"Sleek" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the beauty of it. His nickname through the wards was 'Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue,—of course he knew that much, as he had known all evil since he could speak,—but what he loved was the game for its own sake—the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a waterpipe, the sights and sounds ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... for anything else. But as he entered the "Rising Sun" in Meek Street, there was nothing of the policeman about him. He might probably have been taken for a betting man, with whom the world had latterly gone well enough to enable him to maintain that sleek, easy, greasy appearance which seems to be the beau-ideal of a betting man's personal ambition. "Well, Mr. Howard," said the lady at the bar, "a sight of you is good ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... The sleek jailer, whose attempt to be cordial provokes a certain distrust, comes to our corridor to "turn us over" to our next keeper-the warden of Occoquan. We ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... yellow. Bits of carved ivory, rich lacquer ware and choice pieces of satsuma and cloisonne appeared in the windows. In quiet, padded shoes, the sallow-faced, almond-eyed throng shuffled by, us; here a man with a delicate lavender lining showing below his blue coat, there a slant-eyed woman with her sleek black hair rolled over a brilliant jade ornament, leading by the hand a little boy who looked as if he had stepped out of a picture book with his yellow trousers ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... for a means of preventing the discovery, which it seemed to her must be inevitable the moment she ceased to engage Herman in conversation and he turned away. Over his shoulder she could see the beautiful, sensuous Fatima lying with long sleek limbs amid bright-hued cushions. Now that she knew the truth, she could see Ninitta in every line, and her whole soul rose in indignant protest. It was her friend, the wife of this man she honored, who was ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... alternate; On the vine-tangled islands the flowers peep timidly out at the white men; In the dark-winding eddy the loon sits warily, watching and voiceless, And the wild goose, in reedy lagoon, stills the prattle and play of her children. The does and their sleek, dappled fawns prick their ears and peer out from the thickets, And the bison-calves play on the lawns, and gambol like colts in the clover. Up the still flowing Wkpa Wakn's winding path through the groves and the meadows. Now DuLuth's brawny ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... oft some animal bewrays, Through the sleek cov'ring of his furry coat. The fondness, that stirs in him and conforms His outside seeming to the cheer within: And in like guise was Adam's spirit mov'd To joyous mood, that through the covering shone, Transparent, when to pleasure me it spake: "No need thy will be told, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... about the softening influence of wealth, and moralists speak of luxury as if its bad effects were negative and it only enervated. But if riches and the habit of trusting to them, if the material comforts of life and complacency in them, only made men sleek and tame—if luxury did nothing but soften and emasculate—the world would have been far more stupid and far less ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... young woman," about 23 years of age, neatly dressed, not black, but slightly coloured. The auctioneer was a sleek-looking fellow, with a face that indicated frequent and familiar intercourse with the brandy-bottle. He stood upon a platform, about four feet high. Behind him was a table, at which a clerk sat to record ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... Must I then leave you, Gin, Rum, Brandy, Aqua Vitae—pleasant jolly fellows—Damn Temperance and them that first invented it, some Anti Noahite. Coleridge has powdered his head, and looks like Bacchus, Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn sober, but his Clock has not struck yet, meantime he pours down goblet after goblet, the 2d to see where the 1st is gone, the 3d to see no harm happens to the second, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... taking a manner of sleek clerical pleasantry, "though we can so often say 'Christmas is coming,' I suppose that if at some suitable hour to-morrow afternoon I said to you, 'Christmas is going,' you would grant it to be a not inaccurate remark?" The Baron ate ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... on the window now and then it dropped, with a vague presage, upon the sleek head of the daring and enigmatical captain, reading the Litany, from 'battle, murder, and sudden death, good Lord deliver us,' and he almost fancied he saw a yellow skull over his shoulder glowering cynically on the Prayer-book. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Molly, the lariat twisted about her upper body from shoulders to waist, constricting her arms, fastened where she could not reach it by a hitch, sat on Blaze, looking with steady contempt at Plimsoll, who held her bridle rein. He regarded her with sleek complacency and then his eyes slowly traveled over her rounded figure, accented by her ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished; but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white beard; so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek, milk-faced things laugh! ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... tall, well-made figure, a face clean-shaven and deeply sun-burnt, and under the lifted hat caught a glimpse of sleek black hair. But when she saw his eyes, she knew his name, for they were the bluest ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... tutor roughly bade him be still, telling him that he would never reign if these young men lived, and presently another came there and stood beside him. The Marshal de Retz it was, who, with a fiendish smile upon his sleek parchment face, conducted the Lady Sybilla to see the end. But it was a good end to see, and nobler far than most lives that are lived ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... rights of man—that they are gifted with a more stirring sympathy for the wants that, in the present iniquitous system of society, reduce him to little less than pining idiotcy, or madden him to what the statutes call crime, and what judges, sleek as their ermine, preach upon as rebellion to the government—the government that, in fact, having stung starvation into treason, takes to itself the loftiest praise for refusing the hangman—a task—for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... kind with him, keeping, however, a firm hand till his manner had become informed by the new duties. Jacques's greatest pleasure was his early morning visits to the stables. Here were Saracen and Jim the broncho-sleek, savage, playful. But he touched the highest point of his London experience when they rode in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... between the acts; an advantage she shared with the younger and fairer and more dashing, the dancing, Miss Malvina, who footed it and tambourined it and shawled it, irruptively, in lonely state. When not admiring Mr. Burton in Shakespeare we admired him as Paul Pry, as Mr. Toodles and as Aminadab Sleek in The Serious Family, and we must have admired him very much—his huge fat person, his huge fat face and his vast slightly pendulous cheek, surmounted by a sort of elephantine wink, to which I impute ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... they bring their self-inflicted punishments; the Jonases and Tigg Montagues are execrable, but the law has its halter and its penal servitude; the Moulds and Gamps have plague-bearing breaths, from which sanitary wisdom may clear us; but from the sleek, smiling, crawling abomination of a Pecksniff, there is no help but self-help. Every man's hand should be against him, for his is against every man; and, as Mr. Taine very wisely warns us, the virtues have most need to be careful that they do not make themselves ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... sleek and warm, fresh from her evening milk, steals away from her corner by the hearth and picks her way carefully among daffodils and lilies, afraid lest the dew make her coat damp and ragged before her lover joins her. She sniffs ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... with a magenta parasol studiously lowered in our direction throughout her slow progress, as if that were the magnetic needle and we the fixed pole. Seaton at once lost all nerve in his riding. At the next lurch of the old mare's heels he toppled over into the grass, and I slid off the sleek broad back to join him where he stood, rubbing his shoulder and sourly watching the rather pompous figure till it was out ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... was the response, "what the dash do I know about mistresses? I'll make a beginning with you, you sleek, fat powder-monkey, with your ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark, felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The nobler beasts confined ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... difficult of adaptation to theatrical purposes. Nevertheless the world laughed and cried over Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Dan'l Peggotty, and Caleb Plummer, behind the footlights, years after Dolly Spanker, Aminadab Sleek, Timothy Toodles, Alfred Evelyn, and Geoffrey Dalk, their contemporaries in the standard and legitimate drama, created solely and particularly for dramatic representation, were absolutely forgotten. And Sir Henry Irving, sixty years after the production ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... leave time for other things. M'Taggart has a quaint picture of a squatter, which must have been typical of much within the colony in 1839. He found the settler, Peter Armstrong, "in a snug little cabin, with a wife, two children, some good sleek grey cats, and a very respectable-looking dog. He had but few wants, his health was aye good; there was spring water plenty just aside him, and enough to make a good fire in winter, while with what he caught, shot, gathered and grew in ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... very far from being a fool. There is no sharper, shrewder man in New York, and no one who estimates his customers more correctly. He puts a high price on his services, and is said to have accumulated a handsome fortune, popularly estimated at about $300,000. Fat and sleek, and smooth of tongue, he can be a very despot when he chooses. He keeps a list of the fashionable young men of the city, who find it to their interest to be on good terms with him, since they are mainly dependent upon him ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... her description; "he has taken a new lease of his life. He looked only too well,—positively ten years younger. I think myself he was 'done up.' I could see his coat was padded; and he has adorned his head with a very sleek brown wig." ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... is all gone one can be at rest,' she said to herself, and at night she came home sleek and satisfied. The Mouse asked at once after ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... delicate muscles moved and crept under the silken suit as she strove to keep her head above water. Her slim round arms were twined in yards of half-drowned stallion-mane, while her white round knees slipped on the sleek, wet, satin pads of the great horse's straining shoulder muscles. The white toes of her dug for a grip into the smooth sides of the animal, vainly seeking a hold ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... first sentence in the book, he acknowledges his indebtedness to his Creator. He is a very religious man—and a drunkard! Mr. Budd is also a very religious man. Indeed, he is warden at the Parish Church. 'He is a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five and forty, whose scandalous life has long furnished his more moral neighbors with an afterdinner joke.' But a very religious man is Mr. Budd! Mrs. Linnett is a very religious woman. She dotes on religious biography. ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Sleek and fresh, you sit down to dinner in the 'Grande Salle a' Manger.' Graven on your wine-glasses, emblazoned on your soup-plate, are the armorial bearings of the company that shelters you. The College of Arms might sneer ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... mine, while you sport, while you dine, While you drink of your wine like a lord, You might curse, one would say, and grow jaundiced and gray, With such guests every day at your board! But you sleek down your rage like a pard in its cage, And blink in meek fashion through the bars of your passion, As husbands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... of birch and poplar he backed, saying: "Of course, I couldn't expect you to take my part against a sleek-hided Buffalo Cow." ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... meadow's edge at length; Ray was growing more serious, as the time hurried, when little Jane, with a smothered exclamation, prepared to cross the wall. For there they were, sleek and glossy, chattering gently to each other, pecking about, the wind blowing open their feathers till they became top-heavy, and looking for all the world, as Janet said, like pretty little old ladies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... biography is a literary cake-walk. The ordinary forms of speech are absent from it. All the pages, all the paragraphs, walk by sedately, elegantly, not to say mincingly, in their Sunday-best, shiny and sleek, perfumed, and with boutonnieres in their button-holes; it is rare to find even a chance sentence that has forgotten to dress. If the book wishes to tell us that Mary Godwin, child of sixteen, had known afflictions, the fact saunters forth in this nobby outfit: ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... prettiest tricks Of words and words and words. Her talk comes out as smooth and sleek As ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... of "K" Troop trip quickly past; then the beautiful, sleek grays of "B," Captain Montgomery's company; then more bays in "I" and "A" and "D," and then some sixty-five blacks, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... and the little girl's mother was more puzzled than ever. The cowbird was no longer under suspicion, for the big brothers had not been able to fasten the guilt upon him, since his feathers were always as sleek and shining as the coat of a ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... with the dust that had settled on his sleek, glossy coat, forged ahead in a noble sprint with head on a level with its back, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... When Peter heard of his promotion, His eyes grew like two stars for bliss: There was a bow of sleek devotion 685 Engendering in his back; each motion Seemed a Lord's ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... companion had extricated him. When, then, at the end of half an hour, a new knock was heard at the door, he admitted the postulant with a calm indifference, as if fortune had now done her worst, and he had nothing to fear. A middle-aged man made his appearance, sleek and plump, who seemed to be in good circumstances, and to have profited by them. His glossy black dress, in contrast with the crimson colour of his face and throat, for he wore no collars, and his staid and pompous bearing, added to his rapid delivery when he spoke, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... recounting, very probably, a bandied narration of the Thousand and One Nights. Through other open doors drifted the exasperating nasal twang of Cairene music, and idly pausing, Ryder could see above the red fezes and turbans that topped the cross-legged audiences the dark, sleek, slowly-revolving body of ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... doggedly plugged away, firing their tragic comedy, making brave capital even of the silences, but through my glasses I was sure I could see the strained anxiety of their eyes. It was a relief to have them go. Then the Trained Seals were with us, lovely things like gentle, tidy, sleek-headed little girls. My heart was going like a metronome set for a tarantella and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... much imagination, but with what he had he was addicted to the reconstruction of the Home for Old Men into a kind of "castle in Spain," with himself as castellan, hospitably entertaining about a score of sleek and prosperous middle-aged gentlemen, consummately good-humored and civilly willing to pay for their board and lodging. In this revised project of philanthropy the trustees, to whom he was indebted for ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... by sleek? You wouldn't have a minister of the church go about with long hair and a velveteen coat and a pipe in his mouth, ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... earth, one should bear them meekly and look for reward in the world to come and remember that God loves the poor—such sermons naturally sound pleasing to the ears of the wealthy listeners, and the usual reward is a shower of gold and hearty congratulations by the sleek and well-fed members of the congregation. But to an intelligent worker such sermons sound like capitalistic propaganda, upon which he is constantly being fed by every labor-exploiting concern in the country, and quite naturally he tries to ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... then she nearly changed her mind. They were such contrasted types. The blonde gave an appearance of sleek and moneyed elegance, with carefully undulated hair, a rounded bust, and pretty features smooth and plump, with a retrousse nose and rich, full lips, and a manner of easy assurance. The brunette was younger and less developed, slim and lithe, ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... did she get here? And what the devil is a chap to do?" Bruce stooped and recovered his pipe and swore softly. "Ali, if this is true, then it's some devil work; and I'll wager my shooting eye that that sleek scoundrel Umballa, as they call him, is at the bottom of it. A white woman, good old Hare's daughter. I'll look into this. It's the nineteenth century, Ali, and white women are not made rulers over the brown, not of their own free will. Find out all you can and ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... circuitous route, to Konigsberg, to assist in the solemnities there. By Gumbinnen, by Trakehnen,—the Stud of Trakehnen: that also his Majesty saw, and made review of; not without emotion, we can fancy, as the sleek colts were trotted out on those new terms! At Trakehnen, Katte and the Colonel would be his Majesty's guests, for the night they stayed. This is their extreme point eastward; Konigsberg now lies a good way west of them. But at Trakehnen they turn; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... man turned in his chair to summon a waiter, and exposed his profile. Kirkwood was in no wise amazed to recognize Calendar—a badly frightened Calendar now, however, and hardly to be identified with the sleek, glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers were drumming incessantly an inaudible tattoo ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... though, if she had looked more narrowly at her own imaginations of poverty, she would perhaps have discovered on the visionary table always a delicate dish for her husband—in the wardrobe, always a sleek black coat—and in his waiting-room, a clear fire in winter; while the rest of the picture was made up of bread and vegetables, and shabby gowns for herself, and devices to keep herself warm without burning fuel. Her imagination ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... some foe or fiend. There is a strength Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine, Which has more height than depth, more breadth than length. Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase, Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine— Light but not heat—a flash, but ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... came that afternoon, neat and shiny and sleek, with all the wires in their proper places, checked and double-checked by a sober human cog in the prison from which ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... fool!" cried Mr. Franks, striking the merchant a tough blow on his sleek sides, as the young lad turned away. "Don't you see the young gentleman a-swabbing his eyes, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mean? You must not be allowed to select some dozen or two of the hairiest among the curates—a few chosen rectors whose faces have been but lately elevated to the purple—a team of prebends issuing sleek from their golden stalls—a picked bishop—a sacred band the elite of the squirearchy—with a corresponding sprinkling of superior noblemen from lords to dukes—and then to compare them, cheek by jowl, with an equal number of external objects taken from ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... as I had heard of the fertile regions of Pennsylvania, the vast scale and the uniform luxuriance of this region astonished me. The grazing pastures were so green, the fields were under such perfect culture, the cattle looked so sleek, the houses were so comfortable, the barns so ample, the fences so well kept, that I did not wonder, when I was told that this region was called the England of Pennsylvania. The people whom we saw were, like the cattle, well-nourished; the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... that telltale their course lay nearly due northeast. Already the weltering roofs of Paris were in sight, to the right, the Eiffel Tower spearing up like a fairy pillar of gold lace-work, the Seine looping the cluttered acres like a sleek brown serpent, the Sacre-Coeur a ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... also of this party, was Rodney Schaick, a sleek New York broker, a man as prominent in the church as in the stock exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary complement of Duff Brown in any enterprise ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... mile inland we came upon the holluschickie—sleek young bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering strength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a Vegetable burnt black, affords an object no less pleasant than instructive, for if you take a small round Charcoal, and break it short with your fingers, you may perceive it to break with a very smooth and sleek surface, almost like the surface of black sealing Wax; this surface, if it be look'd on with an ordinary Microscope, does manifest abundance of those pores which are also visible to the eye in many kinds of Wood, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... markets you may see whole dogs dressed for food, or cut up into pieces ready for cooking. These are not common yellow dogs, such as you saw in the capital of the Turkish empire; but they are the peculiar Chinese breed, sleek and hairless, which are carefully fatted, and prepared for market. I have no doubt that your stomachs revolt at the very idea of eating dog; but I cannot see that it is any worse than eating pork and fowls, which feed more or less on animal food. However, I do ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... have the boys pick out some horses for you, too," cried Genevieve, smoothing Pepito's sleek coat in response to his welcoming whinny of delight. "I'm sure they can find something all right ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... kept from the fact that I had been a soldier while I had been away, and for a long time very few people knew what I had really been doing during my three years' absence from my native town. Everybody complimented me on my sleek and robust appearance. In due course I applied to Mr Edwin Hattersley, manufacturer, North Brook Works, for a job at warp-dressing, and he readily provided me with one. For a few weeks I was made a sort of god ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... fiddler they had encountered. They had been driving one way and he walking another—a happy encounter with this obvious result. They might have come straight out of happy Theleme, whose motto is: "Do what thou wilt." The driver had taken his two sleek horses out; they grazed unchallenged; and he sat on a stone clapping time with his hands while the fiddler played. The shade of the trees did not altogether shut out the sunshine, the grass in the wood was lush and ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... would have to keep away from the Throgs, which meant well away from the camp. A fleck of green showed through the amethyst foliage before him—the lake! Shann wriggled through a last bush barrier and stood to look out over that surface. A sleek brown head bobbed up. Shann put fingers to his mouth and whistled. The head turned, black button eyes regarded him, short legs began to churn water. To his gratification the swimmer ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... be kindness, lofty souls, Great Brains, and whatso ne'er grows older, Him the Material controls: He shrugs a sleek, good-natured shoulder. Time scatters dalliance, joy, and joke; Your choicest vintage passes; e'en your Supreme tobacco ends in smoke— And so will poor DON ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... more they looked Little Geeup all over, from the black mane on his neck down his sleek back to his fine full tail. A moment more they looked at the little cart, its bright red body with the blue lines around it, the wheels and spokes, which were bright yellow, and the shafts and the whiffletrees, which were ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... doom'd this gentle swain? And question'd every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked promontory: They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd; The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd. It was that fatal and perfidious bark Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... long, pursuing a frog in our meadow, and it was wonderful to see how fast the legless, footless, wingless, finless hunter could run. The frog, of course, knew its enemy and was making desperate efforts to escape to the water and hide in the marsh mud. He was a fine, sleek yellow muscular fellow and was springing over the tall grass in wide-arching jumps. The green-striped snake, gliding swiftly and steadily, was keeping the frog in sight and, had I not interfered, would probably have tired out the poor jumper. Then, perhaps, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... unexpected, they all turned. A small man with sleek dark hair and expressionless features stood before them. Behind him was Abel, carrying ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... tricked her. She had stooped to save his position and not to enable him to work further injury for Thurston. The innocent ponies were Leslie's gift, and the smart of the lash she drew across their sleek backs appeared ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... responsible for many things; several comedies, perhaps a tragedy or two. Ordinarily her parties were dull enough; complacent Washington parties; diplomats, long-haired Senators from the West, short-bearded Senators from the East, sleek young men and women, all of whom sat about discussing grave nonsense concerning a country with which they had utterly lost touch, if ever they had had any; but every now and then, out of the incalculable shufflings of fate, appeared a combination that seemed to offer more excitement. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was a pacer and he came up the drive with that rolling action peculiar to his kind, but which takes one over the road very rapidly. A white fleck of foam spotted the pacer's shiny chest. He was sleek and handsome, but with his rolling, unblinded eyes and his red nostrils, he looked ready ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... passed over him at the hotel. Kindness had driven away the vacant look in his eyes and his mind was stronger. He had found that for which his meagre soul had yearned—a sympathizing heart and a friend. He was fat, sleek, and strong. His old boots—the same as of yore, for he would not abandon them—looked less foolish and seemed almost cheerful. Were they not always in an atmosphere of gentleness and refinement, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... from their respective labours of the day, every individual bearing about him proofs of his industrious occupation. Some had been engaged in preparing the fields for the crops, which the approaching rains were to mature; others were penning up cattle, whose sleek sides and good condition denoted the richness of their pasturages; the last clink of the blacksmith's hammer was sounding, the weaver was measuring the quantity of cloth he had woven during the day, and the gaurange, or ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... gone, a fat, sleek, vulgar-looking man, dressed in a bright purple coat, with a deep red waistcoat, and a wig bulging far from his head with small round curls, while his plump face and person announced plenty and good living, and an air of defiance ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... lines, I have in common with the sharer of my blanket shelter derived infinite entertainment from an article therein contained, entitled "Feeding the Fighting Man." Of course, it is illustrated with photographs, the first one depicting a sleek and stiff Yeomanic-looking, khaki-clad being standing by the side of a swagger little drawing-table covered with a fringed tablecloth, and obviously groaning under what we learn are the gentleman's daily rations. Apart from the article, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... "and by what right?—how dared you come to this house, and lay hands on this woman? Who has ordained that she should suffer for you? You array yourself in fine linen, and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble. You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you perorate ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... through the doorway of the cave to the outer porch. One was Om-at, the other a creature of his own kind but with a rough coat, the hairs of which seemed to grow straight outward from the skin, stiffly, unlike Om-at's sleek covering. The two were quite evidently well matched and equally evident was the fact that each was bent upon murder. They fought almost in silence except for an occasional low growl as one or the other acknowledged ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... another lusty sweep, by which he succeeded in forcing the punt fully twenty feet from the shore. "Edouard! cher Edouard!" "Laisse-moi m'amuser,—je m'amuse, je m'amuse," cried the husband in a tone of indignant remonstrance. But Edouard, a tight, sleek little epicier, of about five-and-thirty, had never heard that an oar on each side was necessary in a boat, and the harder he pulled the less likely was he to regain the shore. Of this he began to be convinced, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep. I looked on a multitude of people, some white, in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on every morning; but the majority of the people were almost as dark as negroes—women with comely features, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in this land of difficulties survives with a zeal and vitality which only proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their footmarks are as big as those of young puppies (withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids on man and beast alike ally them with the horde Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One morning ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone, The look of her heart slipped out and in. Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone, As innocents clear ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ankles and feet, and stout, shiny negro women, their waists tied with a string to prevent their flowing drapery from impeding their work. Flitting to and fro were numberless colored children, bare-headed, bare-legged, and often, with not a little of their sleek bodies gleaming through the innumerable rents of their garments, their eyes glittering like black beads, and their white teeth showing on the slightest provocation to mirth. Indeed, the majority of the young men and ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was short and stumpy; in person, corpulent; and in countenance, sleek, snub-nosed, and demure. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... half broken trail she picked her way as daintily as any debutante tiptoeing down a great stairway to the ballroom. Life had been easy for Mary since that thousand-mile struggle to overtake Canby, and now her sides were sleek from good feeding and some casual twenty miles a day, which was no more to her than a canter through the park is to ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling and cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... a motley company that sat down in Hotel Brun the morning after our arrival in Bologna to a breakfast of murky coffee and furry beefsteaks, associated with sleek, greasy, lukewarm fried potatoes. I am sure that if each of our weather-bound pilgrims had told his story, we had been as well entertained as those at Canterbury. However, no one thought fit to give his ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... eloquent that one could almost see the sleepers stretching themselves in turn, blinking heavy lids, and rubbing dishevelled locks like so many sleek, lazy kittens. For a moment no one spoke, then began ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in.' He unlocked the door and opened it. A dark, rather handsome woman, with sleek hair, in a silk dress of a dark rich colour entered. Lawford closed the door. But his face was in shadow. He had still ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... alderman, and suck the blood Enriched by generous wine and costly meat; On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud, Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled feet. Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls, The oyster breeds, and the green ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... archway into Dean's Yard, we find a backwater indeed, where the roar of traffic scarcely penetrates, where sleek pigeons coo in the elm-trees round a grass plot, as if they were in the close of one of the sleepiest of provincial towns instead of in the midst of one of the greatest cities in the world. On the east side ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... with a draft of prisoners, and, among them, with Abe Cummins, who, so to say, had reached the same place by walking a tenth part of the distance. And, what's more, though a man couldn't very well get sleek in Jivvy, Abe had kept his bones filled out somehow, and knew enough navigation by this time to set a course to the Channel Fleet. 'Deed, that's what he began talking about on the first day's journey he and Billy trudged together ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the negative; drew it a little into more polished circles where wit and talent sparkled. The Vicomte D'Haberville, a French d'Argentenaye, took us to a reception—not too proud of us I daresay, for the gloss of his shoes and the magnificence of his cravat outshone us as the sleek skin of a race-horse does a country filly. Especially did he eye Quinet a little coldly, so that I could scarcely persuade the ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... Shriner Advertising Company. Bartholomew Berg himself, massive, watchful, taciturn, managing to give an impression of power by his very silence, sat at one side of the long table. Just across from him a sleek-haired stenographer bent over her note book, jotting down every word, that the conference might make business history. Hopper, at one end of the room, studied his shoe heel intently. He was unbelievably boyish looking to command the fabulous salary reported to be his. Advertising men, mentioning ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... morning as they went to the fields and to other duties, and picked them up at night. These children were fed about five times a day in little wooden trough-like receptacles. Their principal foods were milk, rice, pot-licker, vegetables and corn dumplings; and they stayed so fat and sleek "dat de Niggers calt 'em Marse ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... through it where the crossing gullies ran, Mary Anerley rode at leisure, allowing her pony to choose his pace. That privilege he had long secured, in right of age, and wisdom, and remarkable force of character. Considering his time of life, he looked well and sleek, and almost sprightly; and so, without any reservation, did his gentle and graceful rider. The maiden looked well in a place like that, as indeed in almost any place; but now she especially set off the color of things, and was set off by them. For instance, how could ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Bull-y. The servants at the table are thoroughly and amusingly yellow-plush,—if that is the word I want, and if it is not that, it is another; for I am quite sure of my idea, though not of the name that belongs to it. The servants are smooth and sleek and intense. They serve as if it was their business, and a weighty business at that, demanding all the energies of a created being. Accordingly they give their minds to it. The chieftain yonder, in white choker and locks profusely oiled and brushed into a ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Germany ready to make terms! Why? Simply to keep filling our systems with more of the national inertia poison—to keep us retarded—to keep us from dashing into the big game with every fibre quivering, and our souls afire to finish it up! Berlin's hope is that while America grows sleek with too much optimism, Germany will grow stronger to prolong her insolent and murderous campaign. Open your columns, Amos, and shout these truths broadcast—for therein will rest the salvation of our country! Germany poor in food or munitions?—fiddle-sticks! ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... while "sauer-kraut" she sells you, the landlady tells you That there, in those walls all roofless and bare, One Simon, a Deacon, from a lean grew a sleek one On filling a ci-devant Abbot's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... nearly made one bound downstairs, but waited to lay awful commands on the girl not to leave the children on no account; then flew down, pausing at the foot of the stairs to draw herself up, and remember dignity and maidenliness. Alas for her hopes! It was Delaford! His whiskers still were sleek and curly; he still had a grand air; but his boots were less polished—his hat had lost the gloss—and he looked somewhat the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indifferent to them, and spent most of his time, when at home, in the lower chamber, which was now dry and clean enough for his luxurious tastes. Their small mother, however, was assiduous in her care; and in an exceedingly short time the youngsters, very sleek and dark in their first fur, were investigating the wonderful, great world beyond their water-gate. They had prodigious appetites, and they grew prodigiously. One, on their very first outing, got snapped up by a greedy ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... when he reeled off the charges lodged against them ... they had been certain it was some kind of ill-planned joke until they saw the delegation of Jupiter Equilateral officials waiting at the port to greet Merrill Tawney like a man returned from the dead. They had watched Tawney climb into the sleek company car and drive off toward the gate, while the Captain had escorted them without a word down ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... thoroughly enjoyed these things. But what she did not enjoy was the rather too jovial comradeship that followed on the part of the men and women her father associated with. He was a good liver and a good spender, and he liked to have about him such persons-men "sleek and fat," who if they did not "sleep o' nights," at least had the happy faculty of turning night into day for ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... nincompoop, one of those young men whose very appearance is supposed to move the British worker to outbursts of socialistic fury. The casual observer would, in this case, have been mistaken. Lord Dunseverick, in spite of his well-fitting clothes, his delicately coloured tie, and his general air of sleek well-being, was at that moment—it was the month of May, 1914—something of a hero with the Belfast working man. And the Belfast working man, as everybody knows, is more bitterly contemptuous of the idle rich, especially ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... discerning creature! What clever eyes he has! See how well he understands what we are saying about him; suppose we take him on to Rome? We might get his grizzly beard shaved; his rough coat would become sleek after a month's good feeding, his legs could be clipped below the knees. Oh! he is full of capabilities. See! he is now acting Sphinx, and looking up at us, as if he could delve into what is passing in our minds, and would turn these vague suggestions to account." Suddenly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair, Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair, The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue, To the quaint tune of some old psalm, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... evidence, for this is naturally an important military post as well as the forwarding depot for the troops stationed along the great western trade route to Batang and Lhasa. The Chinese population under their protection, numbering some four hundred families, mostly traders, looked sleek and prosperous. Evidently they made a good living off the country, unlike the Tibetans who were generally dirty and ragged and poor in appearance. I must confess that I was disappointed at the latter. In spite of their hardy, muscular ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... to her helplessness. And when she hit in on the beach—when she hit the sand—it would be over and over she'd roll, and out of her he would come and be smothered. For a second he'd be smooth and sleek as a wet ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... all about him, including the stable boy, whose hair looked as sleek as the Deacon's horse. For the Deacon has some queer notions about the duties of employers to their servants, and, though the very kindest of men, is generally thought by the neighbors to be "a queer stick." The Deacon's ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... not be a man making his way along. Such a burly figure must make more noise than now reached him. Only a sleek animal could pass from log to log with but a faint pat of feet; or it might be the brushing of the bushes in its ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... of sleek Canadian horses, sure-footed as goats and strong as little elephants, drew the coach with a long, steady trot up the winding road which led to the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in the street: men in their shirt sleeves, lounging, smoking, spitting (else the land were not Italy!), or perhaps playing cards at a table under the leafless bush of the wine-shop; women gossiping over their needlework, or, gathered in sociable knots, combing and binding up their sleek black hair; children sprawling in the kindly dirt; the priest, biretta on head, nose in breviary, drifting slowly upon some priestly errand, and "getting through his office;" and the immemorial goatherd, bare-legged, in a tattered sugar-loaf hat, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... been feeling ill and full of strange qualms and sinkings these many days past. 'Twas an active spirit rebelling against imprisonment in an idle body. I must to sea again—this dalliance in towns and in the company of sleek shopkeepers and peacock-garbed gallants is slow death to a fellow of mettle. I must get me down to Plymouth again, and join any bold captain that hath a mind to turn his ship ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... than usual but perfectly calm, his head bent a little to one side and his smooth hair, which had been slightly ruffled in the encounter in the park, as smooth as ever. It was a very distinctive feature of him; it was part of the sleek and spotless neatness which Mrs. Ambrose ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... Becket's bones," cried one, "I fear That some false Scot has stol'n my spear!" Young Blount, Lord Marmion's second squire, Found his steed wet with sweat and mire; Although the rated horse-boy sware, Last night he dressed him sleek and fair. While chafed the impatient squire like thunder, Old Hubert shouts, in fear and wonder, "Help, gentle Blount! help, comrades all! Bevis lies dying in his stall: To Marmion who the plight dare tell, Of the good steed he loves so well?" Gaping for fear and ruth, they saw The charger panting ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... seen Arick? Yes, your mother saw him at the head of a gang of boys, and looking fat, and sleek, and well-to-do. I have an idea that he misbehaved here because he was homesick for the other Black Boys, and didn't know how else to get back to them. Well, he has got them now, and I hope he likes it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was near now, a great gleaming ship with the sign of the house of SinSin on her hull. A lifeboat sprang from a launching rack and speared across to the Lancet. Moments later the three doctors were climbing into the sleek little vessel and moving across the void of space to ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... So, so, old boy, you shall go over the six-barred gate to-day, or we'll know why." And Mr. Beaufort patted the sleek neck of his favourite hunter. "Put the saddle on ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... glorious! Ellen almost shouted to herself. It was too cold to stand still; she ran to the barn-yard to see the cows milked. There they were, all her old friends—Streaky and Dolly and Jane and Sukey and Betty Flynn—sleek and contented; winter and summer were all the same to them. And Mr. Van Brunt was very glad to see her there again, and Sam Larkens and Johnny Low looked as if they were too, and Ellen told them with great truth she was very glad indeed to be there; and then she went in to supper ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... of the Stag was taken according to the custom of the country, Erec, like a polite and kind man, was solicitous for his poor host. It was not his intention to fail to execute what he had promised. Hear how he kept his covenant: for he sent him now five sumpter mules, strong and sleek, loaded with dresses and clothes, buckrams and scarlets, marks of gold and silver plate, furs both vair and grey, skins of sable, purple stuffs, and silks. When the mules were loaded with all that a gentleman can need, he sent with them ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... Sal were out with Dad, Joe came home with a four-foot black snake in his hand. It was a beauty. So sleek and lithe and lively! He carried it by the tail, its head swinging close to his bare leg, and the thing yearning for a grab at him. But Joe understood the ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... being taken on the regimental strength, our canteen was the paradise of a battalion of mice, from whose nightly raids nothing was sacred. But from the day "Skilly" enlisted the marauders became less and less obtrusive. And "Skilly" grew sleek. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... she concluded, shaking her sleek, black head at the Lockwood twins. "You bumped right ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... land of heroic name.... I found in Ulster, from hill to glen, Hardy warriors, resolute men. Beauty that bloomed when youth was gone, And strength transmitted from sire to son.... I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek, From Dublin to Slewmargy's peak, Flourishing pastures, valor, health, Song-loving worthies, commerce, wealth.... I found in Meath's fair principality Virtue, vigor, and hospitality; Candor, joyfulness, bravery, purity— Ireland's bulwark and security. I found ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... piece of wire filed off to a point, and he vented his misery in piteous squeaks as the sympathetic Varley confided him tenderly to the care of his mother. How Fan managed to cure him no one can tell, but cure him she did, for, in the course of a few weeks, Crusoe was as well, and sleek, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... made them so and the Bible said that it was right. That the school-master had taught Chad. He had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the story made him smile. The tragedies of it he had never known and he did not believe. Slaves were sleek, well-fed, well-housed, loved and trusted, rightly inferior and happy; and no aristocrat ever moved among them with a more lordly, righteous air of authority than did this mountain lad who had known them little ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Scotland, and had left there a numerous family, that he might become its pioneer at the antipodes. He had thus far worked his way successfully, and was beginning to reap the fruits of his adventurous industry. Sleek cattle filled his stockyard, his fields waved with ripe grain, and I had the satisfaction of learning from him, that he had written for his family, and that he soon expected their arrival in the colony. He immediately gave ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... hair parted in the centre of his sleek head, his big weary eyes, his long, yellow walrus moustache, his double chin, his breadth and girth, his enormous hairy hands, now laid upon the table, might stand for force, brutal, remorseless, untiring. He stood for cunning too—the ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... their cities, which are generally built on piles of huge trees, driven like stakes into the bog beneath. The common people are very humane to their cattle; they rub down the cows and oxen, and keep them as clean and sleek as our English horses. Canals run through the principal streets, and in winter they are frozen over for two or three months, when the whole country is like a fair; booths are erected upon the ice, with fires in them. The country people skate to market, with milk and vegetables; and every ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... the Missouri. Indeed, there are many such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall shipping of beef. At night the coyotes yap quaveringly and prowl abroad after the long-eared jack rabbits, which bounce away at their hunger-driven approach. In winter it is not good to be there; even the beasts shrink then from the bleak, level ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... come hundreds of limbers and "G. S." wagons drawn by sleek, well-fed mules, ridden by sleek, well-fed men, ever smiling. Although grimy with sweat and covered with the fine, white dust of the marvellously ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... small fair moustache, his light eyes and hair, looked as English as the Marquis' short, pointed chestnut beard and sleek hair en brosse, looked French. "Bertie!" I said to myself, flashing a glance at him from ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... of beauty: that the dull Saw no divinity in grass, Life in dead stones, or spirit in air; Then looking as 'twere in a glass, He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair, And said the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... the forge, Or troll-like in the mine; nor cares to walk With Wealth and Fashion in the parks and squares; But follow! Come thou down, and let the cold Cramp-headed cynics yelp alone, and leave The mugwump scoffers there to shape and sleek Their thousand paragraphs of acrid joke That like a squirting fountain waste in air: So waste thou not; but come; for hunger pale Awaits thee; haggard pillars of the hearth Appeal to thee; slum children call, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... to no one, because he had no one to send word to. He was undecided where to go, and he hobbled along a little, to get out of the crowd, and to plan a little what he should do. As he stood there undecided, waiting a little, hanging upon his crutches, two young men came along, sleek, well-fed, laughing. He recognised them at once—two of his old colleagues in the office. They glanced in his direction, looked down on his pinned-up trouser leg, caught his eye, and then, without sign ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... his face and hands at the fountain, as he came into San Celoni, remembering that he was a bridegroom. He stood, sleek and sunburnt, looking down at her, and, if he had only had the words, the love-making might have commenced then and there, at a point where the world says it ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... on the crowded floors of public tea rooms, dinner or supper rooms in the cafes, hotels, and restaurants of France. Lean, sallow, handsome, expert, and unwholesome, one saw them everywhere, their slim waists and sleek heads in juxtaposition to plump, respectable American matrons and slender, respectable American flappers. For that matter, feminine respectability of almost every nationality (except the French) yielded itself to the skilful guidance of the genus gigolo ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... nice gentleman has it on us, old dear," chirped Buck Ogilvy plaintively. "Well! We did our damndest, which angels can't do no more. Let us gather up our tools and go home, my son, for something tells me that if I hang around here I'll bust one of two things—this sleek scoundrel's gray head or one of my bellicose veins! Hello! Whom ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... bright silver. Even silhouetted against the eastern sky, it sparkled and glistened. Impassive it stood, graceful, seeming to strain into the sky, anxious to be off and gone. The loading gantry was a dark, spidery framework beside The Ship, leaning against it, drawing strength from its sleek beauty. ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry |
