thankfulness, so I felt repaid for my act of mercy, and very well satisfied. A surreptitious visit to the dining-room resulted in a purloined chunk of cold roast beef, and two or three dry, hard biscuits, which I found in the corner of a cupboard. Thus laden with my plunder, I started back, and in the hall came face to face ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... kitchen they would be laughing, chatting, playing crude forfeits, telling grotesque stories, giving riddles, and now, to the muted sound of a melodeon, a man would dance a hornpipe.... And men would sneak out to the byre in twos and threes for a surreptitious glass of whisky.... And suddenly they would rush in and join in ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... had grown so used to his work that he could tell to within five minutes when a rush would come; and he was able to spend a good deal of his time reading a surreptitious novel behind a pile of ledgers, or down in the tea-room. The New Asiatic Bank supplied tea to its employees. In quality it was bad, and the bread-and-butter associated with it was worse. But it had the merit of giving one an excuse for being away from one's desk. There were ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... and everybody's dog, and will carry them home if he finds them straying. He is on speaking terms with everybody's servant-maid, and does them all a thousand kind offices, which are repaid with interest by surreptitious scraps from the larder, and jorums of hot tea in the cold wintry afternoons. On the other hand, if he knows so much, he is equally well known: he is as familiar to sight as the Monument on Fish Street Hill to those who live opposite; he is part and parcel of the street view, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... of course," their visitor explained, "so far as regards my choosing this somewhat surreptitious form of entrance into ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the time, ["Nicolai, Ueber Zimmermanns Fragmente, i. 181, 182, ii. 253, 254. Sketch of what is authentically known about Bonneville: 'suspected both of MATINEES and of the Stolen EDITION.'"] stole and edited this surreptitious mischief-making OEuvres du Philosophe de Sans-Souci (Paris or Lyon, pretending to be 'Potsdam,' January, 1760)," which we are now considering!" Encouraged, probably enough, by Choiseul himself, who, in any case, is now known to have been the promoter of this fine bit of mischief, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... knocked down about the Five Chimnies and Jenny's whim. At a bill of fare, and the science how dinner should be put before him, he was then, as since, unrivalled; yet more to his good memorial, he knew how a dinner should be put before other people. For one day, as he was beginning to revel in a surreptitious banquet in the Bowling-alley, his share of the mess Lord Edward gave to the relief of want, which then happened to be wandering by the window.—"This praise ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... undeniable that a felonious entrance had been made, but by whom or for what purpose still remained uncertain. Even now, Renshaw found it difficult to accept Nott's theory that de Ferrieres was the aggressor and Rosey the object, nor could he justify his own suspicion that the Lascar had obtained a surreptitious entrance under Sleight's directions. With a feeling that if Rosey had been present he would have confessed all, and demanded from her an equal confidence, he began to hate his feeble, purposeless, and inefficient alliance with her father, who believed but dare not tax his daughter with ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... a moment, mentally to scrutinize a brand-new project which seemed, by some surreptitious agency, to have already taken his fancy. It was a curious project; there were attractive things about it, and objections to it suggested themselves ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... exceedingly high and tight collar, as one and the other assailed him with queries. Meanwhile the object of his journey, slowly moving her great fan of white ostrich feathers, looked across the table at Faraday and made a little surreptitious moue. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... experience, is conceded to be an excellent measure. A single provision of the bill has been the subject of charges and imputations that the silver dollar was, in a fraudulent and surreptitious way, "demonetized" by this act. There is not the slightest foundation for this imputation. The bill was sent to me as chairman of the committee on finance, and submitted to ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... led individual members, as well as large bodies of the above description of force, to the gross neglect and violation of their public duty, and to open, daring, and lawless resistance to the authority of the magistracy and of the executive government, on various occasions; that the systematic and surreptitious introduction of Orangeism into every branch of the military service, in almost every part of the empire, in direct violation of orders issued in 1822 and 1829 by the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to the difference in its use, and the directions for determining this place to all conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental topic, a doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the surreptitious devices of the pure understanding and the delusions which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception, every title, under which many cognitions rank together, may ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... meal all were engrossed in talking of the great event of the morning—that is, all but Joe, who kept casting surreptitious ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... to be grateful to me for reconciling them to Jevons, if it was I who reconciled them. I don't think Mrs. Thesiger ever really forgave him, ever really liked him till the end; but the Canon very soon owned to a surreptitious regard for him. Luckily he acquired it while Jevons was still struggling, otherwise I do not think I ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... couple of troopers, and Mac and Mick saw no particular obstacle to their remaining a month or two. Mac had exhausted most of his and the section's finance in excellent fashion. The harbour was out of bounds, but in several surreptitious excursions out on to the harbour, with Mick and one or two others, he had succeeded in getting from ships' canteens and stores as big a stock of provisions as he could carry with him on his ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... untipped "boy san" He refuses to answer the bell. He suddenly understands no English at all. He bangs all the doors. He spends his spare moments in devising all kinds of petty annoyances, damp and dirty sheets, accidental damage to property, surreptitious draughts. And to vex one boy san is to antagonize the whole caste; it is a boycott. At last the tip is given. Sudden sunshine, obsequious manners, attention of all kinds—for ever dwindling periods, until at last the boy san attains ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... he was warm and tired, and he wanted more than a spoonful of the refreshing delicacy. But a surreptitious glance at his watch showed him it was almost five o'clock; so he accepted ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... of the scanty knowledge which we possess of the fate of the captive princes as long as Louis himself was permitted to live; and Turgy, a cook, who, by an act of faithful boldness, had obtained a surreptitious entrance into the Temple, and whose services seemed to have escaped notice, though at a later period they proved of ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... I was to receive another shock from my mysterious prisoner who had acted as interpreter. On Thursday he came to my cell in the uniform of a warder. Consequently I saw a good deal of him, and, he being friendly, we had many brief snatches of surreptitious conversation. He was highly intelligent, well-educated and sympathetic. I enquired as to how he happened to be in our unsalubrious avenue. He informed me that he was awaiting the Kaiser's pardon. His offence ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... at this statement. "Dis chile don't t'ink much ob such a surreptitious pedestrianation as dat, den. Don't like no cold wedder, nohow! And Buttsy don' like ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... He would have to leave on the morning train, call up Chrystie at seven, go out and change the tickets, and meet her at Oakland. In the sudden concentrating of perils, the elopement was gradually losing its surreptitious character and becoming an affair openly conducted under the public eye. But there was no other course. Even if they were seen on the train they would reach Reno without interference, and once there ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... course at home, but it opened a vista of delightful possibilities and she eagerly accepted a pair of gloves the following week from the same young man, who afterwards asked her to dine with him. This was the beginning of a winter of surreptitious pleasures on the part of the two sisters. They were shrewd enough never to be out later than ten o'clock and always brought home so-called overtime pay to their mother. In the spring the older girl, finding herself worn out by her dissipation and having ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... could not see any possible treaty that would leave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners with Ramage or go on walking round the London squares discussing Socialism with Miss Miniver toward the small hours. She had tasted freedom now, and so far she had not felt the need of protection. Still, there certainly was something in ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... room formed by the bartizan of the tower, and into this I tip-toed, feeling horribly guilty. If only I had not been in that suspicious brown suit! In evening clothes there would, of course, have been no necessity for this surreptitious retreat. I devoutly hoped that the two were merely bent on exploring the place and that the darkness of the old lumber-room would quickly satisfy their curiosity and send them down again. I heard them ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... members of the younger set, began to pay her marked attentions. He is a fascinating, romantic sort of fellow, one that, I imagine, possesses much attraction for a girl who has been brought up as simply as Georgette was, and who has absorbed a surreptitious diet of modern literature such as we now know Georgette did. I suppose you have seen portraits of Georgette in the newspapers and know what a dreamy and artistic nature ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... his family. As a promising boy, he had been bought by the Ephrata brotherhood and bred into the fraternity. With the audacity of youth he had conceived a great passion for Tabea, and now that his apprenticeship was about to expire he amused her with surreptitious notes. To-day, for the first time, Tabea began to think of the possibility of marrying Scheible, chiefly, perhaps, from a vague desire to escape from the convent, which could not but be irksome to one of her spirit. Scheible was ambitious, and it was his plan, as she knew, to go to Philadelphia ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... the infant. Are not the men who sit down deliberately to such a task more culpable than even the nursery jade who administers gin and opium to her charge, in order that she may steal to the back-door undisturbed, and there indulge in surreptitious dalliance with the dustman? Far better had they stuck to their old trade of twisting travesties from Shakespeare for the amusement of elderly idiots, than attempted to people Fairyland with the palpable denizens ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... thrown back and his arms behind him, sprang to a considerable height, as if the ground were elastic and his legs steel springs. This leaping made Jaime think, with a sensation of repugnance, of escapes from prison or of surreptitious assaults ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... She gazes pensively, now on the blue Mediterranean, now on a family group which consists of the dark-eyed Juliet and the earnest Lucien, who are vainly striving to restrain the violence of their youngest son; the eldest being engaged in a surreptitious attempt to pull down a map of Algiers, which hangs on the opposite wall. Mariano, with his wonted vivacity, stands before the old lady tossing a small female specimen of humanity as near to the ceiling as ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dr. Kent was a retired chemist. He had, in his home, a laboratory in which he was working upon some mysterious problem. His children did not know what it was, nor, of course, did I. And none of us had ever been in the laboratory, except that when occasion offered we stole surreptitious peeps. ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... admit that her husband had his failings, and Mary Lou said frankly that it was easy enough to see where THAT marriage would end, but Susan read more truly the little bride's flashing blue eyes and the sudden scarlet in her cheeks, and she won Freda's undying loyalty by a surreptitious pressure of ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... on overtime," said Mr Clayhanger; and then he added, in a voice still lower, and with a surreptitious glance at Miss Ingamells, the shop-woman, who was stolidly enfolding newspapers in wrappers at the opposite counter, "See to it yourself, now. He won't want to talk to her about a thing like that. Tell him ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... can do any good there, but "we are always glad of the presence and sympathy of our clergy." The curates promise amendment of life. The vicar engages to look out for another schoolmaster, and be more diligent in his attentions to Muck Lane. A surreptitious supply of extra tickets to the ultra-Protestant appeases for the moment her wrath against the choir surplices. But the occasional screw of the monthly meeting is as nothing to the daily pressure applied by the individual District ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... better than assisting prisoners to carry on a surreptitious correspondence with people outside," he retorted, in the tone of a man who knows what he ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... dreaming woman-creatures, who did not care a maple-leaf whether we sinned in Adam, or whether the Trinity were separate as persons or as attributes; but who drew little portraits of their dearest Academy boys on the margins of their lecture-books, and passed these to their particular intimates in surreptitious interludes between doctrines. ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... came to consult them as to their future. Knowing somewhat of the private history of each member of the school, they got on excellently, and their reputation spread till more than half the girls had paid surreptitious visits to their retreat. All might have gone well, and their secret might have remained undiscovered, had it not been for Veronica's friendship with Mademoiselle. Veronica was so impressed with the value of the crystal's information that she could not ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... had deepened. When emancipation came she would have returned to the service of her beloved twins had it not been for Dona Isabel's refusal to accept her. As it was, she and Asensio had married, and by means of Rosa's surreptitious help they had managed to buy this little piece of land. Rosa had practised self-denial to make the purchase possible, and her self- sacrifice had borne fruit: that act of childish beneficence had created a refuge for Esteban and herself ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... deceived; for I not only found them faithful at that time, but they are grateful even to this day. All this I attribute solely to my always treating them with kindness and justice. No part of their affection did I ever obtain by any unfair or surreptitious means. I never encouraged indolence, idleness, or profligacy of any sort, and an habitual drunkard I never ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... by the bulbous parcel beneath my arm, felt myself no longer in danger of being roared at to hold horses or proffered alms by kindly old ladies. I strolled along at leisurely pace, casting oblique and surreptitious glances at my reflection in shop windows, whereby I observed that my new garments fitted me better than I had supposed, though it seemed the hair curled beneath my hat brim in too generous luxuriance; so perceiving a barber's adjacent, I entered and gave my head to the ministrations ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the house. The audience no longer wears the look of subdued melancholy which was once involuntarily assumed by each mourner for the memory of SHAKSPEARE, who passed the solemn threshold. The ushers no longer find it necessary to sustain their depressed spirits by the surreptitious chewing of the quid of consolation, and are now the most pleasant, as they were always the most courteous, of their kind. Persons have even been heard, within the past week, to allude to BOOTH'S as a "theatre," instead of a "temple of art;" and though the convulsions of nature which attend ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... the impertinent mimicry of Miss Schley concentrated a great deal of attention upon the woman mimicked. Many people, accepting the American's cleverness as a fashionable fact, also accepted her imitation as the imitation of a fact more surreptitious, and credited Lady Holme with a secret leading towards the improper never before suspected by them. They remembered the break between the Holmes and Carey, the strange scene at the Arkell House ball, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... viand appeared upon it, and hung green boughs about the room, with candles here and there to lend a festal light. Moor trundled a great cheese in from the dairy, brought milk-pans without mishap, disposed dishes, and caused Nat to cleave to him by the administration of surreptitious titbits and jocular suggestions; while Phebe tumbled about in every one's way, quite wild with excitement; and grandma stood in her pantry like a culinary general, swaying a big knife for a baton, as she issued orders and marshalled her forces, ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... it, hands have touched and tingled, and it has heard vows and protestations as passionate as any its pages contained. Coming down in the world, Cinderella in the kitchen has blubbered over it by the light of a surreptitious candle, conceiving herself the while the magnificent Georgiana, and Lord Mordaunt, Georgiana's lover, the pot-boy round the corner. Tied up with many a dingy brother, the auctioneer knocks the bundle down to the bidder of a few pence, and it finds its way to the quiet cove of some village ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... exception of Pao-yue, who behaved just as if the news had not reached his ears; and can you, reader, guess why? The fact is that Chih Neng, of the Water Moon Convent, had recently entered the city in a surreptitious manner in search of Ch'in Chung; but, contrary to expectation, her visit came to be known by Ch'in Yeh, who drove Chih Neng away and laid hold of Ch'in Chung and gave him a flogging. But this outburst of temper of his brought about a relapse of his old complaint, with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... as good as dead, anyhow, and there were many who carried their friendly sympathy with his highly respected nephew so far as to urge him vehemently to hasten at once—yes, that very night—to Karpatfalva, take possession, and seal up everything, to prevent any surreptitious filching of his property. But the young Squire was suspicious of all premature rumours, and resolved to bide his time, await more reliable information, and only put in an appearance on receiving news of the funeral. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... taken in a somewhat surreptitious way, and the takers generally wore an absent-minded look, as if the purloining was not quite intentional on their part. But they were all good customers of the grocer, and the abstractions were doubtless looked on by him as ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... as much so with the provisions in her charge as with those she bought for herself. She sedulously sent up remainders till they were expressly countermanded. Less economical by nature, and hungrier by habit, Mary Ann had much trouble in restraining herself from surreptitious pickings. Her conscience was rarely worsted; still there was a taint of dishonesty in her soul, else had the stairs been less of an ethical battleground for her. Lancelot's advent only made her hungrier; somehow the thought of nibbling at his provisions was too ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... then," I responded. "I'll stretch a point since it is war-time. I give you my word that I threw overboard a small bronze paper-weight that was cluttering up my traps. There was nothing surreptitious about it; the whole steamer might have seen me. Do you care to take the responsibility of ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... him a surreptitious handful of corn from her apron pocket when she met him walking dejectedly in the road halfway between the two houses. So encouraged he extended his rambles, and one afternoon Amanda, looking out of her window, saw ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of brimstone. When the smoke cleared away, the true baby was found in the cradle sleeping as if it never had been taken away. Another case was related to me as having occurred in the same neighbourhood, but in this instance the theft was not discovered until after the death of the child. The surreptitious or false baby, having apparently died, was buried; but suspicion having been raised, the grave was opened and the coffin examined, when there was found in it, not a corpse, but a wooden figure. The late Mr. Rust, in his Druidism Exhumed, states ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... who made him as unhappy as possible. It was said that he was so wretched that he took to flight secretly; but it is known that his departure was mentioned in a theatrical journal in good season. None the less, though the flight may not have been surreptitious, it may well be credited to domestic misery. He buried himself in Russia for eight years, which may be placed in music's column of loss. Returning to Paris then, he found a clear field for the great success that followed. Soon after, in 1811, he formed an attachment with a woman who bore him ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes |
