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More "Surreptitious" Quotes from Famous Books



... disappointed, but his disappointment was softened by a timely remittance of ten dollars from his mother, which he spent partly in surreptitious games of billiards, partly in overloading his stomach with pastry and ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.

... She took a surreptitious glance at the profile of Captain Goritz. A part of the great machine that the world calling Germany he might be, but she read something in his looks which gave her an idea that he might be something more than a ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... geography and history. They flounder dolefully in these studies and are in a state of more or less continual rebellion and disgrace. Because of their intense activity and restlessness, they irritate the teacher. She wants quiet in the school-room. Their surreptitious playing, rapping and tapping on desks, and other evidences of dammed-up energy and desire for more freedom and more scope of action, interferes with the desired ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... 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 dared not tax his daughter ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... which had been circulated without his sanction, but in vain. Even the first complete edition, which was issued in 1581, seems to have been without his consent; for the author complains that he was compelled, by the surreptitious publication of parts of his poem, to finish the work in haste, and he wished for more time to elaborate the plot and polish the style. In the later editions, no less than seven of which appeared the same year, Tasso seems to have been to some extent consulted; but it may be said that ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... cheeks with his brown fingers, Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object. She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the truth, she heard the distant Arab's everlasting song, and her dream became a nightmare. At last Safti dropped ...
— The Princess And The Jewel Doctor - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... upright and motionless, but nevertheless moving forward at a good rate of speed. Certain drivers refused, however, to allow these liberties, but scowled blackly when addressed by the usual cheerful "Give us a ride, Mister?" To catch surreptitious rides with them was considered a desirable feat. Certain daring youngsters stole up behind and crouched low against the runners. Occasionally they escaped detection, but generally tasted the sting of the whip-lash as it curled viciously backward. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... about a week after this Clarice came to me as I was smoking a surreptitious cigar on the rocks, away from the house, after sundown. She came and sat down close by me, but I pretended not to notice. "Robert," said she. "Well," said I. There is no use in meeting them half way when they are willing to come ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... the name of Cleland, to which is added a note, expressing surprise that the world did not believe that Cleland was the writer![196] Wanting a pretext for the publication of his letters, he delighted CURLL by conveying to him some printed surreptitious copies, who soon discovered that it was but a fairy treasure which he could not grasp; and Pope, in his own defence, had soon ready the authentic edition.[197] Some lady observed that Pope "hardly drank tea without a stratagem!" ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... 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 ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... thin voice of his wife, as she threw a surreptitious glance at Reuben's shoes to see if they were quite clean enough ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... vigilantly to defend his patents at home, which were assailed by unworthy and surreptitious rivals as soon as it was proved that they were pecuniarily valuable. Some of the competing engines, as Watt himself described them, were simply asthmatic. "Hornblower's, at Radstock, was obliged to stand still once every ten minutes to snore and snort." "Some were like Evan's mill, which was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... task in hand. More wicked and more abominable is the crime that I am now prosecuting, that there have been found upstart Doctors who have made a drunken onslaught on the handwriting that is of heaven; who have given judgment against it as being in many places defiled, defective, false, surreptitious; who have corrected some passages, tampered with others; torn out others; who have converted every bulwark wherewith it was guarded into Lutheran "spirits," what I may call phantom ramparts and parted walls. All this they have done that they might ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... doubtless made a better guess at what had happened than Plunger. It was in this way. Mellor and Crick, the two boys who had gained possession of the Garside flag, had found a good deal of amusement at first in making surreptitious visits to the barn, and dancing round their capture, but they soon began to long for something more exciting. Truth to tell, the capture had not made the sensation in the ranks of the enemy they had anticipated—so at least it seemed to them. They had expected early reprisals, ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... with dignified difficulty in his 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

... was not his place, but the boy was quite at home there, due to surreptitious visits connected with fishing excursions and ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... was not in a high state of exultation, with the exception of Pao-y, 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... danger. Hell knows no fury like the 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 ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... order to secure a position in which to compel the Provinces into obedience to her policy. She urged, with much logic, that as she had refused the sovereignty of the whole country when offered to her, she was not likely to form surreptitious schemes to make herself mistress of a portion of it. On the other hand, it was very obvious, that to accept the sovereignty of Philip's rebellious Provinces, was to declare war upon Philip; whereas, had she been pacifically inclined towards ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... 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

... righteous in law, a centre of conscience—even geographically—in a world relapsing to Pagan chaos. And its flag shall be a "shield of David," with the Lion of Judah rampant, and twelve stars for the Tribes. No more of the cringing and the whispering in dark corners; no surreptitious invasion of Palestine. The Jew shall demand right, not tolerance. Israel shall walk erect. And he, Israel's spokesman, will not juggle with diplomatic combinations—he will play cards on table. He has nothing to say to the mob, Christian or Jewish, he will not intrigue ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... 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, and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... in his best licks,—that is to say, had not yet pulled off any of his deepest cogitations and deductions. Just as I happened to see him slipping his little old cocaine-squirter back in his pocket after a surreptitious shot in the arm (while our party was entering the drawing-room on the left side of the front corridor), Lord Launcelot evidently thought it incumbent upon him to kid Holmes for the lack of results so far; but ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... who has been to a strict preparatory boarding-school and is just 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 ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... perdu[Fr]; secluded &c. 893. undisclosed &c. 529, untold &c. 527; covert &c. (latent) 526; untraceable; mysterious &c. (unintelligible) 519. irrevealable[obs3], inviolable; confidential; esoteric; not to be spoken of; unmentionable. obreptitious[obs3], furtive, stealthy, feline; skulking &c. v.; surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner; sly &c. (cunning). 702; secretive, evasive; reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up; close, close as wax; taciturn &c. 585. Adv. secretly &c. adj.; in secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners; in the dark &c. adj. januis clausis[Lat], with ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare

... to pass away the time in the country, and by the forcible request of friends drawn from him: yet, passing severally from hand to hand, in written copies, grew at length to be a pretty number in a little volume: and among so many sundry dispersed transcripts, some very imperfect and surreptitious had liked to have passed the press, if the author had not used speedy means of prevention; when, perceiving the hazard he ran to be wronged, was unwillingly[AU] willing to let them pass as now they appear to the world. If any faults have escaped the press ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... Sikhs on this job," said Turner. "British troops wouldn't appreciate the delicacy of the situation. Moslems couldn't be trusted not to talk. The Sikhs enjoy the surreptitious part of it, and don't care enough about the politics to get excited. Wish I might be in at the finish, though! Have you any notion ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... description. Everything succeeded excellently. The only reminiscences of his escapade were a few cuts in his coat, which went unnoticed, and the precious book of notes, to which he applied himself with such vigour in the watches of the night, with a surreptitious candle and a hamper of apples as aids to study, that, though tired next day, he managed to do quite well enough in the exam, to pass muster. And, as he had never had the least prospect of coming out top, or even in the first ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... careful, surreptitious observation of him, from the depths and round the wings of her sun-bonnet, told her was that he was an upright man, and true, and bold, with a spirit which he kept well in hand but which could blaze like lightning on occasion, and a strength which ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... from the other. What one knows both must know. It is a bad sign when one partner in the conjugal relation is afraid to have the letters opened or read by the other partner. Surreptitious correspondence is always dangerous. If a man comes to you and says, "I am going to tell you a great privacy, and don't want you to tell anybody, not even your wife," say to him, "Well, now, you had better not tell me, for I shall tell her as soon ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... went into the tent Jack reset the tin-pan trap. It had already paid for what little trouble it caused him, because only for the alarm having been given none of them might have heard Moses at his surreptitious work; and consequently he would have devoured the entire two weeks' supply of oats, or killed himself in the endeavor to dispose of them, which would have been a calamity in several ways, both for Moses ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... Hartley had forgotten just how many revolutions would make fifteen knots or else he had underestimated his engine-room's capacity. The Puncher split the waves and spewed them twenty feet above her, racing head-on for the reef, and Curley Crothers was too busy at his wheel to pass the pilot the surreptitious insult he intended. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... she had made enough to buy them before muslin went up? There were three of the boys asleep now, legs and arms adrift over the floor, pockets gorged with half-apples, bits of twine instead of suspenders, other surreptitious bits under their trousers for straps. There were the twins, girls of ten, hungering for beaux, pickles, and photographic albums. They were gone to a party in the village. "Sis" had done up their white dresses; and such fun as they had with her, putting them on to hide the darns! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... 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

... realized the internal advantages to be derived from a 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 pounds ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... began to move abroad. You could hear them pass—now a faint rustle here, now a surreptitious "pad-pad" there. Once some bird-thing of the night cried out suddenly, very far away in the sky, "Keck! ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... evening the two men parted with a surreptitious feeling that they would have liked each other under any other circumstances. They promised to meet soon again. As for Jarvis, he felt that a golden egg had been laid for him in the middle of the table on the Astor roof! The one thing ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke

... about the mortgage. It was a pretty trying interview, as you can understand; but I couldn't help wondering what the poor old boy would say if he dreamt what sort of pressure I've been applying on his behalf! Well, it's all over now except our several exits from the surreptitious stage. I can't make mine without our sleeping partner, but you would really simplify matters, Bunny, ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... 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 was ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... "gossip benches" are filled. The old men smoke their pipes and doff their caps to "the American" with the cheery welcome of friends who knew and spanked him with hearty good will when as "a kid" he absconded with their boats for a surreptitious expedition up to the lake. Those boats! heavy, flat-bottomed, propelled with a pole that stuck in the mud and pulled them back half the time farther than they had gone. But what fun it was! In after years a steam whistle ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... This surreptitious treaty was transmitted to Washington, and under a misapprehension of the manner in which it was secured, was ratified by the Senate, on the 3d of March, 1825, the last day of Mr. Monroe's administration. Gov. Troup, acting under this ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... years 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 ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen

... George Sutton was as nothing to his desire of avoiding her. He dived with surreptitious haste down side streets when he saw her coming, or disappeared within shop doorways. Once, when Dosia confronted him inadvertently on the platform of a car, and he had perforce to take off his hat and murmur, "Good morning," he turned pale ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... admitted the ladies with a promptness that was suggestive of surreptitious watching at some window. On Pete's face the dignity of his high office and the delight of the moment were fighting for mastery. The dignity held firmly through Mrs. Stetson's friendly greeting; but it fled in defeat when Billy Neilson stepped ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... When my father heard this, he proposed that they should walk together, to which Mr. Balmy gladly consented; it was therefore arranged that they should go to bed early, breakfast soon after six, and then walk to Sunch'ston. My father then went to his own room, where he again smoked a surreptitious ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... vividness of life, a deeper current of vitality, told him that this was not a woman preyed upon by a gnawing grief. He noted, without understanding, a change in her bearing to Courant and his to her. Without words to give it expression he saw in her attitude to the leader a pliant, docile softness, a surreptitious leap of light in the glance that fell upon him in quick welcome before her lids shut it in. With Courant the change showed in a possessive tenderness, a brooding concern. When, at the morning start, he waited as she rode toward him, his face was irradiated ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... reader take notice!! The proof of any Jacobin or Socialist or Communist take-over, surreptitious or open-handed, lies in their take-over of the important posts in politics, the judicial system, the media and the administration. They may be years in doing this, placing convinced or controlled men and women, first in the faculties, later in career post, so that they, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... orderly literary work. Possibly it might be done by making the literary person live elsewhere or preventing literary persons from having households. However it might be done, it is not done. This is a thing innocent girls exposed to the surreptitious proposals of literary men do not understand. They think it will be very fine to have photographs of themselves and their "cosy nooks" published in magazines, to illustrate the man's interviews, and the full ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... impressions which are conveyed to 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

... sxauxmo, mar—. Surface suprajxo. Surfeit supersati. Surge ondego. Surgeon hxirurgiisto. Surgery hxirurgio. Surly malgaja. Surmise konjekti. Surmount venki. Surname alnomo. Surpass superi. Surprise surprizi. Surrender kapitulaci. Surreptitious kasxa. Survey (land) termezuri. Survey vidadi, elvidi. Surveyor termezuristo. Survive postvivi. Susceptible sentebla—ema. Susceptibility sentemo. Suspect suspekti. Suspend pendigi. Suspense (uncertainty) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... me on condition of my being everlastingly silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned as ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... windows of the dwellings are secured by a screen of iron bars, and many fronts where the house is of two stories in height have also delightful little balconies, answering a Romeo and Juliet purpose, all courtship being conducted here in a surreptitious manner. A Mexican never goes about a courtship whereby he hopes to win a wife in an open, straightforward manner. On the contrary, he forms cunning schemes for meeting his fair inamorata, and employs ingenious subterfuges to gain a stolen interview. He tells his passion not ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... overshadowed by that of the Waverley Novels, but they had served their turn in providing an entertaining interlude before the arrival of Sir Walter Scott. Even at the very height of his vogue, they probably enjoyed a surreptitious popularity, not merely in the servants' hall, but in the drawing room. Nineteenth century literature abounds in references to the vogue of this school of fiction. There were spasmodic attempts at a revival in an anonymous work called Forman (1819), dedicated to Scott, and in Ainsworth's ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... such of his 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 ratio to the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... 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. Early next morning the Dean arrived to greet him. The very reverend ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them : even those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived the'. Who, as he was a happie imitator ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... afternoon he entered the Rooms to gain another surreptitious look at Mademoiselle. Yes! She was there, still playing on as imperturbably as ever, with that half-suppressed sinister smile always ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... table and became engrossed, ostensibly in the exploits of an indestructible trailer of men; but really in a surreptitious examination of the ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... 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 ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... rubbed shoulders with them, but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easy and he was too sure of himself—too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... gave her an under-clip on the jaw and sent her down, and in a few seconds the old man and child were the centre of a struggling group—the white men hitting out right and left to save them from being murdered. The teacher's wife, a tall, graceful young woman—with whom Denison had been exchanging surreptitious glances a few minutes before—weeping copiously the while, aided them by belabouring the backs of the women who were endeavouring to get at the prostrate figure of the little girl. But Packenham, Macpherson, and the supercargo were too much for the natives, ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... wot," and the company barber reached into his pocket with a surreptitious glance about, "if you'll take these bills an' sneak past to that coaster lyin' along the next dock, the Chinese steward 'ull sell you three bottles o' whiskey fer these," and he handed me a bunch of bills ... "an' w'en you come back with th' booze, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... was always arranged in my hearing there was no difficulty in my keeping the appointment. In the meantime I learned that Hannibal was born in the vicinity, that he was living a hermit life, and that nobody knew of the surreptitious visits he was paying to Oakhurst. Then one day I heard that Archie was at the hotel, and thinking it time that I let him into the secret I went there, pretending I had just arrived from the north, when in reality I had been ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... and that he had probably decided to go without seeing her. She saw that the decision, from whatever cause it was taken, had disturbed him deeply; and she immediately concluded that his change of plan was due to some surreptitious interference of Mr. Royall's. All her old resentments and rebellions flamed up, confusedly mingled with the yearning roused by Harney's nearness. Only a few hours earlier she had felt secure in his comprehending pity; now she was flung back on herself, ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... government. The government of their cities is arranged for on the 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

... hastened to assure her, giving Peggy a surreptitious kick to divert her thoughts from laughter. "Only you must realize, Aunt Olivia, that this is a very great surprise to us." "I thought it would be so," said Aunt Olivia complacently. "But your father ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... was alarmed by an alleged increase in the export of footwear to Switzerland, and particularly to villages on the German frontier. He yields to none in his desire to give the KAISER the boot, but not in any surreptitious manner. Lord WOLMER comforted him with the statement that the bulk of the exports consisted of women's and children's shoes, quite useless to the Germans until they get down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... 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 ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... since, notwithstanding he has obtained the dignified appellation of Sir Francis, the Gazette says, that "in future no improper person shall be admitted to the honour of knighthood, in consequence of two surreptitious presentations lately"—the one an M.D. the other F.R.C. Surgeons, particularly if it were possible that this Gentleman may be one of the persons alluded to. For, what ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... right, and the rest of the crew knew it, being ready to a man, as they afterwards did, to declare that "that there Bill Smith would caulk," as they termed taking a surreptitious nap, "even if the gunboat were ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... sketch Turner's Python. On the unfinished drawing is written: "Bothered away from it, and never went again. No light to work by in the next month." An artist in the Gallery had been taking notes of him for a surreptitious portrait—an ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... disdainful lips curved laughingly and so bewildered him, he forgot the customary phrases and stood staring like a nonny. Her footstep fell so light, she was so agile and quick, the superstitious dwarf swore she was but a creature of the night and held surreptitious meetings with all the familiar spirits of demonology. As she never denied the uncanny imputation, but only displayed her small white teeth maliciously, by way of answer, Triboulet felt assured he was right and crossed himself religiously ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... had been placed and secured. Then he took his seat in the station and quietly waited, occasionally twisting his long blond mustache. The doctor took a cigar with the agent, and the men walked about or sat on the edge of the platform. One of them, who obtained a surreptitious glance at his silent commander, told his companions that there was trouble ...
— The Denver Express - From "Belgravia" for January, 1884 • A. A. Hayes

... feel that he had convinced his room-mate, who took charge of his carpet-bag and now sat with it between his feet waiting the signal of the fugitive's surreptitious return for it. He was a vague-looking young man, presently in charge of the "Local and Literary" column of the one daily paper of the place, and he had just explained to the two other boarders who were watching with him for the event ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... seemed to produce no awakening effect on Colonel Pyncheon. When the sound subsided, the silence through the house was deep, dreary, and oppressive, notwithstanding that the tongues of many of the guests had already been loosened by a surreptitious cup or two ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... seen him, save in the surreptitious way I have related, and he had never seen me. The day following my arrival in the city I had noticed the large house in our rear, and had asked some questions about it. This was but natural, for it was one of the few mansions in the great city with an old-style lawn about it. Besides, it ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... old use of the word, is no more. The surreptitious introduction into this country of German cigars, eau de Cologne, and Tauchnitz novels, does not merit the term. A revised tariff having removed the necessity for smuggling, the game is over; for that is the reason of the disappearance of the smuggler rather than any increased vigilance ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... all the twenty-six flat children knew about it. The next day it was talked over in the brick court, where the children used to go to shout and race. But on this day there was neither shouting nor racing. There was, instead, a shaking of heads, a surreptitious dropping of tears, a guessing and protesting and lamenting. All the flat mothers congratulated themselves on the fact that their children were becoming so quiet and orderly, and wondered what could have come over them when they noted that ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... I have to say that I have not interpolated my author's dreams with any surreptitious ones of my own; but have laid a faithful abstract before the economic reader, who might not be well pleased to pay seven pounds sterling for a body of raving. I have indeed omitted many circumstantial pictures of his intuitions, because they could only have served to disturb the reader's slumber; ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... was over they sat in a sunny corner of the porch while Ditmar smoked his cigar. His digestion was good, his spirits high, his love-making—on account of the public nature of the place—surreptitious yet fervent. The glamour to which Janet had yielded herself was on occasions slightly troubled by some new and enigmatic element to be detected in his voice and glances suggestive of intentions vaguely disquieting. At last ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... 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 ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... the Siege sense. "All the pleasing illusions, which make power gentle and obedience liberal," were gone. The eating and the drinking were gone. Even the surreptitious read in bed was but a relic of joy; the penalty of burning the candle at both ends was being paid. To have a bath was a crime; a little water was allowed for tea and soup only. Soda-water was the sole product of the lemonade factories; but the quality of Adam's ale tasted worse and was ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... interest had happened; among them, a surreptitious acquiring of considerable knowledge of the island language by me. For this reason I was chosen as ambassador to the king. My mission was a failure, as the king, though gracious, informed me that this plan was necessary in securing complete ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... 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 to be heard from. It was possible harm might ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... must be taken by each conception according 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 be called a logical place. Upon this is based ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... it as I remember, was in a Methodist chapel in Staffordshire, England, where three small boys, including myself, prisoned in an old-fashioned high-back pew, were endeavouring to relieve the apparently endless ennui of the service by eating surreptitious apples. Suddenly upon our three young heads descended what seemed like a heavy block of wood, wielded by an ancient deacon who did not approve of boys. We were, each of us, no more than eight years old, and the book which had thus descended upon our heads was nothing ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... 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 they were to pass into immediate ...
— The Federalist Papers

... half an hour Abe and Morris haggled with the chauffeur. They were vigorously supported by Kleebaum, who punctuated his scathing condemnation of the chauffeur's greed with a series of surreptitious winks which encouraged the latter to remain firm in his demand. Finally Morris peeled off two five-dollar bills and an hour later the Appalachian runabout was ignominiously hauled ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... He noticed with surreptitious pride that folks no longer eyed him with sly, amused, knowing smiles whenever he opened a newspaper. Perhaps some of their amusement had been the sight of a youngster struggling with a full-spread page, employing arms ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... 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 Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... all without distinction by the Constable Damville, the Carmelites and Capuchins, the Jesuits and monks of all orders and colours, began by degrees to return to Nines; without any display, it is true, rather in a surreptitious manner, preferring darkness to daylight; but however this may be, in the course of three or four years they had all regained foothold in the town; only now they were in the position in which the Protestants had been formerly, they were without churches, as their enemies were in possession of all ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... indolence and dirt, were PROMOTED to these fine dwellings. The consequences were such as Lady Dashfort delighted to point out; everything let to go to ruin for the want of a moment's care, or pulled to pieces for the sake of the most trifling surreptitious profit; the people most assisted always appearing proportionally wretched and discontented. No one could, with more ease and more knowledge of her ground, than Lady Dashfort, do the DISHONOUR of a country. In every cabin that she entered, by the ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... a brother? Who is to support the honour of a great family if not its own scions? Who is to abstain from wasting the wealth and honour of another, if not he who has the nearest chance of possessing them? And yet who could be so manifestly bound as he to take care that no surreptitious head was imposed upon the family. This little child was either the real Popenjoy, a boy to be held by him as of all boys the most sacred, to the promotion of whose welfare all his own energies would be due,—or else a brat so abnormously distasteful and abominable as to demand ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... his part, declared that, until the actual day of the meeting, they 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

... Master of the Tenth Cycle!" cried one of the fellows, while the others edged toward the doorway as though to attempt a surreptitious escape from the presence of the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... great suffering pulp. Could I ever in all my life have hungered for food and been able to get it past the lump in my throat that grew larger with the seconds? And if Alfred's pudding tasted of the salt of dead sea-fruit this evening, it was from my surreptitious tears ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... understand when Billy treated her to a slow and surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... welcomed his visitors with a graciousness that awoke wonder in the minds of his staff. His marked preference for the American girl did not escape attention. Some of the bolder young officers indulged in surreptitious grimaces, and all looked with more or less compassion upon the happy-faced beauty from over the sea. Marlanx surveyed Baldos steadily and coldly, deep disapproval in his sinister eyes. He had not forgotten the encounter of the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... open the letter, then, in some surreptitious way—some way that will not be noticed afterwards? Oh, I ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... 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 beyond I seemed to perceive ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... to ten a day. There was a gleam of sunshine, but lo! when the act was critically examined after it had become a law, it was found that a "little joker" had been sneaked into its mass of lawyers' terminology. The surreptitious clause ran to this effect: That railroad companies were permitted to exact from their employees overtime work for extra compensation. This practically made the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... be by any means as tightly fastened after the writing as before; nor did the writing of two or three illegible words seem beyond the resources of very humble legerdemain; in fact, no legerdemain was needed, after a surreptitious loosening of the screw which, considering the state of the frame of the slate, could have been ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... practical issues were nothing to her; that she would stand as fast without material hopes as with them; that love was to be an end with her henceforth, having utterly ceased to be a means. Therefore this surreptitious hope of his, founded on no reasonable expectation, was like a guilty thing surprised when Ethelberta answered, with a predominance of judgment over ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... rankest ingratitude on Arethusa's part. For had it not been for Timothy's surreptitious lessons, so kindly and willingly given, she would never have experienced the intense pleasure of this one-step with Mr. Bennet. But Arethusa was honestly surprised at her own swallow-like ability to keep time to music that was played ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... in the same position from noon till midnight, fasting, in separate rooms. The bride is attended by ladies, and the groom by men. They may not see each other till the night of the fourth day. In Egypt, the groom cannot see the face of his bride, even by a surreptitious glance, till she is in his absolute possession. Then comes the ceremony, which he performs, of uncovering her face. In Egypt, of course, this has been accentuated by the seclusion and veiling of women. In Morocco, at the feast ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... not a third part of the house remained, and those who required a fuller house, amid darkness and confusion, were neither seen nor heard, they made a protest,—of which the king approved as little of the ambiguous matter, as the surreptitious means; and it was then, that, with his own hand, he tore the leaf out of the journal.[A] In the sessions of 1614 the king was still more indignant at their proceedings. He and the Scotch had been vilified by their ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... farthest west was the gig of the Pandora, containing her brutal captain, his equally brutal mate, the carpenter, and three others of the crew, that had been admitted as partners in the surreptitious abstraction. Under cover of the darkness they had made their departure; but long before rowing out of gun-shot they had heard the wild denunciations and threats hurled after ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... the role you have selected for me,' replied Michael mournfully: 'to play gooseberry in my old age, and get myself hated for my pains. No, my dear child; listen to the words of wisdom: leave Mentor to enjoy a surreptitious nap in his arm-chair, and be content with your Blake audience.' And, in spite of all her coaxing and argument, she could not induce him to promise that he ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... by a surreptitious correspondence he ran some risk of compromising Rena. But he had felt, as soon as he had indulged his first opportunity to talk of her, an irresistible impulse to see her and speak to her again. He could scarcely call at her boarding-place,—what possible proper excuse could a young white man ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... they avow in the preface, "not 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 a plea ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... surreptitious dish, chatt;—needless to say the cats are not sold, but stolen. It is true that only a small class of poor people eat cats; but they eat so many cats that cats have become quite rare in St. Pierre. The custom is purely superstitious: ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... eying one another with surreptitious and fearful pleasure, conveyed in their glances a knowledge of what had happened. The thing that Walter and Muriel had made up their minds about, whatever it was—that was what had caused the Squire to remain behind a closed door until he had gained some slight ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... guardianship by day, but he kept watch and ward by night, sitting bolt upright within a couple of yards of his precious charge until the stars grew pale in the dawn. Then, if opportunity offered, he would snatch a surreptitious nap, still disdaining to lie down, however; and it frequently occurred that the earlier risers in the camp would discover Posey sitting on the ground, embracing his nether limbs with his long arms, while his head, with its close-cut, sandy hair, sank slumberous between his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... later find this passage-way and make a bold dash for liberty. Her nerves were tingling with excitement, eagerness and a horror of the undertaking, and she could scarcely control herself until the opportunity might come for a surreptitious visit to the underground regions. Her first thought was to locate, if possible, the secret door leading into the passage. With that knowledge in her possession she could begin the flight at once, or await a favorable hour on ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... irreproachably 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

... assent to her death, unless she thought she could convince herself and the world that Mary had been actively engaged in treasonous plots. Recently however at Tutbury under the charge of Sir Amyas Paulet, she had been guarded so strictly that no surreptitious correspondence had a chance of passing. Walsingham was confident that if the opportunity were given, a treasonous correspondence would be opened. It became his object therefore to give her the opportunity in appearance, while securing that the channel through ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... 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 her estimate of you.' This was not very ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... stairways. Stillness reigned 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 looked upon ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... was very fond of "Auntie" Rachel. She was good to him. She gave him cakes and crullers and spread maple sugar on many a surreptitious piece of bread and butter, and she had a jolly way of laughing, and she never told him to wash his hands or face, no matter how dirty they were. In that one respect, at least, she was much nicer than his mother. He liked ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... my dear, but there are ways of doing things. And why put your gun under your coat? I can't think such a fraudulent proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now look here, Terence," illustrating his walk and surreptitious manner of concealing his gun beneath his ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... they breathed, but he was different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easy and he was too sure of himself—too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... on condition of my being everlastingly silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... and placing the package in the loop of his left arm, opened the shop door for his companion. He passed out behind her in excellent spirits. The butcher, looking after them, took his surreptitious pipe from his pocket, watched the shop door close, shook his head and ramming the burnt tobacco down hard with the finger that lacked the first joint, stumped back to ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... and secured. Then he took his seat in the station and quietly waited, occasionally twisting his long blond mustache. The doctor took a cigar with the agent, and the men walked about or sat on the edge of the platform. One of them, who obtained a surreptitious glance at his silent commander, told his companions that there was ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... a deep need of some word from Mary V, was Johnny. He was beginning to worry, to grow restive down here in the wilderness, seeing nothing, doing nothing save kill time between those short, surreptitious flights across to the notched ridge and back again. Two weeks of that was ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... an interval, with a little surreptitious offering of wine (hidden under his coat); and with a selection of ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... the healing power; and that even Christ's touch may become the object of superstitious regard, as it was when that poor woman came through the crowd to lay her finger on the hem of His garment, thinking that she could bear away a surreptitious blessing without the conscious outgoing of His power. He healed her because there was a spark of faith in her superstition, but she had to I earn that it was not the hem of the garment but the loving will of Christ that cured, in order ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... 527; covert &c (latent) 526; untraceable; mysterious &c (unintelligible) 519. irrevealable^, inviolable; confidential; esoteric; not to be spoken of; unmentionable. obreptitious^, furtive, stealthy, feline; skulking &c v.; surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner; sly &c (cunning) 702; secretive, evasive; reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up; close, close as wax; taciturn &c 585. Adv. secretly &c adj.; in secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners; in the dark &c adj.. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Fantasy" is a moonlit revel of elves caught by a musical reporter, a surreptitious "chiel amang 'em takin' notes." A single hobgoblin bassoon croaks ludicrously away, the pixies darkle and flirt and dance their ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... 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 with ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... 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 aside from the straight path; for their whole aim is ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... Jake Noyes had given surreptitious advice, with sly shoving of medicine-vials into John Upham's or his wife's hands when the children were ailing, and lately Jerome had ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them : even those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... his rank, however, the M.P., or person of consideration, was considerably excited by wine; for he lurched and reeled somewhat in his gait, and his hat was cocked over his wild and bloodshot eyes in a manner which no sober hat ever could assume. His copious black hair was evidently surreptitious, and his whiskers of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wedding-day, that a sister whom she had supposed dead was really alive and in circumstances of almost degrading poverty. As this sister had been her own twin the effect upon her mind was very serious. To find and rescue this sister she left her newly made husband in the surreptitious manner already recorded in the papers. That she is not fully herself is shown by her continued secrecy as to her whereabouts. All that she has been willing to admit to the two persons she has so far taken ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... is called, didn't you know? Mr. van Buren told us," exclaimed Phyllis, and ended up her sentence with a stifled shriek which could have meant nothing but a surreptitious pinch. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... expressed the intention of staying to see Mr. Hurst, his conduct in thus going away surreptitiously must appear somewhat eccentric. The point that you have to consider, therefore, is whether a person who is capable of thus departing in a surreptitious and eccentric manner from a house, without giving notice to the servants, is capable also of departing in a surreptitious and eccentric manner from his usual places of resort without giving notice to his friends or thereafter ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... Lark Starr," Prudence cried crossly one day, when she intercepted one of these surreptitious glances, "you march right up-stairs and shut yourselves up for thirty minutes. And if you ever sit around and stare at me like a stranger again, I'll spank you both. I'm no outsider. I belong here just ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... bit. Why, in a vague way he had contemplated seeking some surreptitious method of accomplishing ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... from the lower perches, she scrambled up the wires of the cage, and shyly came on from the back. The autocrat was not asleep, and the instant her foot touched it he bounced across the cage to the other upper perch. He evidently expected that she would be put to shame in her surreptitious attempt to share his perch, and would at once retire to her proper sphere; but he was mistaken. So far from being embarrassed by his displeasure, she calmly accepted the relinquished position, and prepared for sleep. This was far from ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... MELANCHOLY, a book once the favourite of the learned and the witty, and a source of surreptitious learning, though written on a regular plan, consists chiefly of quotations: the author has honestly termed it a cento. He collects, under every division, the opinions of a multitude of writers, without regard to chronological order, and has too often the modesty to decline the interposition of his ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... seller door several times." John, when pulled up for trial, affirmed that he had really a very small appetite, but the food furnished by that colonial blue-stocking, Anne Bradstreet, was not fit to eat, the bread being black and heavy and sour, and he only took an occasional surreptitious bite to keep himself from starvation. But it was proved that he had feasted not only himself, but comrades, and that a neighbor, who had a "great fat Turkey against his daughter's marriage" hung up in a locked room, was ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... 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 he would find a clergyman and have the marriage ceremony ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... almost sure that Delarey had fallen into some trouble while Hermione was in Africa, that he was oppressed at this moment by some great uneasiness or even fear, that he was secretly cursing some imprudence, and that his last words were a sort of surreptitious plea for forgiveness, thrown out to the Powers of the air, to the Spirits of the void, to whatever shadowy presences are about the guilty man ready to condemn his sin. He felt, too, that he owed much to Delarey. In a sense it might be ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... regulars in what concerns the care of souls and the administration of the holy sacraments belongs to the archbishop of Manila and the other bishops of the Philipinas Islands." For besides the defects of misrepresentation and surreptitious measures [obrepcion y subrepcion] which were then made manifest, contained in that brief, the said pontifical declaration, whether it be conceived as a law, as an order, or as a sentence, cannot fail to be appealed from. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... assented, and his brow darkened as he spoke of surreptitious raids on his stores made by ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... 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, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... "Whittington" and the rest, now the property of the nursery, were really published for little ones. That they were the "light reading" of adults, the equivalent of to-day's Ally Sloper or the penny dreadful, is much more probable. No doubt children who came across them had a surreptitious treat, even as urchins of both sexes now pounce with avidity upon stray copies of the ultra-popular and so-called comic papers. But you could not call Ally Sloper, that Punchinello of the Victorian era—who has received the honour of an elaborate article in the Nineteenth Century—a child's ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... the test, 'By their fruits shall ye know them.' Perhaps our best way of proceeding will be to give one or two examples of the mode in which men of science apply the unintelligent impulse with which Mr. Mozley credits them, and which shall show, by illustration, the surreptitious method whereby they climb from the region of facts to ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... and Cointet Brothers, printers and paper manufacturers, were also bankers in all but name. This surreptitious banking system defies all the ingenuity of the Inland Revenue Department. Every banker is required to take out a license which, in Paris, costs five hundred francs; but no hitherto devised method of controlling ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... 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

... (secure of salvation and daily bread) were closed and quiet, as safely shut and sound asleep as the churches; but deeper in the town there was light and life and merry, evil industry,—screened, but strong to last until morning; there were haunts of haggard merriment in plenty: surreptitious chambers where roulette-wheels swam beneath dizzied eyes; ill-favored bars, reached by devious ways, where quavering voices offered song and were harshly checked; and through the burdened air of this Canaan wandered heavy smells of musk like that upon Happy Fear's wife, who must now be so pale beneath ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... like a shadow, across the hall, and, impressed by his surreptitious manner, his old and valued friends instinctively followed his example. All three of them, then, with long steps and theatrical pauses, were stagily upon the move, when suddenly the door that led to the ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... tell you. I wear this mask to-night because I am taking a surreptitious leaf out of ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... 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

... 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 toward ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... 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 ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... disapproval 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 to be loved, pitied, and spared ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... 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 Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... who could never be trusted not to go to sleep, no matter how great the danger. This is so well recognized in merchant ships that nearly every officer acts as if there was no look-out at all forward, in case his supposed watchman should be having a surreptitious doze. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... tint of rose leaves. Was she connected with the ticket in my pocket? I tried to look into her eyes, but in vain; nothing could I see but that wisp of golden hair which occasionally brushed my chin as with a surreptitious caress. If only I dared remain till the unmasking! I pressed her hand. There was an answering pressure, but its tenderness was destroyed by the ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... not belong to the aristocracy, your instruction must be surreptitious, because it is ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... young man in his early thirties, respected Beverley's reticence on the subject uppermost in his mind. Madame Godere had told the whole story with flamboyant embellishments; Kenton tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surreptitious glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's condition. He was himself a victim of the tender passion to the extent of being an exile from his Virginia home, which he had left on account of dangerously ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... wagered on either side; I was the victor; his ball missed, mine hit the mark, and the air was rent by acclamations from my friends. His shot now hits me. Tell him that I know this, that I know him, that the world despises every trophy that a paltry spirit erects for itself by base and surreptitious arts. ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... that she must not be petted or pampered with regimen or diet unsuited to her needs; left to find out as best she can, from surreptitious or worthy sources, what she most of all needs to know; must recognize that our present civilization is hard on woman and that she is not yet adjusted to her social environment; that as she was of old accused of having given man the apple of knowledge of good and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... details, which, once she has learned them, a woman never forgets. And, in addition to this, she took advantage of the circumstances in which they found themselves, utilising to the full the stimulus of strange times and places: she fired the excitement that lurked in surreptitious embrace and surrender, under all the dangers of a possible surprise. She was perverse and capricious; she would turn away from him till she reduced him to despair; then to yield suddenly, with a completeness that threatened to undo them both. Her devices were never-ending. Not that ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... dignified difficulty in his 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

... so high, but there was no reward, absolutely none. Not a tooth felt the touch of flesh. The wolves looked around at one another jealously, but the record was as clean as their teeth. There had been no surreptitious captures. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... spirits had invaded its silent precincts, there to dream in safety and seclusion, 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 ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... 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

... he felt that his sister was more consistent and stanch to the Puritan principles than he was himself in this matter; but he did not rescind his decision. And after a surreptitious meal behind the pantry door together on the morrow, whilst Mistress Susan was engaged upstairs over the weighty matter of the linen to adorn the festal board that evening and on Christmas Day itself, the pair ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... said. "But I know all those people." He never could rid himself of a surreptitious admiration for Bartley Hubbard. He, too, was "smart" and "alive." He had the "get there" to him. "Why," he would say, "I know fifty boys just like him down there in La Salle Street." Lapham he loved as a brother. Never a point in the development of his character ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... no direct communication with Philip since the time after our capture of Mr. Cornelius, who, as every exchange of prisoners had passed him by, still remarked upon parole at Mr. Faringfield's. If Mr. Faringfield received news of Winwood through his surreptitious messenger, Bill Meadows, he kept it to himself, naturally making a secret of his being in correspondence ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... traditions, with public opinion and scriptural penalties." He was delighted with his image and went on to elaborate it. "They broke loose like wild animals from a menagerie. We'd always known they existed. Sometimes we'd paid surreptitious visits to them in books," the old eyes blinked cautiously, "the way one goes to the Zoo, to remind himself that there is a jungle somewhere. But we'd only regarded them as specimens; we'd never expected to meet them roaming about the streets loose or coming as domestic pets into ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... 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 ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... conscience, and especially the boyish article, recognizes a broad difference between the theft of growing crops—of apples on the trees, for instance, or corn on the stalk, or melons in the field—and that of other species of property. The surreptitious appropriation of the former class of chattels is known in common parlance as "hooking," while the graver term "stealing" describes the same process in other cases. The distinction may arise from a feeling that, so long as crops remain rooted to ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... profuse of thanks. Prudently, however, he moved away from the piano, being accompanied by Miss Georgie Lestrange, who seemed rather pleased with the prominence this position gave her; and very soon a surreptitious message reached them both that they were wanted below. When they went down into the hall they found that Lady Adela had got her party collected, including Miss Lestrange's brother Percy; thereupon ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... haughty as Juno, and aristocratic as though her naked ancestors had come over with the Conqueror, or "drawn a good bow at Hastings," . . . and yet her pride invariably melted at the sight of certain surreptitious quantities of tobacco, with which I made my court to this high priestess of the region ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... comfort in the shape of a foot-muff and an extra lap-robe, and held his hand for a minute in both hers,all with very few words and yet saying a great deal. And when Dr. Maryland reached home, he found that a basket of game had in some surreptitious manner got ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... nothing had been heard in the corridor, but her first surreptitious glance was not consolatory. Camille, with an expression oddly commingled of mirth and petulance, was intensely busy with her glove-fastening, while the broad back of George Dalton, who was apparently as busy gazing from a barred window against a stone wall, had a most ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... part of unscrupulous men of seeking reputation with the general public 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 ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... this date is known to exist, but a surreptitious and imperfect transcript of portions of the tragedy appeared in the following year under the title of "The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. As it hath been diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... towards the small window. She had begun to tremble. Holding her soft cheeks with his brown fingers, Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object. She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the truth, she heard the distant Arab's everlasting song, and her dream became a nightmare. At last Safti dropped his ...
— The Princess And The Jewel Doctor - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed her husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was cremated, it made strangely little stir among the six old Forsytes left. For this apathy there were three causes. First: the almost surreptitious burial of old Jolyon in 1892 down at Robin Hill—first of the Forsytes to desert the family grave at Highgate. That burial, coming a year after Swithin's entirely proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk on Forsyte 'Change, the abode of Timothy ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... secluded &c. 893. undisclosed &c. 529, untold &c. 527; covert &c. (latent) 526; untraceable; mysterious &c. (unintelligible) 519. irrevealable[obs3], inviolable; confidential; esoteric; not to be spoken of; unmentionable. obreptitious[obs3], furtive, stealthy, feline; skulking &c. v.; surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner; sly &c. (cunning). 702; secretive, evasive; reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up; close, close as wax; taciturn &c. 585. Adv. secretly &c. adj.; in secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners; in the dark &c. adj. januis ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... dilemma. One had never thought of such contingencies. But, of course, it was soon solved. "What flower would you like it to be, my boy?" I asked. "A poppy!" he answered; and after consultation, "a poppy!" agreed the others. So a poppy it is to be. A visit to the seedsman's procured the necessary surreptitious poppy seed; and so now poor Sir Goldfish sleeps with the seed of sleep in his mouth, and the children watch his grave day by day, breathless for his resplendent resurrection. Will you write us ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... having clumped her brood into silence, was making frantic and what she imagined to be surreptitious signals of distress with her left arm, keeping her eyes glued on Leonie, who was clinging to the bars with both hands whilst calling upon ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... back"—a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket (with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she skulked in the hall, jealous ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... the morning Nance practised her part, getting used to the clumsy suit of fur, learning to adjust her mask so that she could see through the little, round, animal eyes, and keeping the other girls in a titter of amusement over her surreptitious imitation of the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... fit of illness, and she pours out her complaints in a letter to Sir Charles Cotterel, in which she laments, in the most affecting manner, the misfortune and the injuries which had been done to her by this surreptitious ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... to eat, and then, paying a surreptitious visit to the rooms of some of their chums, they learned that they were fully three-quarters of an hour later in coming back than were the ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... Surface suprajxo. Surfeit supersati. Surge ondego. Surgeon hxirurgiisto. Surgery hxirurgio. Surly malgaja. Surmise konjekti. Surmount venki. Surname alnomo. Surpass superi. Surprise surprizi. Surrender kapitulaci. Surreptitious kasxa. Survey (land) termezuri. Survey vidadi, elvidi. Surveyor termezuristo. Survive postvivi. Susceptible sentebla—ema. Susceptibility sentemo. Suspect suspekti. Suspend pendigi. Suspense (uncertainty) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... God, and not the voice of God Himself. Very grave doubt rests on any form of goodness which is in opposition to your mother; it may be good for others, but can scarcely be so for you. I know of a girl who got under High Church influence at school, and who, in pursuit of spiritual good, gets surreptitious High Church books and newspapers, under cover to a friend. Another got under Low Church influence, and refuses to please her mother by dressing prettily or going out. It seems to me that both girls read their lesson backwards ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... tightly fastened after the writing as before; nor did the writing of two or three illegible words seem beyond the resources of very humble legerdemain; in fact, no legerdemain was needed, after a surreptitious loosening of the screw which, considering the state of the frame of the slate, could ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... The next day it was talked over in the brick court, where the children used to go to shout and race. But on this day there was neither shouting nor racing. There was, instead, a shaking of heads, a surreptitious dropping of tears, a guessing and protesting and lamenting. All the flat mothers congratulated themselves on the fact that their children were becoming so quiet and orderly, and wondered what could have come over them when they ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the illustrations of her prudent maxims, and the thoughtlessness of a sister was the best possible text for a moral homily. The tense rigidity of her character, too, sometimes required a little unbending, and she had, therefore, no special aversion to an occasional surreptitious novel. But this she would indulge only in private; for in her mind, the worst quality of transgression was its bad example; and she never failed, in public, to condemn all such things with becoming and virtuous ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... 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 jess enough for ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... never would dare!" she answered. "My agents are even now watching that bank. The bank would never give up the sealed packages contents unknown, save on surrender of the carefully drawn receipts." And then Berthe remembered her own secret work at Calcutta. The Grindlays knew of the surreptitious attempts made by the plausible Hugh Fraser to withdraw the deposit long before the baronetcy episode. And Berthe laughed, in memory of her capture of the receipts in the old days at Brighton, while looking for the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... and the little woman in the green shirt-waist quivering with exquisite fears and mentally clinging with both arms to the personal conductor of her party, who looks becomingly virile, and exchanges a surreptitious wink with ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... he for any reason was not willing to make the first advances to her?" Sallie is perfectly lovely in the faint lavender and pink things that Jane made her decide to get in one conversation, whereas while Nell and Caroline and I had been looking up and bringing her surreptitious samples of all colors ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... tea, the whole family, including Mr Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall. Fusby had just taken the tray, the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging." Uz and Buz, by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot missed their grandfather and Ger by a ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... and has a plump, dimpling figure. Her hair is bright brown, and her nose is an exquisitely cut little straight one. (Here I observed Dawn casting surreptitious glances in the mirror opposite.) Her eyes are bright blue with long dark lashes, and she has a mouth too pretty to describe, fitted up with a set of the loveliest natural teeth one could see in these days of the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... his followers were led into so great an error by that surreptitious and piratical copy which stole last year into the world; with what injustice and prejudice to our author will be acknowledged, I hope, by every one who shall happily peruse this genuine and original copy. Nor can I ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... who, though she danced often and vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of neutralizing the beneficient effects of exercise by surreptitious candy-eating. "I'm a ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... Pyramid, spend a day with Abou on its summit, come down, penetrate into its recesses, stand in the king's chamber, listen to the silence there, feel it with your hands—is it not tangible in this hot fastness of incorruptible death?—creep, like the surreptitious midget you feel yourself to be, up those long and steep inclines of polished stone, watching the gloomy darkness of the narrow walls, the far-off pinpoint of light borne by the Bedouin who guides you, hear the twitter of the bats that have their dwelling in this monstrous gloom ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... 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

... look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift side-glance at her father—the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... the richness of draperies, the heavy scent of flowers, the subtleties of half-screened divans—there was something more than feminine—something feline. To Raymond Owen, however, it was ideal. The dimmed ruby lights, the suggestive shadows of the tapestries, were in tune with the surreptitious mind of the secretary. But there remained for him a picture that he admired more—Mlle. de Longeon coming through the portieres with a ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... years of age. Owing to his early death, Bishop Cooper finished the work; and his part, which is the third, contains almost thrice as much as Lanquet's two parts, being taken from Achilles Pyrminius. When it was finished, a surreptitious edition appeared in 1559, under the title of Lanquet's Chronicle; hereupon the bishop protested against "the vnhonest dealynge" of this book, edited by Thomas Crowley, in the next edition, entitled Cooper's Chronicle, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... even under these circumstances Delany might still have availed himself of what in law is called a locus poenitentiae had it not been that the mix-up was rendered still more mixed by the surreptitious appearance in the case of Mr. Michael McGurk, the father of the actual brick artist, who had learned that the cop was getting wabbly and was entertaining the preposterous possibility of withdrawing the charge ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... his table and became engrossed, ostensibly in the exploits of an indestructible trailer of men; but really in a surreptitious examination ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... gave a suppressed chuckle, which I think no one heard but myself. I was vexed with his levity, but, nevertheless, gave him a warning nudge with my toe, in payment for the surreptitious salt. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... now that I might be ready at the next attack, and as I did so I looked down at the girl, so that I surprised her in a surreptitious glance which she was stealing at me; but immediately, she again covered her face ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... her; let her find comfort in bibs and dust-pans, if she can," whispered Polly to Fan, while Maud took a joyful "header" among the pillows, and came up smiling and blowzy, for she loved house-work, and often got lectured for stolen visits to the kitchen, and surreptitious sweepings and dustings ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... Billy treated her to a slow and surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... is a chance for Necessity to exercise her maternal function. And she has responded nobly. A progeny of new substances have been brought forth and, what is most encouraging to see, they are no longer trying to worm their way into favor as surreptitious surrogates under the names of "leatheret," "leatherine," "leatheroid" and "leather-this-or-that" but come out boldly under names of their own coinage and declare themselves not an imitation, not even a substitute, but "better than leather." This policy has had the curious result of compelling the ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... 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 I did ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... 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 ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... He had known her daughter very much better than her words to Larry the previous evening had indicated. Not only had Joe known her while a girl down here, but much later he had learned in what convent she was going to school and there had been surreptitious love-making despite convent rules and boundaries—till the Duchess had learned what was going on. She had had a square out-and-out talk with Joe; the romance had suddenly ended; and later Larry's mother had married elsewhere. But the snuffed-out romance had made no difference in the friendship ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... in passing, that Miss Cerinthy Ann was at this very time receiving surreptitious visits from a consumptive-looking, conscientious young theological candidate, who came occasionally to preach in the vicinity, and put up at the house of the deacon, her father. This good young man, being violently attacked on the doctrine of election by Miss Cerinthy, had been drawn on to illustrate ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... near St. Michael's, a gentleman who did not forget justice or humanity, so far as they were consistent with slavery, even in dealing with bond-servants. Here Douglass led a comparatively comfortable life. He had enough to eat, was not overworked, and found the time to conduct a surreptitious Sunday-school, where he tried to help others by teaching his fellow-slaves ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... and the protecting power, to which in this case the decisive word by right belonged, gave itself, as usual, no concern about this affair. A rupture took place; Adherbal and Hiempsal were disposed to characterize their father's testament as surreptitious and altogether to dispute Jugurtha's right of joint inheritance, while on the other hand Jugurtha came forward as a pretender to the whole kingdom. While the discussions as to the partition were still going on, Hiempsal ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... 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

... are much better—now," said Bess in a whisper to Lottie, as she stole a surreptitious glance at ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose

... Tribes of Israel, shouldn't wonder," drawlingly volunteered Waldo, stifling a yawn, and forced to rub his inflamed eyes with a surreptitious paw. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... in the class-room, one ludicrous incident alone remains with me. One of my class, though in most ways well at head, was a little alarmed about his standing in infantry tactics. He therefore at a critical occasion attempted to carry the text-book with him to the blackboard. This surreptitious deed, being not to get advantage over a fellow, but to save himself, was condoned by public opinion; but, being unused to such deceits, in his agitation he copied his figure upside down and became hopelessly involved in the demonstration. The professor next day ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... give, it a surreptitious push before discovery came; but he had no suspicions, not one, and was as pleased as a boy at the thought that his old eyes had been sharper than our young ones. We all took a turn at opening the parcel, and it turned out to be a vanity ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... was room for another high-class ladies' school in Greyfield. In the face of such reports, the scandal must be instantly suppressed. She arranged, therefore, that a careful watch should be kept on the school, and if anyone were seen going out or returning in a surreptitious and unorthodox fashion, the occurrence must be immediately reported, so that she could act promptly and catch the delinquent. She said nothing about the affair to the girls, as she did not wish to put them on their guard, but Miss ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... best for Sandy himself in that respect, negativing firmly his desire for proper musical tuition, with the result that now, at twenty years of age, he was a musician spoilt through lack of training. Most of his pocket-money in early days had been expended upon surreptitious violin lessons, and he had frequently practised for hours out of doors in the woods, at a distance from the house which secured the parental ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... therefore, a secret honeymoon that Edward Coe was on; delightful—but surreptitious, furtive! His mental condition may be best described by stating that, though he was conscious of rectitude, he somehow could not look a policeman in the face. After all, plain people do not usually run off on secret honeymoons. Had he acted wisely? Perhaps this question, presenting itself now ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... wished them every known joy. It was a relief to Symes who kissed his bride perfunctorily and returned her to weeping "Grandmother" Kunkel's arms—a relief to those impatient to dance—a relief to the thirsty whose surreptitious glances wandered in spite of their best efforts toward the pile of champagne cases in ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... is arranged for on the 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

... preparatory boarding-school and is just 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 ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... to say that I have not interpolated my author's dreams with any surreptitious ones of my own; but have laid a faithful abstract before the economic reader, who might not be well pleased to pay seven pounds sterling for a body of raving. I have indeed omitted many circumstantial pictures of his intuitions, because they could only ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... time Dick had received from the tapster his second order, a tankard of old ale, laced with a surreptitious noggin of ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... of surreptitious bliss, she began by declaring; and she set forth her reasons with her usual lucid impartiality. In the first place, she should have to marry some day, and when she made the bargain she meant it to be an ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... be allowed, and who undoubtedly had a careful eye to the small Hannah, aged four, also old enough to knit a stocking and sew a seam, and read her chapter in the Bible with the best. Dorothy and Sarah could take even more active part, yet even the mature ages of eight and ten did not hinder surreptitious tumbles into heaped up feather beds, and a scurry through many a once forbidden corner of the Ipswich home. For them there was small hardship in the log house that received them, and unending delight in watching the progress of the new. And one or another must often have ridden before the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... book at the passage where the poet philosopher, who is for curing men of the futile and mischievous passion of love, surprises a woman in the arms of her serving-women in a state bound to offend all a lover's susceptibilities. The citoyen Brotteaux read the lines, though not without casting a surreptitious glance at the golden pate of the pretty girl in front of him and enjoying a sniff of the heady perfume of the little slut's hot skin. The poet Lucretius was a wise man, but he had only one string to his bow; his disciple Brotteaux ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... coming down. In a trice she had made herself ready for work. She came down timidly, not daring to look to right nor left, but concentrating her attention on the stairs. She passed along the landing outside the drawing-room door, and Hilda, opening the door a little wider, had a full surreptitious view of her back; and George Cannon, farther within the room, also saw her. They watched her disappear on her way to find the basement and the formidable Sarah Gailey. Hilda was touched by the spectacle of this child ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... knew a good deal about it somehow; the kitchen was pleasantly and rather condescendingly excited, and a little censorious, for the reason that nobody in the kitchen had ever before lived in a house the master of which being a parent of adult children took surreptitious lessons in dancing; the thing was unprecedented, and therefore of course intrinsically reprehensible. Mr. Prohack guessed the attitude of the kitchen, and had met Machin's respectful glance ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... but Sikhs on this job," said Turner. "British troops wouldn't appreciate the delicacy of the situation. Moslems couldn't be trusted not to talk. The Sikhs enjoy the surreptitious part of it, and don't care enough about the politics to get excited. Wish I might be in at the finish, though! Have you any notion what ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... letter, then, in some surreptitious way—some way that will not be noticed afterwards? Oh, I couldn't ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... an afternoon in the British Museum, and discussed Mollusks and Lepidoptera with surreptitious pauses to yawn behind the glass cases, until the first barriers of formality were broken down by the fascination of Egyptian mummies, and the thrilling, imaginary histories which Peggy wove concerning their life on earth. They went over the Tower, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... for Master Max had quite satisfied his morning appetite by a surreptitious ten minutes at the mulberry tree while the three little girls ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... time between four o'clock and the present, it was now well after eleven, the case had dropped from his pocket. There had been ample time then for Whitey Mack to have made that appointment with Lannigan—and ample time to have made a surreptitious visit to the Sanctuary. Had Whitey Mack gone there? Had Whitey Mack found that hiding place in the flooring under the oilcloth? Had Whitey Mack discovered that the Gray Seal was not only ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... met at other people's houses, always speaking in voices too low to be overheard; and they exercised a mysterious symbolism, somewhat in the manner of fellow members of a secret society: they had been observed to communicate across crowded rooms, by lifted eyebrow, nod of head, or a surreptitious turn of the wrist: so that those who observed them knew that a question had been asked ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... 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 ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope









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