"Sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jasper. She's that bold she wouldn't mind it, not a bit. Only she'd do it sly-like. I know just how she'd do it. She'd tell him how she hadn't got a home, and must go out into the wide world, and get him to pity her. Then, you know, he'd got used to seeing her round, and a sick man ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... This sly satire of the eloquent Quaker was received by the men of Bradford with cheers; and, indeed, it is true that college education sometimes weakens more than it refines, and many of the masters of our generation have been so lucky as to ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... them to the frozen creek, where they picked up a splendid mink and an otter as well. Shrewd and sly though these little wearers of fur coats were, they had not been able to withstand the temptation of the bait the trapper had placed in their haunts, with the result that they paid the penalty of their greed with ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... my little father," rejoined she; "it is of no use your trying to play the sly fox. Send for ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... and yet not a Stetson or a Lewallen had been seen. The stores of Rufe and old Jasper were at the extremities of the town, and the crowd did not move those ways. It waited in the centre, and whetted impatience by sly trips in twos and three to stables or side alleys for "mountain dew." Now and then the sheriff, a little man with a mighty voice, would appear on the courthouse steps, and summon a witness to court, where ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... pair in the whole community: older people would point to them as an illustration of justice visited on blind youth, and would chuckle to observe Henry in the process of receiving his come-uppance: the younger set would quake with merriment and poor jokes and sly allusions to Henry's ancient grandeur. Even Bob Standish would have to hide his amusement; why, Bob himself had made society and success his fetiches. And Anna—Anna who was so ambitious for him—how could she endure the status of a cheap ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... tales worth editing instead; half-pagan, mediaeval priest lore, believed in by men and women who have not been given anything to believe instead; easy-going, all-permitting fifteenth century scepticism, not yet replaced by the scientific and socialistic disbelief which is puritanic and iconoclastic; sly and savage habits of vengeance still doing service among the lower classes instead of the orderly chicanery of modern justice;—these are the things, and a hundred others besides, concrete and spiritual, things too ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... been at one too? Oh the fun of such a meeting! the feast of reason, and the flow of Ferintosh, I and the rich stories, ay, fatter than ever I would venture on, and the cricket—like chirps of laughter of the probationer, and the loud independent guffaw of the placed minister, and the sly innuendos about the land round the Jordan, when our freens get half foo. Oh how I honour a Gaudeamus! And why," he continued, "should the excellent men not rejoice, Tom? Are they not the very men who should be happy? Is a minister to be for ever boxed up in his pulpit—for ever to be ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... likewise foreordained) to reach the city sooner or later. My fate in that respect was settled for me when I placed my trust in the vagrant road. I thought for a time that I was more than a match for the Road, but I soon learned that the Road was more than a match for me. Sly? There's no name for it. Alluring, lovable, mysterious—as the heart of a woman. Many a time I followed the Road where it led through innocent meadows or climbed leisurely hill slopes only to find that it had crept around slyly and ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... almost naked, the former being only covered round the waist, and the women wearing nothing but a loose shirt hanging in rags about them. These Arabs are much leaner than the Aeneze, and of a browner complexion. They have the reputation of being very sly and enterprising thieves, a title by which they ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... you to investigate them on the sly, and learn about how many there are. I'm the captain of a post on the Dickey River, and I engage you now as my messenger and representative. Give up your idea of trapping for this winter. I've plenty for you to do. No one knows anything about you here, and I think you can get away ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? 85 Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling, smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,[43] Points to the parents ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... struck him with a vague apprehension, but his mind was not keen enough to cut into the cause of what he might have supposed to be a trouble; and so, he gave it none of his time, so taken up with his banjo, his dogs, his sporting newspaper, and his own sly love affair. In Louise's manner no ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... depredations on a more magnificent scale. Having ascertained the weakness of some neighboring colony, through the sly intrusions of those who have entered the hive to spy out all "the nakedness of the land," they prepare themselves for war, in the shape of a pitched battle. The well-armed warriors sally out by thousands, to attack the feeble hive against which they have so unjustly declared ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... soft-hearted. He's a sly little dog, and knows my eye is on him. When I asked him what he saw in the dressing-room, after he brought out the ball, and looked sharply at him, he laughed, and said: 'Only a mouse,' as saucy as ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... tried every argument I could think of to prove to him that there was neither honour, nor dignity, nor profit in aiming at titular distinctions not forced upon us by the circumstances of our birth. He kept his position with much sly fencing, approaching shrewdness; and, whatever I might say, I could not deny that a vile old knockknee'd world, tugging its forelock to the look of rank and chink of wealth, backed him, if he chose to be insensible ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more insolent way in which they carried off whatever they could seize. When I opposed them, the club or tomahawk, the musket or kawas (i. e. killing-stone), being instantly raised, intimated that my life would be taken, if I resisted. Their skill in stealing on the sly was phenomenal! If an article fell, or was seen on the floor, a Tanna-man would neatly cover it with his foot, while looking you frankly in the face, and, having fixed it by his toes or by bending in his great toe like a thumb to hold it, would walk off ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... sprang to his feet and grasped the retreating Diggs by the arm, literally jerking that dignified individual back upon his heels. His eyes were gleaming. "Dark brown hair and soft grey eyes? Fairly tall and slend—" The sly grin on the butler's face served to check the outburst. He abruptly subdued his emotions. "Excuse me for grabbing you like that. I—I was just ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... young maid would have none of their courtesies. Ignoring the outstretched hands of both the man and boy, she sprang lightly from her horse, and, as she did so, with a sly and sudden push of her dainty foot, she sent the kneeling lad sprawling backward, while her merry peal of laughter rang out as an ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... to see the loveliest woman in Europe?' said the officer. 'Ah! you sly rogue, I see THAT will influence you;' and, truth to say, such a proposal WAS always welcome to me, as I don't care to own. 'The people are great farmers,' said the Captain, 'as well as innkeepers;' and, indeed, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Morgie, kidden and sly, Kissed the girls and made them cry; What the girls came out to say George never heard, for ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... Beckford, "that he is trying to assume an air of dignity not natural to him, by throwing back his head, but this attempt at the dignified is neutralized by the expression of the eyes, which have rather too much of sly humour for the character which he wishes to give himself." To praise individual pictures seems useless when everyone you meet has excellencies peculiar to itself; in fact, whatever our ideas of the great ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... He jerked his head up. The barb pricked his neck. He jerked harder. Another prop became loosened. Then he strode away, this time with calm indifference. He pretended to graze, but his eye roved back to the break. His attitude expressed a sly alertness—something of the quiet vigilance a grazing horse betrays when one approaches with a bridle. He drew nearer the fence again. With head over the top wire he gazed longingly at the clumps of grass ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... to a young student that he is a sly and crafty peasant, then a miser, and finally a very old man. While the subject's features and behavior generally are modified and brought into harmony with the idea of the personality suggested, we may observe ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... prey on vice or folly Joy to see their quarry fly; There the gamester, light and jolly, There the lender, grave and sly. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... place Mme. Derline ran against a shop-girl who was bearing with outstretched arms a white dress, and was almost hidden beneath a light mountain of muslins and laces. The only thing visible was the shop-girl's mussed black hair and sly suburban expression. Mme. Derline backed away, wishing to place herself against the, wall; but a tryer-on was there, a large energetic brunette, who spoke authoritatively in a high staccato. "At once," she was saying—"bring me at ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... shot nearly a foot right over it. Then I looked at the sight of my rifle and found that the back sight had been raised clear up. Strange to say, I had not noticed it before. No doubt it was done by one of my little sisters or John S. They must have taken it down and been fooling with it, on the sly. Then I knew the reason of my bad luck. I think a more tired and discouraged hunter than I was, never crawled out of the woods. With my, hitherto, trusty companion I had met with a signal defeat. I had carried ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... Woofer was very sly and cautious. Ted had observed that he had ostentatiously pulled off his boots when he lay down. Now he could see by the movements of the blankets that he was pulling them on again ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... volumes indeed. These letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fervent, eloquent epistles, breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, underhanded communications; but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language and the most poetic imagery—letters that must be viewed with a cautious and suspicious eye—letters that were evidently intended at the time, ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... I told her jokingly that she would make me jealous, that I thought she really was a man, and that I was going to make sure. The sly little puss told me that I was making a mistake, but her hand seemed rather to guide mine than to oppose it. That made me curious, and my mind was soon set at rest as to her sex. Perceiving that she had taken me in and got exactly what she wanted, I drew back my hand, and imparted ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "'Sly dog,' said Werbrust. 'Get along with you; you are a devil with long and sharp claws, and you have them ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... true as gospel; we noticed his sly looks at her, that first night you and him entered the Heavenly Bower and she was there. We couldn't ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Friendship cast a sly glance at Love—Love blushed or looked down on the carpet, which comes to the same thing. "Yet," began Love again—"yet solitude, to a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Plutus, god of gold! thine aid impart, Teach me to catch the money-catching art; Or, sly Mercurius! pilfering god of old, Thy ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... seclusion at Concord, from which he brought forth in books and lectures the oracular utterances which caught more and more the ear of a wide public, and in which, in casual-seeming parentheses and obiter dicta, Christianity and all practical religion were condemned by sly innuendo and half-respectful allusion by which he might "without sneering teach the rest to sneer." In 1838 he was still so far recognized in the ministry as to be invited to address the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity School. The blank pantheism which he then enunciated called forth ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the Minister. Sure he would sleep. This conversation, with the sly remark of the minister, can only be found not to be comick, because it wants the probability necessary to representations of common life, and degenerates too much ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... night a sly fox took off our best duck! Run for a gun! there a hen hawk flies! We always have the very worst of luck, The anxious mistress ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... the Reb appreciating most keenly the sly dig at his race. He had a kindly sense of human frailty. Jews are very fond of telling stories against themselves—for their sense of humor is too strong not to be aware of their own foibles—but they tell them with closed doors, and resent them ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... John, "you sly little rogue, you will get the cap no more. That's not the sort of thing one gives away for buttered cake. I should be in a nice way with you if I had not something of yours, but now you have no power over me, but must do what I please. I will go down with you and see ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... dead or alive. The bench, a half-finished meat-safe, saws, chisels, wire rods, axes, crowbars, lay in a heap besprinkled with loose nails. A sharp adze stuck up with a shining edge that gleamed dangerously down there like a wicked smile. The men clung to one another, peering. A sickening, sly lurch of the ship nearly sent them overboard in a body. Belfast howled "Here goes!" and leaped down. Archie followed cannily, catching at shelves that gave way with him, and eased himself in a great crash of ripped wood. There was hardly room for three men ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... presently, stealing a sly glance at me as we jogged along side by side, Chize half a league before us, and darkness not ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... be in a passion, my dear sir,—now don't. I am here on behalf of my clients, Messrs. Beaufort, sen. and jun. I have had such work to find you! Dear, dear! but you are a sly one! Ha! ha! Well, you see we have settled that little affair of Plaskwith's for you (might have been ugly), and now ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... discreet all right," replied old Jochem. "I'll make such sly and secret inquiries in all the villages and cities about a man who signs his name Schrimbs or Peppel, that it would have to be the devil's own fault if I don't succeed in locating the wretch. In the meanwhile you lie low here incognito, until ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... or even a note from her. The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on callers ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... different cause, says Parson Sly, The same effect may give; Poor Lubin fears that he shall die, His wife that he ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... own spirit to enter the girl's body, and no one could have told by her outward appearance that any change had taken place. The beautiful girl was now in reality the sly Fox Sprite, but in one way only did she look like a fox. When the fox-spirit entered her body, her feet suddenly shrivelled up and became very similar in shape and size to the feet of the animal who had her ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... the men. He took a tenon marked ten and placed it in a mortise marked one. The problem was solved. He had purposely marked them in that way, instead of marking them alike, as was customary. With a sly twinkle in his eye he said, 'I told you it was ten to one if it ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... comes me Diomede, so demurely: that's a notable sly rogue, I warrant him! mercy upon us, how he laid her on upon the lips! for, as I told you, she's most mightily made on among the Greeks. What, cheer up, I say, man! she has every one's good word. I think, in my conscience, she was born with a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... a great deal about the man and the woman who had done the murder. From the agent she had heard no details, and though the case had made a great sensation at the time it happened, years ago, she had been far away in South Africa, and had not given much attention to it. Some sly hints of Secundina's, however, had shown her that the servants knew, and she had not been able to resist asking questions. Afterward she could not put out of her head Secundina's description ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Adams, of Boston, whose narrow, happy life had oscillated between the comfortable house in Commonwealth Avenue and the Tremont Presbyterian Church? Here she was, hunched upon a camel, with her hand upon the butt of a pistol, and her mind weighing the justifications of murder. Oh, life, sly, sleek, treacherous life, how are we ever to trust you? Show us your worst and we can face it, but it is when you are sweetest and smoothest that we have most to fear ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... round for his wife; and then came Shem and Ham and Japheth with their wives. They helped out some of the birds,—white, with brown spots,—geese, and ducks. It took the elephant and Noah and all his sons to get the horses out, plunging and curvetting as they were. Some sly foxes got out of themselves, leaping from the roof to the back of ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... say that," returned Muir in his sly Scotch way; "it would be far safer to promise to influence him to his injury. Mankind, pretty Mabel, have their peculiarities; and to influence a fellow-being to his own good is one of the most difficult ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... face, and whispers in his ears; And, when I come, he frowns, as who should say, "Go whither thou wilt, seeing I have Gaveston." E. Mor. Is it not strange that he is thus bewitch'd? Y. Mor. Madam, return unto the court again: That sly inveigling Frenchman we'll exile, Or lose our lives; and yet, ere that day come, The king shall lose his crown; for we have power, And courage too, to be reveng'd at full. Archb. of Cant. But yet lift not your swords against ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... "we." But, after all, why not? Had not the children watched her scald and squeeze the currants, and stir and skim? Had not May wielded the big wooden spoon for at least three minutes? Had not Lulu eaten a mouthful of skimmings on the sly? Were they not testing the product now? The little ones had surely a right to say "we," and Dinah accepted the partnership willingly. She lifted the preserving kettle on to the table; and the junior (not silent!) members of the firm mounted on their ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... deep breath, "and I have longed, ever since I came to this 'house of peace'—for it has been that to me—to tell you this secret that has been eating my heart out. I did continue to meet Ned on the sly, even after I promised you, last spring, that I would not. I wrote him, as I told you I would, about going to Mr. Farnsworth and doing the square thing; but he only laughed at me and still insisted upon seeing me the same as ever. I—I really am fond of him, honey," she ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... both brave and sensible. Force does not work here, save to oppress. Be cunning, be sly, and, after you have mastered the language and the situation, then there will be more hope for you. And, when you are strong enough, I will tell you the story of ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... Burke said, with a sly wink at Geoffrey, "upon what value the robbers may place upon the valour of your servants. As a rule serving-men are very chary of their skins, and I should imagine that the robbers must be pretty well aware of that fact. Most of them are disbanded ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... "You sly rascal!" said Rumphius, "you are praising up your wares, but you know better than any one that nothing of the sort is ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... Sly Cupid late with Maia's son Agreed to live as friend and brother; In proof, his bow and shafts the one Chang'd for the well-fill'd purse of t'other. And now, the transfer duly made, Together through the world they rove; The thieving god in arms array'd, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... services; and as there were few things which he could not do, or pretend to do, his young master viewed him with particular favour, and made more of a companion of him than was good for either. Juniper was a sly but habitual drunkard. He managed, however, so to regulate his intemperance as never to be outwardly the worse for liquor when his services were required by Sir Thomas or Lady Oldfield, or when excess was likely to bring him into trouble. When, however, the family was away from the hall, he would ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... prospective husband of Jane, by previous appointment, was accidentally to be. It was a curious interview. The friends so overacted their part, that Jane immediately saw through the plot. Her mother was pensive and anxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations. The young gentleman was very lavish of his powers of pleasing, loaded Jane with flippant compliments, devoured confectionary with high relish, and chattered most flippantly in the most approved style of fashionable inanition. The high-spirited girl had no idea of being thus disposed ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the animals in review, and missing the fox was informed of the sly way in which he had eluded his authority, he dispatched great and powerful fish on the errand of enticing the truant into the water. The fox walking along the shore espied the large number of fish, and he exclaimed, "How happy he who may always satisfy his hunger with the flesh of such as ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... little man who spun his legal webs in a small dark office at the top of Market Jew Street, a solicitor with a servile manner but an eye like a fox, which dwelt on his eminent confrere from London, as he perused the will, with an expression which it was just as well that Mr. Brimsdown didn't see, so sly and savage was it. The Penzance spider knew his business. The will was watertight and properly attested. The bulk of the property was bequeathed to Austin Turold unconditionally. There were only two other bequests. Robert Turold had placed Thalassa and Sisily ("my ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... orderly held their horses a short space away. Armitage had gone forward to his advance, and Chester showed no surprise at the sight of the sergeant seated side by side with the colonel and in confidential converse with him. There was a quaint, sly twinkle in Maynard's eyes as he ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... you did it, it didn't work very well!" And Gilbert gave Nancy a sly wink to recall a little matter of family history when there had been a ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with his unswerving optimism and untiring energy, nor Kosinski to urge me on with his contempt of dilettantism and half-hearted enthusiasm. True, Short was there, much the same as in the old days; even his dog could be heard snarling and growling when the policemen administered to him some sly kick; but as I looked at the squalid and lethargic figure with its sallow, unhealthy, repulsive face, I was overcome by a feeling of almost physical nausea. I realised fully how loathsome this gutter Iago had become to me during ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... had indeed made inquiries, but satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For himself, he was a man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to question him even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than usual delicacy: besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, not without its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, and deter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a kind of Melchizedek, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... course, that Clubfoot, the old slowcoach, who is past his work, was aware of this already, and had made his plans accordingly. But, in the end, they had to send for me. 'The good Clubfoot,' 'old chap,' 'sly old fox,' and all the rest of it—would run across to England and secure the other half, while Count Bernstorff's smart young man from America would wait in Rotterdam until Herr Dr. Grundt arrived and handed him the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... and bells just when the door was flung open for black-robed Tragedy. But it was too late to stop laughing when they discovered the trick. They saw it now, in the very sub-titles which Luck had twisted impishly into sly humor that pointed to the laugh, in the deeds of blood that followed. They saw it in the goggling ferocity of Big Medicine; in the innocent-eyed, dimpled fiendishness of Pink; in the lank awkwardness of Happy Jack. They saw it in the sentimental mannerisms of Lenore Honiwell, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... voice, a muffled note of exultation, that awoke suspicion in him, and made whole the half-doubt he had been entertaining. He turned sharply to face Don Diego, so sharply that the sly smile was not effaced from the Spaniard's countenance before Captain Blood's ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... to the Oppidan band, But not one said a word, and but few gave a hand. Truth whisper'd the Muse,, who, as sly, shook her head, Saying, "where little's told, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... laugh at the same moment, and heartily too, as if at a joke, a rather broad joke, on the part of the old cashier. "Go along with you, you sly old Pere Planus!" The old man laughed with them! He laughed without any desire to laugh, simply to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... too, that later on—ah, as late as possible, I trust—attaining the object of a long cherished ambition, you will have a table d'hote at Belleville Batignolles, and will be courted by the old soldiers and bygone dandies who will come there to play lansquenet or baccarat on the sly? But, before arriving at this period, when the sun of your youth shall have already declined, believe me, my dear child, you will wear out many yards of silk and velvet, many inheritances, no doubt, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Then Tignol, who's watching in one of these doorways, the sly old fox, will come across and join you. Tell him to be ready to move any minute now. He'd better loaf around the corner of the church until he gets a signal from me. I'll ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... wealth of white and gold blossoms in her lap; and the man noticed, with an odd feeling of pleasure, the beautiful curve of her white neck from the soft brown hair to the edge of her dress low on the shoulder. Then, with a sly smile, as the boy of their Yesterdays might have done, he stealthily raised the slender willow twig and with the tip cautiously attempted to lift the thin golden chain that she always wore loosely about her throat with the locket or pendant ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... flashed fire at this, and her cheek lost color; but she parried the innuendo skilfully. "Taking my perquisites on the sly,—that is not so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... your secret away that time, William," said Johnson, with a sly smile, and giving the Avonian a ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... all that prey in vice or folly Joy to see their quarry fly; Here the gamester light and jolly, There the lender grave and sly." ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the old drawling style peculiar to men who love to hear themselves talk, "when stealing becomes a matter of necessity, it ain't stealing any longer, and I have been in the habit of slipping out on the sly and fetching down some of the stock that's roaming through the woods without knowing who their master is—thanks be to the ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... my friend. We are going to write now to the sly fox who generally perceives every hole where he may slip in, and who has such an excellent nose that he scents every danger and every advantage from afar. But this time he has lost the trail and is entirely mistaken. I will, therefore, show him the way. 'To ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... aberration lighted in the old man's eye. "H'm, yes," said he, pondering. "Stuck to one business. So you did. H'm." Then, suddenly sly, he chirped: "But I've struck it rich now." He tapped his box. "Jewelry," he ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... two children I refer to were about nine years old. They seemed to think a very great deal of each other, but were very shy in the presence of others. He often sent the little girl presents of flowers and candy on the sly. They continued to love each other for three or four years, until they finally became estranged ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... to heaven," cried his lordship, "that I never knew people the aim of whose lives seemed so bent on sly mischief as those two sisters. Euphemia, pretty as she is, is better known by her skill in tormenting than by her beauty. And as for the poor squire Diana has conjured into matrimony, I have little doubt of his future baited fate when she springs her dogs ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... kingdom, I think. I am a country-bred woman, and cannot say but the ambitions of the town seem mean to me. I never was awe-stricken by my lady duchess's rank and finery, or afraid," she added, with a sly laugh, "of anything but her temper. I hear of Court ladies who pine because her Majesty looks cold on them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that they might wear a garter on the other. This worldliness, which I can't comprehend, was born with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... everybody coquettish. When Sister Proudfit, in response to some sly gallantry of Garnet's used upon him a pair of black eyes, he gave her the whole wealth of his own. He must have overdone the matter, for the next moment he found Fannie's eyes levelled directly on him. She withdrew them with a casual remark to ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... thing, felt no such thing, but was inwardly pleased that Uncle Sam's money (he gets ten millions a year out of Virginia tobacco, and then brags about what he does for our children, the sly old dog!) was educating some of our boys who otherwise might not be educated half so well, if at all. Moreover, the broad shoulders, the trim flanks, the aquiline nose, brown hair and ruddy cheeks of the young fellow recalled the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... though he can keep himself alive for an astonishing length of time out of the water, declined the most abominably tempting baits. The pike were only represented by baby jacklets: the rudd and the roach were rare and almost microscopic; as for the carp, of course one did not expect to catch the sly, shy creatures. The friend who had been lured to fish in the big lake, modestly called a pond, put down his rod, and, after a few remarks about the fish, which ought not to be set out in print, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... tail five inches and a quarter, near an inch of it on the tip, black. The colour of the body was dirty white, bordering on cream colour; the hair on the belly rather whiter, softer and longer than on the rest of the body. His look was sly and wily; he built his nest on trees, and did ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... Mary! you are a sly girl. You didn't see any thing of a young man there with dark eyes and hair, and a beautiful ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... said. "Indians are sly, and the Sioux are the slyest of them all. They're only waiting until one of us pops up his head, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... wholly unconscious of Patricia's perturbation. "Came in on the sly last week to have a new set made. Got measured for 'em, and am going to get them day after tomorrow. Thought I'd combine business with pleasure and make a visit while they were being filed to fit. I don't reckon that dentist'll hit them off first ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... tipcat, or "sly," so called by Wilson, in his life of Bunyan [Wilson's Edition of Works, vol. i., fol. 1736], is an ancient game well known in many parts of the kingdom. A number of holes are made in the ground, at ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... seats, and Mamma is quite close to the piano where she will hear excellently. Has she promised to sing Siegfried? Is Mr Georgie going to play for her? It's the most delicious surprise; how could you be so sly and clever as ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... obey: as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity." When we have made the acquaintance of the Vicar we find ourselves the richer for a lifelong friend. His gentle dignity, his simple faith, his sly and tender humor, all make ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... has not proposed it. But she talks of it, saying that it would not do. Then when I tell her that of course it would not do, she shows me all that would make it expedient. She is so sly and so false, that with all my eyes open I cannot quite understand her, or quite know what she is doing. I do not feel sure that she wishes ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... last sentence aloud to me several times, for it expressed exactly her opinion of my fondness for mediaeval armor. I am making no complaint of the sly satisfaction which Alice seemingly takes in twitting me with my weakness. I expect to have a glorious revenge by and by when we move into our new house, and when Alice discovers how very appropriate and ornamental my ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... to me," he said. "Your mug is too ugly to forget easy! You are the big, cussing pirate the savages gave the name of skipper to, along on that devilish coast to the south where we lost the Durham Castle. You are a sly fellow, and a daring one; but it will not help you a mite to sit there and talk about your happy home in ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... with the knapsack, turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the passage, "no, Mr. Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but I don't mind confessing that I can't ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Every morning she slipped out of the hotel, meandered through the grounds apparently without purpose, but in reality pursuing a circuitous route and taking sudden twistings and turnings to throw pursuers off the scent. Ever deeper into the wilderness she penetrated, but with the sly caution of an old fox returning to its lair, for she was always being followed by wicked people, such, for instance, as minions of the law, members of the Black Hand, foreign spies, gen-darmys, and detectifs. Having ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... it, sir, only I think as how the man that did the stampin' might have done it in plain English. I don't hold with these foreign lingos, sir; there allers seems something sly and deceivin' about em. No right man 'ud ever think 'fur' meant 'thief'! Thief an' all, sir, he's dead. Mr. Toley and me'll put him away decent like: and it won't do him no harm if we just says 'Our ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... business, and before long I regretted bitterly that I had not been more hard-hearted. I managed to communicate with L—— that same day through R——, and explained to him as well as I could the whole affair. I found the Russian Commander-in-Chief a sly old fox, for his first idea was to thank me for the information and have the whole Treasury searched; if necessary, to dig down to a depth of twenty feet or so with the help of a regiment or two of infantry. That was his idea. In the end we managed to convince him that this was ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... possible; if not, by any means that came to his hand down to that of murder. At the bottom of his dark and mysterious heart Hans worshipped only one god, named Love, not of woman or child, but of my humble self. His principles were those of a rather sly but very high-class and exclusive dog, neither better nor worse. Still, when all is said and done, there are lower creatures in the world than high-class dogs. At least so the masters whom they adore are apt to think, especially if their watchfulness ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep's eyes at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward him decidedly changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him sly pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again, she would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him; with wry faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so chanced that my Viking had previously been drinking therefrom. At other ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... aid This was the purchase that he made: A bicycle of finest make, With modern gear and patent brake, Pedometer, pneumatic tire, And spokes that looked like silver wire, A lantern bright To shine at night, Enamel finish, nickel plate, And all improvements up to date. Said sly Sir Rat: "It suits me ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... with a sly stroke at us old ministers, our significant author points out to us how much better furnished the Interpreter's House was by the time Christiana and the boys visited it compared with that early time when Christian was entertained in it. ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... something in my machine!" exclaimed Ed suddenly with a sly wink at Cora. "I'll just run and get it, if ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... O dearie me, his little sister! You're all demureness, butter wouldn't melt In your mouth, one would think to look at you. Still waters, though, they say ... you know the proverb; And I don't like your doings on the sly. ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... is grave and demure, Weeps when you speak of the wretched and poor, Though she can laugh in the merriest way While you are telling a tale that is gay. Lily that blooms in some lone, leafy nook; Sly little hide-away, moss-sided brook; Fairies are fine, where the silver dews fall; Home fairies—these are the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the meantime, leave yourself alone. I know you'll have a lot of bother with yourself, and your feelings. I know what is happening to you. And I know you get excited about it. But you needn't. Other men have all gone through it. So don't you go creeping off by yourself and doing things on the sly. It won't do you any good.—I know what you'll do, because we've all been through it. I know the thing will keep coming on you at night. But remember that I know. Remember. And remember that I want you to leave yourself alone. I know what it ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... and winked; for he was a merry fellow. Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow too! A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to be imposed upon. Deep in the people's hearts! He knew them, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... to notice all around him a silent and sly conspiracy to get possession of his money. A giant in a sergeant's uniform put a shovel in his hand pushing him roughly forward. He soon found himself in a corner of the park that had been transformed into a graveyard, near the cart of cadavers; there ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... deploring the apparent necessity of their separation, but without undue feeling or any exaggeration; Marie regretting "monsieur's" determination to carry "une dame si delicate, si fine" into "un monde si terrible, si sauvage," but at the same time indicating, with a sly intention and the most admirably submissive nuances, the impossibility of her keeping house in the villa alone with a group of Nubians. Both women had really enjoyed themselves, as talent must when exercising itself with perfect adroitness. Mrs. Armine had regretted Marie's decision, while at the ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the glory and prosperity of France, and all her misery and misfortunes to the disregard of his counsels, and to the neglect of his advice. Bonaparte knows it; and that he is one of those crafty, sly, and dark conspirators, more dangerous than the bold assassin, who, by sophistry, art, and perseverance insinuate into the minds of the unwary and daring the ideas of their plots, in such an insidious ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... force in Mr. ——— to prevent it. It is very strange that he should have made so considerable a figure in public life, filling offices that the strongest men would have thought worthy of their highest ambition. There must be something shrewd and sly under his apparent simplicity; narrow, cold, selfish, perhaps. I fancied these things in his eyes. He has risen in life by the lack of too powerful qualities, and by a certain tact, which enables him to take advantage of circumstances and opportunities, and avail himself ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Anstice," Mr. Flint answered. "I am afraid the person to whom you are really indebted is old Marsden, for I knew if I offered him anything like the real value of the picture, he would hold it for the price of a Raphael. So I made him set his own price, which the sly old dog thought a staggering one, and which I found so absurdly low that I shall feel bound to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... such as is indicated by Plato, Hegel, Swedenborg, and which is very far from what is called "religious" or "moral," I should regard as the best testimonial that could be offered of a man's probity and essential nobility of soul. Is it possible to imagine a fickle, inconstant, or a sly, vain, mean person reading and appreciating Emerson? Think of the real men of science, the great geologists and astronomers, one opening up time, the other space! Shall mere intellectual acumen be accredited with these immense results? What noble ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... earnest, serious and elevated; and his manner so gracious and courtly that he won the respect of all he met. Lady Morgan intimates that his simplicity of manner tempted the young ladies who were members of his class in drawing to cut various innocent capers in his presence, and indulge in sly jokes which never would have been perpetrated had the tutor been more of a man ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... female voyagers on board, and loiter about in the way of every one else, enjoying that excitement in others which they have fortunately passed through. Here and there about the wharf, leaning their head carelessly over black piles, are sly-looking policemen, who scan every voyager with a searching eye. They are incog., but the initiated recognise them at a glance. The restless leer of that lynx eye discovers their object; anything, from a runaway nigger to a houseless debtor, is to them acceptable prey. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... a sort of grunt. But she had an ill-will at the pretty beads, because she had called them rubbish, not knowing what they were; so she said nothing more, and Bee went quietly away, not hearing the words Nelson muttered to herself, "Sly little thing. I ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... girl's fickleness, her coyness, her obstinacy! He hated her. And do what he might for her now, he doubted if he could cozen her or get much from her. Yet in that lay his only chance, apart from Mr. Pomeroy. His eye was cunning and his tone sly when ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... the game begins. Each one endeavours to keep his real position a secret from his neighbours. Some put on a look of calm indifference, and try to seem self-possessed; some will grin and talk all sorts of nonsense; some will utter sly bits of badinage; while others will study intently their cards, or gaze at the ceiling—all which is done merely to distract attention, or to conceal the feelings, as the chance of success or failure be for or against; and then begins the betting or gambling part of the game. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... That sly rogue Pepys, of course, is there—more thumb-stained than any of them except Bozzy. What a miracle is this man who lives more vividly in our eyes than any creature that ever walked the earth! What was the secret ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... thing, but in laughing and quaffing, and whispering of merry jests. For I have usually found that, be the Rule of Church and State ever so sour and stern, folks will laugh and quaff and jest on the sly, and be merry in the green tree, if they are forced to be sad in ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... repeat it, Newspapers deserve the patronage of every friend to his country. And whether the defamers of them are arrayed in robes of scarlet or sable, whether they lurk and skulk in an insurance office, whether they assume the venerable character of a priest, the sly one of a scrivener, or the dirty, infamous, abandoned one of an informer, they are all the creatures and tools of the ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... have come by it honestly, because you never gave us anything," suggested Clyde, who could not refrain from giving his uncle this sly dig. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... last word emphatically, and with a glance impertinently sly. He did not seem to notice it, but replied, with equal emphasis, and very ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... working crafty nests, Endlong the hedges thick, and on rank aiks[25] Ilk bird rejoicing with their mirthful makes. In corners and clear fenestres[26] of glass, Full busily Arachne weaving was, To knit her nettis and her webbis sly, Therewith to catch the little midge or fly. So dusty powder upstours[27] in every street, While corby gasped for the fervent heat. Under the boughis bene[28] in lovely vales, Within fermance and parkis close of pales, The busteous buckis rakis forth on raw, Herdis of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... operator turned his back impolitely; Ah Sih King did likewise. When he turned again, sharply, the oily smile was gone, a look of concern having crept into his sly, old face, and the slightly bent shoulders of the much slier young ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Ach, du lieber Gott! what style, what touch, what progress! Ah," and then it came to him all at once, "your father has come back; you want to show him progress, is it not? You have practised on the sly, eh? Ah—" and he shook ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... changed his master, and three times he succeeded in rising to the highest favor. With the same facility with which he had guided the settled pride of an autocrat, and the sly egotism of a despot, he knew how to manage the delicate vanity of a woman. His business between himself and the regent, even when they were in the same house, was, for the most part, transacted by the medium of notes, a custom which draws ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... cheekiest thing I ever did with a bear was one night over in Devil's Gulch. A big storm come up just about dark an' I found a sort o' cave to crawl into. A big tree, a Pinus Lamberteeny" (another sly glance at the professor), "had fell alongside o' some rocks an' made a fine dry den. A lot of dry leaves was made into a bed, an' I says to Sunday: 'Reckon we 'll have company before long. Wonder whether it 'll be a brown or a grizzly.' Sunday, he curled up an' went to sleep, an' I ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... hear such handsome things said of the performances of our own countrymen. I was fearful, from your frequent sly allusions, that we had nothing worth mentioning. But proceed with ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... From a certain sly knave with a beastly name; From a Parliament that's wild, and a people that's tame; From Skippon, Titchbourne, Ireton, - and another of the same; From a dung-hill cock, and a hen of the game; From ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... appearance, it was Mary Simms. This woman some years before, when she was still very young, had been a sort of humble companion to my mother. A simple-minded, honest girl, we thought her. Sometimes I had fancied that she had paid me, in a sly way, a marked attention. I had been foolish enough to be flattered by her stealthy glances and her sighs. But I had treated these little demonstrations of partiality as due only to a silly girlish fancy. Mary Simms, however, had come ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Mrs Raymond at eleven in the morning on the pretext of having something important to tell her. He found her sitting at her writing-table in a kind of red kimono. Her hair was brushed straight off her forehead, her eyes were sly and bright, and she looked more Japanese ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... presumed to take such a familiarity with her. But her woman's wit did not desert her. With her disengaged hand she felt for and took out a large pin that fastened a bit of lace to her throat, with the desperate intent to give her tormentor a sly stab that would change ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... think so?" queried General D'Hubert with sly gravity. "Perhaps. But I don't see how that can be helped. However, I am not likely to talk at large of this adventure. Nobody need ever know anything about it. Just as no one to this day, I believe, knows the origin of our quarrel. . . . Not a word more," he added, hastily. "I can't really ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... What a lot of mischief you and Bob have been getting into in my absence! You sly little puss! You may well blush. The bare idea of your springing a surprise like that on your new uncle! Bob has told me all about it," he suddenly became grave, "and I am very glad for you both. You could not have chosen ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett |
