"Businesslike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impatience] Why do you say that? Is it unwomanly to be thoughtful and businesslike and sensible? Do you want Violet to be an idiot—or something ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... civic brotherhoods which had been organized by the people that they might defend themselves from the injustice of the nobility, which was now showing itself in countless tyrannical and petty acts. She labored early and late, conducted her government in a most businesslike manner, convoked the Cortes in regular session every year, and by the sheer force of her integrity and her moral strength she finally quelled all internal disturbances and brought back the government to its former strength and solidity. In the year 1300 Fernando was declared king in his own ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... he did not mention his own name. It was impossible to suppose that he knew no better, and she was driven to conclude that he was silent of set purpose. Very well! If he did not want to introduce himself she was not going to urge it upon him. In a businesslike manner she gave her attention to ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... sense of humour and a remnant of Scotch canniness. It made me laugh—when it didn't make me ashamed—to put on a sort of livery—plain frock, you know, and go down to the Settlement in the most businesslike way to 'do' for those poor people. It cost an awful lot to run our Settlement, about two-thirds of all the money. One-third went to the poor. We had plenty of fun down there. All slummy outside and lovely things inside, you know. It was like making believe. You see," ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... on her father's grave, and turned back towards the school-house just as the clock struck twelve. There were now many other little figures hurrying in the same direction with businesslike step, and all carrying flowers. Primroses, daisies, buttercups, cowslips, and honeysuckle were to be seen, but there was nothing half so beautiful as the heap of white lilac. Agnetta saw it as she passed into the school room, and gave an astonished stare and a sniff of ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Hawkesbury repeated glibly and hurriedly in a low voice. To me, who stood by and heard it, it was a cowardly lie from beginning to end. But to my employers, I felt, it must sound both businesslike and straightforward; quite as straightforward, I feared, as my own equally ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... It is no longer a question merely of the extension of the suffrage, but of directness and publicity. The procedure of government being recognized as of vital importance to all citizens, it must be straightforward and businesslike, with its books constantly open to inspection. The present distrust in elected representatives is not a sign of reaction, but of the evolution of the democratic intelligence. Where the machinery of representation becomes wasteful and clumsy, it ceases to serve the community. ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... himself drawing almost away from the facts of typographical unions and office rules and reporters' enterprise and all the cold, businesslike methods that make a great daily successful. But still the vague picture that came up in the mailing room would not fade away when he had gone into his office and the men had gone back to their places with wonder in their looks and questions of all sorts on their tongues as they ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... of the city. Something about her had made them treat her with respect, although I have been told that the Prussian officers were always vaguely uncomfortable in her presence. There was, perhaps, not enough humility in her clear eyes, and they worked her to the breaking point. Yet so impeccable and businesslike was her conduct that they could never convict her of any infringement of rules. Little did these pompous invaders suspect how this slender capable girl with the hazel eyes was spicing the hours behind their backs, and drawing ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... fat man's lower jaw had dropped in astonishment. Nobody had ever dared question his right to use his own rangers as he damn well pleased! A slow resentment surged up within him. He would have been downright angry could he have been certain of this inspector's attitude. Thorne was cold and businesslike, but he had humorous wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps all this monkey business was one elaborate josh. If so it wouldn't do to fall into the trap by getting mad. That must be it. Plant chuckled a cavernous chuckle. Nevertheless ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... next question was to fix a meeting place. That was easily done. "In accordance with your kind wish I am writing to let you know that on Saturday morning at eleven o'clock...." No, that was not the right thing! It was so businesslike, and yet again too eager—"if," she wrote, "you would really care to take the opportunity of seeing your old friend again, then perhaps you will not consider it too much trouble to go to the Art and History Museum on Saturday morning at eleven o'clock. ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... private he was good-humoured and good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, easy, and unrestrained; and the letters written by them to him are similarly plain and businesslike, as if the writers knew that the person whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated as a man. Again, from their correspondence with one another, when they describe interviews with him, we gather the same pleasant impression. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... There were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades of blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with glittering lances and pennons—with or without a band—formally parading; there were straggling "fatigues" or "details" coming round the corners; there were dusty, businesslike columns of infantry, going nowhere and to no purpose. And they one and all seemed to be WOUND UP—for that service—and apparently always in the same place. In the band of their caps—invariably of one pattern—was a button, in the centre of ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... removed from later editions of the handbook after the {suit}s took over and DEC became much more 'businesslike'. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... admit," Leatham concluded, "that everything appeared very sound and businesslike. I had a look everywhere in that shed and enclosure, and I saw nothing even remotely suspicious. The manager's manner, too, was normal and it seems to me that either he's a jolly good actor or you two chaps are on a ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... return put yourself on the report for taking an unseamanlike attitude after having been once corrected," directed Dave, in a businesslike tone. ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... the landing in France came in due sequence. They had expected some excitement on the ocean voyage. The group of transports, of which their ship was one, steamed warily eastward, convoyed by a flotilla of grim destroyers, swift, businesslike, determined. Extra precautions were taken in the submarine zone; but none of the German sea wolves rose to give ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... been his hand); I liked the top of his head when it was bowed; I liked his arm when I took it; I liked the height of his shoulder when I stood beside it; I liked the way he put me in my chair (that showed chivalry), and unfolded his napkin (that was neat and businesslike), and pushed aside all his wineglasses but one (that was temperate); I liked the side view of his nose, the shape of his collar, the cleanness of his shave, the manliness of his tone,—oh, I liked him altogether, you must know how it ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... In the silence of the sleeping factory, the heavy pages of the great books rustle as they are turned, and names called aloud cause search to be made in other books. Pens scratch. The old cashier, surrounded by his lieutenants, has a businesslike, awe-inspiring air. From time to time Fromont Jeune, on the point of going out in his carriage, looks in for a moment, with a cigar in his mouth, neatly gloved and ready for the street. He walks slowly, on tiptoe, puts his ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... steam-filled room that occupied an entire floor. The foreman made quick work of us. Thirty-two girls I counted as they stepped up to the pale-faced, stoop-shouldered young fellow, who addressed each one as "Sally," in a tone which, despite its good-natured familiarity, was none the less businesslike and respectful. At last ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... East. He is capable of giving one—who does not know very much—the most profound surprises. To ordinary eyes he shows nothing, nothing of what he is. He seems calm, dominating, practical, even cold and businesslike, full always of the most complete self-possession, calculating, but generous, and kind, charming, polished, suave and indifferent, with a sort of tremendously masculine indifference. I have often seen him in society. Even to me he has given ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... there is no more sport to war. It has become scientific, businesslike, and commonplace. Never has an unprepared nation been so helpless against the prepared as to-day. The American Revolution could never have been won by untrained levies to-day against the British regulars if they possessed modern weapons. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... was strangely businesslike. No show of dimples now. "Satisfied that if any possibility remained of my ever doing this, it would have to be on the exact place of this occurrence or not at all, I embraced your suggestion ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... after an early lunch at Grimbal's Farm, they went to the trysting-place by the harbour to meet the other members of the club. Beata and Romola turned up alone to-day, unencumbered by younger brothers and sisters or the donkey. They had brought businesslike baskets with them, and were armed with note-books to record specimens, some apples and nuts, and a ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Marechale de MacMahon. She received us up-stairs in a pretty salon looking out on the garden. She was very civil, not a particularly gracious manner—gave me the impression of a very energetic, practical woman—what most Frenchwomen are. I was very much struck with her writing-table, which looked most businesslike. It was covered with quantities of letters, papers, cards, circulars of all kinds—she attended to all household matters herself. I always heard (though she did not tell me) that she read every letter that was addressed to her, and she must have ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... and in a businesslike way she put the books around her bosom, and so skillfully and snugly that Yegor announced, smacking his lips ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... certainly not prepared for what next met my eyes, as I pushed through the low doorway with my lantern, and looked around. Yes! indeed, man had certainly been here, man, too, very purposeful and businesslike. I was in a sort of low narrow gallery, some forty feet long, to which the arching rock made a crypt-like ceiling. At my first glance, I saw that there was another door at the far end similar to the one I had entered by; and on the left side of the ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... ladies and gentlemen, that this is a highly scientific age in which we live." His tones were leisurely, businesslike, cool. "Your own profession, the moving picture, with all its detail of photography and electricity, its blending of art and drama and mechanics, is indicative of that, but"—a pause for emphasis—"it is of my own profession ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... strange thing to do, but Barrant's experience told him that there were no safe deductions where suicides were concerned. They acted with the utmost precipitation or the utmost deliberation. Some wound up their worldly affairs with businesslike precision before embarking on their timeless voyage, others jumped into the black gulf without, apparently, any premeditated intention, as if at the beckoning summons of some grisly invisible hand which they dared not disobey. Barrant recalled the strange case of a wealthy merchant who had cut his ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... for the dead, with the bleaching bones of heathen Eskimos strewn over the rocks about him, he consecrated his life efforts to the conversion of this people to Christianity. Then he went to work to accomplish this purpose in a businesslike way. He set himself the infinite task of mastering the difficult language. He lived their life with them, visiting and sleeping with them in their filthy igloos—so filthy and so filled with stench from the putrid meat and fish scraps that they permit to lie about and decay ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... Gilmore slipped his hand in between the body and the floor; his manner was cool and businesslike. After a moment he withdrew his hand and looked, up ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... and lingering contagion, which God was doing His best to get rid of, and which was indeed only kept alive by the foolish perversity of a few abandoned persons, and would soon be extirpated altogether if only enough committees would meet and take the thing up in a businesslike way. It was in a sense a vigorous performance, and Hugh thought that though there was little attempt to bind up the broken-hearted, yet he could conceive its having an inspiriting effect on people who felt themselves ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the Commander to manage affairs in a businesslike manner can hardly be called in question, and his interest in the matter would grow in proportion to the degree of freedom ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... middle of the night when it came to her, where she had been turning her luxurious pillow for two hours trying in vain to tempt a drowsiness that would not come, and she arose at once and wrote a brief and businesslike letter to the landlord of the little New Hampshire inn where she had been delayed for a couple of hours in the fall. In the morning, true to her impulsive nature, she besieged her father until he gave his permission for her to take her maid and a quiet elderly cousin of ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... assemble tested equipment instead of relying upon chance to supply the requisite gear; but with all time at his disposal the mechanical difficulties of the problem would remain. Far from indifferent to these, Lanyard addressed himself to their conquest doggedly and with businesslike ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... master's expectations. Old he was, and stiff and creaky of joint, but what he lacked in physical prowess he possessed in guile. Forbidden to follow his natural inclination, which was to stab the potato baron frequently and fatally with a businesslike dirk which was never absent from his person except when he slept, Pablo had recourse to another artifice of his peculiar calling—to ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... advance it without further parley from my own private purse,' said I, 'were it not that the strain would be rather more than it could bear. If, on the other hand, I am to do it in the name of the firm, then in justice to my partner I must insist that, even in your case, every businesslike precaution should be taken.' ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the time she had moved forward and was standing by the bed Miss Gallifer's businesslike tone became a comfort. You couldn't take such a tone if you thought there was danger; and in spite of the hemming and hawing of the doctors Miss Gallifer didn't ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... original shape is long enough for an article in a quarterly review, and as businesslike as a Report of a Royal Commission, set the question at rest at once and for ever. On the 7th of March, 1835, Lord William Bentinck decided that "the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India;" two of the Orientalists ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... safe, took out the last of the packets tied up in a particular shape, and said in businesslike tone, "Two hundred and fifty dollars premium, five hundred dollars insurance, 5 per cent, on indemnity collected is twenty-five dollars; ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in his hip-pocket when he thought better and raised both hands in the air. There was something peculiarly businesslike in the long-barrelled revolver which the intruder held, in spite of the silver-plating and the gold inlay along the ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... and more, but it does not follow necessarily in a period of stagnating imagination that we shall get what we pay for. The other day I discovered my little boy doing a subtraction sum, and I found he was doing it in a slower, clumsier, less businesslike way than the one I was taught in an old-fashioned "Commercial Academy" thirty odd years ago. The educational "expert," it seems, has been at work substituting a bad method for a good one in our schools because it is easier of exposition. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... he drew her, and kept looking off the paper at her, and had a right in his character of artist to look her full in the face; and he did so with long lingering glances. To be sure, they all began severe and businesslike with half-closed eyes, and the peculiar hostile expression art puts on; but then they always ended open-eyed, and so full and tender, that she, poor girl, who was all real gold, though sham brass, blushed and blushed, and did not know which way to ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Opening it hurriedly, he was pleased, but not surprised, to discover a cheque folded in the note-paper. Iris wrote that, as a matter of course, she wished to pay what was owing to him in respect of his tutorial engagement so abruptly brought to an end. "Even between friends, one must be businesslike. You ought to have received a quarter's notice, and, as it is now nearly the end of April, you must allow me to reckon my debt as up to the quarterday in September. If you say a word about it, I shall be angry, So ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... letter, written to him by his nephew, into the hands of the police. Its contents, therefore, quickly became public property. The astounding statements made therein by Mr. Schwarz created, in quiet, businesslike Liverpool, a sensation which has seldom ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... the first time that it had come across Lichonin's eyes, and the student with amazement and aversion read these lines, expressed in the dead, official language of police stations. There with shameful, businesslike coldness, were mentioned all possible measures and precautions against infections; the intimacies of feminine toilet; the weekly medical inspections and all the adaptations for them. Lichonin also read that no establishment was to be situated nearer than ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... then Benito met a man named Adolph Sutro. They called him "The Man With a Dream." Stocky, under average height, intensely businesslike, he was—a German Burgomeister type, with Burnside whiskers and a purpose. He proposed to drive a tunnel four miles long from Carson valley, and strike the Comstock levels ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... course, almost as many centers of agitation as there are centers of corruption—that is, large municipalities in the United States. It began as a series of local non-partisan movements for the enforcement of the laws, the dispossession of the "rascals," and the businesslike, efficient administration of municipal affairs; but the reformers discovered in many cases that municipal corruption could not be eradicated without the reform of state politics, and without some drastic purging of the local public service corporations. They have consequently ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... stares, she manfully got out her little jack and started in on her own account. But she had hardly raised the wheel free from the ground, and was in the act of unscrewing the valve, when the wrench was suddenly taken out of her hand by Judge Hayseed, who asked in a very businesslike manner if there was an ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... were checked by figures at every turn, finding it impossible to elude the businesslike arrangements that were made. In revenue the result was highly successful. The mansion with the first-class shooting, hunting, and lovely woodlands—every modern convenience and comfort in the midst of the most rural scenery—let at a high price to good tenants. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... with the keeper, and then went into the cottage to buy a couple of Polly's turnovers, and found her looking very red-faced and shy, but she was businesslike enough over taking the money, and we went off browsing down the lane upon ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Indian corn were raised with success. Father Antonio Malan, Inspector-General of the Salesians, arrived from the west, via Cuyaba. He was an extremely intelligent and enterprising man—who should be congratulated on selecting such excellent sites for the various colonies, as well as for the sensible, businesslike fashion in which the colonies were conducted. They were indeed the only few bright spots where the light of civilization shone in those sadly ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... crowd, and the men were making new bets and increasing original bets. Again, and yet again, White Fang sprang in, slashed, and got away untouched, and still his strange foe followed after him, without too great haste, not slowly, but deliberately and determinedly, in a businesslike sort of way. There was purpose in his method—something for him to do that he was intent upon doing and from ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... light on his desk and wrote a letter to his father. It thanked the merchant for his loan, in rather a businesslike manner, and assured him he would get the money back. This was the letter of an ostensibly self-made son to his merchant father, reversing the title of ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... wellnigh insuperable. Neither the political nor the military system of Athens was adapted to such a policy. The Sovereign Assembly, though capable of sensible and energetic action at moments of special danger, was more likely to be moved by feeling and prejudice than by businesslike argument, particularly at a time when the tendency of the best educated and most intelligent men was to withdraw from participation in public life; and meeting, as the Assembly did (unless specially summoned), only at stated intervals, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... full of caricatures, and after a long and intent gaze the boy returned home, in two or three days presenting himself before the proprietors with half-a-dozen drawings much in the style of those witnessed. The benevolent but businesslike M. Philipon examined the sketches attentively, put several questions to his young visitor, and, finding that the step had been taken surreptitiously, immediately sat down and wrote to M. and Mme. Dor. He urged ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... something there," answered the old man in his usual businesslike tone, leading the ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... of Lent the Society of the Holy Gethsemane was visited by its ecclesiastical Visitor. This was the Bishop of the diocese, a liberal-minded man and not a very rigid ecclesiastic, abrupt, brusque, businesslike, and a good administrator. When the brothers had gathered in the community room, he took from the Superior the leathern-bound volume containing the rule of the Brotherhood and read aloud ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Great Britain and the United States acting in unison, assured in advance of the sympathy of France and Japan and of whatever other Powers would welcome the new order of things, a Hague committee or other international tribunal could be made a businesslike organisation working directly for results,—as directly as the board of directors of any commercial corporation. And it is with those who consider this impracticable that the onus lies of pointing out the direction from which insuperable resistance is to be expected,—from which particular Powers ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... obliged for fixing up my horse." Then in a businesslike manner, he threw back his coat and displayed a glittering badge. "Now," he added brusquely, "I must arrest you for practising veterinary medicine without a license. Just come along with me ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... examination of our papers, done in a businesslike way, the usual rumpus of the customs, and we were free to land in France. That evening a friend and I had dinner in a great cafe opening on the principal square in Bordeaux, and tried to analyze the difference between ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... up at her friends, with her papers in hand, and the pretty businesslike air that so well became her, and bespeaks the extreme criticism of her hearers upon what she shall read, because she really wants to know how it affects them, and what mistakes or faults can be detected; for she must do her work as well as possible, and is sure they are willing to help. "You ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... clerk had finished with the Eskimos he turned to the Indians in a very businesslike way and asked to see the furs they had brought. They produced some marten skins which, after a great deal of wrangling, were bartered for tobacco, tea, powder, shot, bullets, gun caps, beads, three-cornered needles and a few trinkets. Much time was consumed in this, for ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... businesslike looking men stepped into the hall, and before the butler and footmen could stop them they were close up to the foot ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... better," says the Captain of the Ferndale very businesslike, as if the whole thing were settled. I can't say I was dumb for joy as you may suppose. It wasn't exactly that. I was more by way of being out of breath with the quickness of it. It didn't seem possible that this was happening to me. But the skipper, after he had talked ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... imagines that this bald, businesslike way of putting it set my teeth on edge, let him dismiss the idea; my nerves had been too long accustomed to the feel of the harsh facts of life. It is evidence of the shrewdness of the old fellow at character-reading that he wasted ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... a delightful conversationalist, Sir Walter was the most practical and businesslike of authors. It was a treat to meet him, as I frequently did, walking into Town, and enjoy his vivacious humour. I recollect one morning, speaking of illustrators, mentioning the fact that Cruikshank always imagined that Dickens had taken ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... crafts shops being the basic principle of the "occupation and exercise cure," the capitalist was introduced to an efficient and businesslike young woman, the instructress, who explained to him the nature of the avocations in which he might choose to interest himself. Here he found his fellow-patients busily and apparently congenially employed. In one of the shops a recent alumnus of one of the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Apparently in a single instant all emotion left her, and she became businesslike, as one in the midst of trifles reminded of really serious matters. She got up from the bed and went to the door of the closet where she kept her dresses. "Oh, see here," she said, briskly. "I've decided to wear my white organdie if you could ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... at his companion. "Of course it could, if only the church would go about it in a businesslike way." ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... throat immediately," my mother-in-law said in a businesslike way, "and I suppose we ought to send for ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... sense adopted by Mill, and there is very much to be said for this view of the real meaning of capital. Marbles to play with, houses to live in, motor-cars to go joy-riding in—all these are assets which can be disposed of, and so, in a sense, may be called capital. But the businesslike meaning of the word is the tools and equipment of industry, because it is only by their possession that the wealth of mankind not only increases man's present enjoyment, but enhances his future output of the goods necessary for ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... meet you, Miss Thorne," he said. There was a faint twinkle in his eyes as he glanced toward Stratton for an instant, his belief confirmed as to the principal reason for Buck's desire to keep the secret of the Shoe-Bar ownership. Then he became businesslike. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... men advanced. While the sailors from the Nark kept their automatics in their hands, ready for action, Jackson searched each man in businesslike fashion. The weapons thus taken away—regulation automatics, as well as a miscellaneous assortment of brass knuckles and a few wicked daggers, all marking the men as city toughs—were placed in a heap. Before the work had been completed, Lieutenant Summers, ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... clear call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodpecker running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and rat-tat-tat-tatting in a most businesslike and determined manner. But the Child was not, as a rule, so interested in birds as in the four-footed kindreds. Just now, however, a bird came on the scene which interested him extremely. It was a birch-partridge ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... reply. Then, thanking the head waiter for the information in a sharp, businesslike voice, and handing him five shillings, he took train back from Monifieth to Dundee, and went direct to the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... stopped for lack of gasolene and was stock still in the deep mud. Rechamp muttered something about a leak in his tank. As he bent over it, the lantern flame struck up into his face, which was set and businesslike. It struck me vaguely that he showed ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... they proceeded to take down the tent and load the sled. There was a great deal of effort about their manner, but no businesslike method. The tent was rolled into an awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been. The tin dishes were packed away unwashed. Mercedes continually fluttered in the way of her men and kept up an unbroken chattering of remonstrance ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... fire—the light falls better—don't move." And before she realized what he was doing he picked her up, chair and all, and put her down softly on the other side, setting the footstool as before, and even daring to place her little feet upon it—but with so businesslike an air that she saw no opening for rebuke. It is a difficult matter to object to a man's doing things like that when he doesn't look as ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... were, Charlotte found herself involved in what she thought was a businesslike and ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... Street Railroad Generals." But in recent years the efficient railroad head has come more and more to be the practical railroad man who has risen from the ranks, who has no important personal financial interest in the property but who is paid an adequate salary to operate a system in a purely businesslike way. Notable examples of this modern type of railroad president are, besides Daniel Willard, Edward P. Ripley of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa, Fe, Benjamin F. Bush of the Missouri Pacific, and Fairfax ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... one (and she hostile at a rather distant window) his behaviour might well have been thought piquant by anybody. After climbing to the top of the fence he would produce from interior pockets a small memorandum-book and a pencil. His expression was gravely alert, his manner more than businesslike; yet nobody could have failed to comprehend that he was enjoying himself, especially when his attitude became tenser, as it frequently did. Then he would rise, balancing himself at adroit ease, his feet one before the other on the inner rail, below the top of ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... week of his original experience, skepticism was dominant. These lines of thought did their work by incessant repetition. The normal life he lived, the large, businesslike face of the lawyer whom he faced day by day, a theatre or two, a couple of dinners—even the noise of London streets and the appearance of workaday persons—all these ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... said to the other: "I told you so!" and all the kindly lines in the man's face showed that he had looked for the best even in his inferiors and that he had found mankind worth trusting. He was the most generous employer I met with anywhere; I also took him to be the least businesslike. But, as though quickly to establish the law of averages, his head forewoman counterbalanced all his mercies by her ferocious crossness. She terrorized everybody, even Mr. F. It was to her, I concluded, that we owed our $6 a week. No girl would stay for less; it was an atelier chiefly ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... surpassing herself; if your love for him can achieve one half such a conquest, you will but be making good your inheritance. I shall be in again at one, and will send some medicines up at once." He ended in his usual businesslike ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... MINISTER, cool and businesslike as usual, had necessary document ready. Handing it to the Clerk, he once more signed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... expected to find a fluttering, fearful youngling, somewhat impressed with his graces and courage. This businesslike disposal of his case caused his active mind to change its tack, as soon as it sensed ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... them a figure followed the voice. Cleek could dimly discern a tall, slouchy-shouldered man, clad in overalls, with a cap pulled down close over his eyes, and in the grasp of his right hand a very businesslike-looking revolver. ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... businesslike biographer begins by telling when his subject "first saw the light"—by which he means when the man was born. In this instance we will go a bit further back and make note of the interesting fact that Thorwaldsen was descended from an ancestor who had the rare fortune to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... $16,856. That includes the $3,000 for which no vouchers have been turned in as yet. You can keep that, with or without vouchers as you please. If you want your business in the proper shape, however, it is more businesslike for you to turn in the vouchers. However, that lies ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... businesslike—"as you know, these manual tests are the last tests before actually blasting off. In the past weeks, you cadets have been subjected to every possible examination, to discover any flaw in your work ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... started off with a calm, businesslike air, outwardly, but inside him his heart was beating fast with expectation, and his step grew quicker and quicker as soon as he was out of sight ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... kind of workers turned out. Through the business relation the students quickly feel the necessity of good finish, rapid work, and responsibility to deliver on time. (3) The orders bring in a money return and thus aid the school in the expense for material. (4) The businesslike appearance of the shops at work on the orders and the experience trade has had with the product have increased the confidence of employers of labor in the ability of the school to train practical workers for the trades. The ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... "Perhaps we shall get tired in time," she added. "I think we are learning. If it is made a matter of business quite open and aboveboard, it will be fair. You know, father, you always said that I was businesslike." ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... been unnatural, but he was willing to supply money for his assassination. At the same time he was careful to insist that this pecuniary advance was by no means a free gift, but only a loan to be repaid by his more bloodthirsty brother upon demand with interest. With a businesslike caution, in ghastly contrast with the foulness of the contract, he exacted a note of hand from Stoutenburg covering the whole amount of his disbursements. There might come a time, he thought, when his brother's paper would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... matters," Marie broke in, her quiet, alert, almost businesslike tone a surprise to her friend. "Don't send them away yet, Angelo—in justice to me. I know you don't believe things against me—of course not. Perhaps you would not believe, even if they could seem to prove anything, which they couldn't ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... unconscious, abstracted, businesslike air. He really left her nothing to do but enjoy his company, while he went ahead and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... that it might be more simple, less Gothically efflorescent. You will say no rules for the illumination of windows can apply to the Aurora borealis. However, I find refreshment when every now and then a special fact slips into the narrative couched in sharp and businesslike terms. This character-drawing in the book is certainly admirable; the lines are ploughed furrows; but there was cake and ale before, though thou be virtuous. Clarendon surely drew sharp outlines for me in Falkland, Hampden, and the rest, without defiance ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... word (which is the space between the O and the P) to fall exactly beneath the centre of the title. Then, about 1-1/2 inches below that, start to write your story in synopsis form. Commence your paragraph at 15, indenting ten spaces from the left margin. Thus the neatness and businesslike appearance of your pages will impress the editor favorably at the very first glance. Follow the same rule when typing the scenario, or continuity, and also the ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... to work on Ole in a businesslike manner. He tossed him the football and said: "Catch it." Ole watched it sail past and then tore after it like a pup retrieving a stick. He got it in a few minutes and brought it back to where ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... for the businesslike rifles and revolvers of a dozen men were pointed straight at them. The two Russians were unarmed, and consequently unable to do anything had they wished. Every man ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... about the amounts invested, and no definite times at which the several amounts subscribed, were due. It was assumed that money would be forthcoming from the members whenever it was needed to dispatch ships to the coast. About the middle of September, 1662, it was decided to pursue a more businesslike policy. A list of subscribers for shares at four hundred pounds each was opened, and by the 15th of January, 1663, the amount of this second subscription was L17,000.[14] The stimulus for obtaining this added subscription was the fact that, at the same time, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... businesslike precision about the American soldier that stood San Francisco in good stead. The San Francisco water rat thug and "Barbary Coast" pirate might flout a policeman, but he discovered that he could not disobey a man who wears Uncle Sam's uniform ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... Lord Evenwood, relieved. "Precisely. Your sterling common sense is admirable, Sophia. You place the whole matter at once on a businesslike footing." ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... milliner, whose own artistic personality must be her best advertisement, she takes pains to dress artistically even though she wear less serviceable and more elaborate costumes. She should, however, give the same impression of neatness and businesslike serviceableness, with the additional artistic impression which is going to show her customer that she knows how to bring out the telling points in her own personality, ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... there is, after all, something solemn and impressive in all this; but when a greasy apostle in an alapaca duster, takes his place behind the elevated desk, and with bad grammar and slangy sentences, asks God in a businesslike way to bless this buzzing mass of unclean, low-browed, barbarous scum of all foreign countries, and the white trash and criminals of our own, you find no reverence, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... back in Spain with a treasure of pearls out of which, after Nifio had been made independent for life and Guerra, Christoval, and the rest of them had their shares, there remained a handsome sum for the Crown. An extremely practical, businesslike voyage this; full of lessons for our poor Christopher, could he but have known ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... He felt that he was blushing under the cover of darkness, and was thankful Aline could not see. Why the blush, he could not have explained. Was it for his sister, because she was managing her love affairs with a famous man in this energetic, businesslike way, and jumping eagerly at conclusions? Or was it for himself, because he was selfish and jealous of the new interest in Aline's life, which would—if it ended as she hoped—take her away from ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thousands like her every day, every hour all over the world were watching those gods with that awful suspense. For they were the only gods that were left, and a comfortless set of gods they were! They were like J. K., they had hay minds! They were businesslike, relentless, cold, they belonged to the world of the harbor! My mother's kind god was a myth and a joke, with no power here one way or the other. I felt that now, I had thought it before, only thought it, with that gay freedom of thought we had ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... most striking development of the decade was the businesslike and neighborly solution found for the settlement of the boundary waters controversy. The growing demands for the use of streams such as the Niagara, the St. Lawrence, and the Sault for power purposes, and of western border rivers for irrigation schemes, made it essential ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... offer you a good berth, a snug berth. And 'tis a pretty spot." He got a sort of languorous honey into his voice, and drawled out, "The—the Senorita's." He took an air of businesslike candour. "You can help us, and we you; we could do without you better than you without us. Our undertaking—there's big names in it, just as in the Free Trading you know so well, don't be saying you don't—is ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... and he had not been long enough in the office to learn the downtown conventions. It was her fault that she had interested herself in him in the first place. It was her fault that she had allowed him to lunch with her. It was her fault that she had not been strictly businesslike with him in the office. So she would have dinner with him, and that ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... yellow patch of iodine on the victim's arm. Moving into the superheated shrine, he assisted Sergt. Lyon to tick off his name on the nominal roll, and then approached the M.O. Some doctors were bland and cheerful, others humorous, others strictly businesslike, but they all knew that this was their chance to pay off old scores. By using the sharp needle or the blunt one, and varying the angle of the stick in, they could adapt their onslaught to their personal opinion of the victim, and as a final insult in very bad cases, ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... don't care to behave in a businesslike way, and talk like a man, we'll do our best to show you out," Tom retorted, still with a pleasant smile. "What are you here ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... of unfeigned pity. "An' you're a going to lend us a hand? Oh, ah! perhaps you'd like to begin? Here's a most beautiful uniform, now, for a markis in her Majesty's Guards; we don't mention names—tarn't businesslike. P'r'aps you'd like best to work here to-night, for company—'for auld langsyne, my boys;' and I'll introduce yer to the gents ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... scudi a year, at five per cent," remarked the younger man in a businesslike tone. "You give the same. That will insure our children an income of fifteen thousand scudi. It is not colossal, but it should suffice. Besides, I have not said that I would not leave them more, if I chanced to have ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... Jack," said Adrien in a prompt, businesslike tone. "You have two clear hours for sleep. You must sleep for the sake of others, you understand. I promise to ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... Canada. The prairies are mysterious and sublime. The West is plain big business. Crerar represents the West rather than the prairies. He is temperamentally a man of Ontario, where he was born; solidly businesslike and persistent. He glorifies hard work. And he went West at a time when the law of hard work was just coming to replace the old-timer's creed of hanging on and waiting for something—usually a railway—to ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... in number, were left alone in New York City. Helen, who went in for art and music, kept the little flat uptown, while Margy just out of a business school, obtained a position as a private secretary and Rose, plain-spoken and businesslike, took what she called a "job" in ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Arab man 'Ad wanted to be free, 'E could 'ave done it businesslike, The same as you or me; A fiver might 'ave squared the gent, An' then 'e could 'ave claimed As 'e'd cleared 'imself quite 'andsome, And ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... perfume came from it that went to his heart. He devoured the delicately formed letters, and they went to his heart too: he thrilled all over. And the words were as like her as the perfume. She gave the order, and the addresses of her friends, with a pretty little attempt at the businesslike; but, this done, she burst out, "and we all entreat you to be good to poor Mr. Little, and protect him against the wicked, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... secretary and of the associate pastor. All are practically and cheerfully furnished, fitted with desks, filing cabinets, telephones, speaking tubes, everything to carry forward the business of the church in a time-saving, businesslike way. ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the president pleasantly, "I find we have already given you money on your note up to nearly the entire five hundred thousand. Of course there's no question of your ability to pay, but wouldn't it be more businesslike if you could ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... An impression of complete businesslike determination was what one got when visiting the Americans in France. A discipline even stricter than that which applied in British and French troops was in force. In towns, officers, for instance, were not allowed out after 9 P. M. Some towns where subalterns ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... which was severely neat and businesslike, as became an aspiring outfitter. Mr. Polly's conception of his own pose and expression was rendered by that uncontrollable phrasemonger at the back ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... of General Oglesby, as Governor, the affairs of the State were administered in an honest, businesslike manner. There was no scandal or thought of scandal, so far as the Executive was concerned, during all the years that he was Governor, although there was considerable corruption in one or two of the Legislatures, and some very bad measures were ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... though this would be the best place, because I have my papers about me. If you would take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday, I could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit I have endeavoured to make this as businesslike ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... an artist an extra half-inch of hair, and he must be very well groomed, very prosperous, businesslike, and, in appearance at least, athletic—even if he must ask his tailor to furnish the look of brawn. Personally, I prefer the mode of to-day, but with to-day's fashion we should not have had Chopin, such music as he drew from his familiar and daemon, the piano, and such letters ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... desperation relaxed she began to find some fun in her new situation, and when a woman with two little boys approached she came forward to wait on her, elated, important. "Two for five," she said in a businesslike tone. The woman put down a dime, took up four doughnuts, divided them between her ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield |
