"Underhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most underhand cow ever I seen!" said Tommy. "She runs into them there bamboos and pretends she's going to run right clean through to Queensland, and when I go in after her, she wheels round and hunts me for my life. Near had me twice, she did. Every time I fire the old carbine, it jams, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... the office-keeper is one; and they run down all discourse of the taking the town, and offer great odds it shall not be taken by such a day. Perhaps this goes on a week, and then the scale turns; and though they seem to hold the same opinion still, yet underhand the office-keeper has orders to take all the odds which by their example was before given against the taking the town; and so all their first-given odds are easily secured, and yet the people brought into a vein of betting against the siege of the ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... side the revolutionary party assembled that evening at the Jacobins, deplored their defeat, accused every one, and mutually recriminated on each other. "See," said their orators, "what underhand work has been accomplished in one night; what a triumph of corruption and fraud! The members of the former Assembly have mixed with the new members in the chamber, and have infused into the ears of their successors those concessions that have ruined them. After the sitting of that evening ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... tampering with his Indian allies; tempting them, by the gayest of presents, the fairest of promises, and the hottest of firewater, to break faith with the English, and join their cause. These underhand dealings gave Washington much uneasiness of mind; and he complained to the French general, yet in a firm and dignified manner, of the unfair advantage thus taken of the besetting weakness ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... it's for the best," said her mother, in a consolatory manner. "Seemingly his coming would only 'a caused bickerings with Hervey, and, good-sakes, we get enough of that now. I'm not one for underhand dealings, but I'm thinking it would be for the best not to say anything to your brother about his coming at all. If he asks, just say he can't come to stop. I'd sooner keep Hervey under my eye. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... of a visit to the Zoological Gardens on the following Monday. The conclusion was obvious: either Benjamin had turned prophet, and had somehow got ahead of the almanac, or he was "carrying on" in some very underhand manner. Mrs. Quelch decided for the latter alternative, and determined to get to the bottom of the matter at once. She cut a sandwich, put on her bonnet, and, grasping her umbrella in a manner which boded no good to any one who stayed her progress, started ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... Venice and Dalmatia, Salzburg, the Papal Legations, the Republic of Genoa, Piedmont, and Bosnia; and to this list Tuscany and Savoy ought probably to be added. But the charges brought against Thugut of underhand dealings with France, and of the willing abandonment of German interests in return for compensation to Austria in Italy, rest on insufficient ground. Though, like every other politician at Vienna and Berlin, he viewed German affairs ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... neophytes, he pointed out enterprises and speculations, together with the means and chances of conducting them. He was thought a good administrator, and it was often a question of making him mayor of Alencon; but the memory of his underhand jobbery still clung to him, and he was never received at the prefecture. All the succeeding governments, even that of the Hundred Days, refused to appoint him mayor of Alencon,—a place he coveted, which, could he have had it, would, he thought, have won him the hand of a certain old maid on ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... never be able to look Mankind in the Face: But we have laid our Measures so that by prompting the King to run upon us in all sorts of bare-fac'd Extreams and Violences, we shall bring him to exasperate the whole Nation; then we may underhand foment the breach on this side, raise the Mob upon him, and by acting on both sides seem to suffer a Force in falling in with the People, and preserve ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... off with him entirely. He is disgusted at his opposition out of doors, and at his having been the constant adviser of the Duke of Cumberland and all the foolish Lords who have been pestering the King at Windsor; and he is acquainted with all his tricks and underhand proceedings, probably with more of them than we know of. He thanked the Opposition for their support—thanks which they well merit from him—but of course nobody is satisfied. He was before accused of ingratitude ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... intended to do the same thing. Kitty was to write the note, and Tony to deliver it, but their father's remark, and his look, touched their consciences. Dan, too, for some reason or another, was against it; he said he thought that after all it was a bit sneaky and underhand, and he wasn't going to have any more of it. Betty felt the foundations of her world shake, and life bristled with new difficulties; but Dan had said it, so no one questioned. After Dan had put things in that light, Kitty suddenly realized that their conduct in the matter had ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... are putting it in my mind there might be something underhand. I would like to make sure what did you say about me in the heel. (Turns over.) "He was honest and widely respected." Was honest—are you saying me to be a ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... low relations! You have made mischief enough with them for Archie, poor fellow! Don't tell me that you make no complaints. The shameful behaviour of those vulgar fishermen, refusing to sail a yacht for Braelands, is proof positive of your underhand ways." ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... presence. He had thought her a shrewd and kind-hearted woman, and it now struck him that she must certainly have been in the right when she accused Marcus of designs on her pretty niece. At the time he had refused to believe it, for he had never in his life detected his young master in any underhand or forbidden courses; but, after all, Marcus was his father's son, and, in his younger days, the old man had often and often had to risk his skin in Apelles' love-intrigues. And now it was the Son's turn—and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... return to Last Chance, and give letters I will write to Landlord Larry, and I wish you to go to work in my service, and secret service it must be, for what you do must be underhand, no one knowing that you are doing else than carrying on your mining as before. I will give you a paper which will protect you, for Major Randall will endorse it officially, and you can use it in case of trouble, or necessity; ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... at ease in manner, though very far from happy, for she was restlessly eager for a talk with Philip; while he was resolved not to seek a private interview, sure that it would excite suspicion, and willing to lose the consciousness of his underhand proceedings. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lad began, with a bright flush that gave a certain tenderness to his eyes, which were dewy sweet,—"Joe, listen a minute. I am engaged to Delia Whitney,—just to-night. But I hate mean, underhand things. I wanted some one to know it. And—shall I tell mother? Of course she won't like it; though I don't ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... over George I.; narrowly escaped, chiefly through Walpole's help, being found guilty of accepting heavy bribes from the South Sea Company; lost office, and was displaying his father's propensity to underhand scheming by intriguing with the Tories and the Pretender's party when death cut short his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... plain to Esau that he could not induce his father to annul the blessing bestowed upon Jacob, he tried to force a blessing for himself by an underhand trick. He said: "Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father, else it will be said thou hast but one blessing to bestow. Suppose both Jacob and I had been righteous men, had not then thy God had two blessings, one for each?" The Lord Himself ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... him; one could not expect that at his age. If her mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly great—perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he thought: 'I'm not a villain. I don't want to hurt her; and I don't want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a son! There's nothing for it but divorce—somehow—anyhow—divorce!' Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed slowly along the railings of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 150 Appears to me no other than a trick Of Illo's own device. These underhand Traders in great men's interests ever use To urge and hurry all things to the extreme. They see the Duke at variance with the court, 155 And fondly think to serve him, when they widen The breach irreparably. Trust me, father, The Duke knows nothing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the dangerous, in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my mental gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds and of Captain Trent mopping his ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... abruptly upon Hassen. "You would know whence sprang that evil weed of a Republic! I will tell you. It was the work of foreign spies working with foreign gold amongst the outcasts and scum of Theos. It was not the choice of the people. It was the word of sedition, of cunning bribery, the vile underhand efforts of foreign politicians seeking to weaken by treachery a country they dared not, small though it is, ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... inclined to take Stephen Webb at his own valuation. His new acquaintance did not impress him as a reliable man of business, but he had no suspicion of anything underhand. ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... combatant, when he kept under his body, and brought it into subjection, 1 Cor. ix. 27. It were but to mock God, and to preach forth our own folly, to be looking to Christ for help against such an enemy, and, in the meantime, to be underhand strengthening the hands of the enemy; this would be double dealing, and ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... and then one, whom Nature makes so impracticably simple, truthful and faithful, that the worst possible influence can't destroy it. But, you see, from the mother's breast the colored child feels and sees that there are none but underhand ways open to it. It can get along no other way with its parents, its mistress, its young master and missie play-fellows. Cunning and deception become necessary, inevitable habits. It isn't fair to expect anything else of him. He ought not to be punished for it. As to honesty, the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... desirable to understand, consequently, just how these rebates came to be granted. It was, apparently, contrary to the interest of the railroad companies to cut their rates for the benefit of any one class of customers; and it was, also, an illegal practice, which had to be carried on by secret and underhand methods. Almost all the state laws under which corporations engaged in transportation had been organized, had defined railways, like highways, as public necessities. Such corporations had usually been granted by the states the power to condemn land,—and the delegation ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... him to meet her, but she would not. For one thing she did not dare to trust herself on such an errand in his dear company, for another she was too proud, thinking if her father came to hear of it he might consider that it had a clandestine and underhand appearance. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... the meantime," said that personage, "follow me before the nearest inspector of police. You may impose upon a simple-minded soldier, sir, but the eye of the law will read your disreputable secret. If I must spend my old age in poverty through your underhand intriguing with my wife, I mean at least that you shall not remain unpunished for your pains; and God, sir, will deny me a very considerable satisfaction if you do not pick oakum from now until your ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... He met their searching looks with equal inquiry, but experienced a certain attraction toward the man who led the scrutiny. He might be an enemy, but he looked as though he would prove an honest and open one, incapable of anything mean or underhand. Presently he made some remark to his companions, who nodded acquiescence, and then they separated, and were lost in the crowd crossing the vestibule, just as De ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... as he thought she was, or she made up for the defect of her vision by the keenness of her observation. She saw enough to cause her considerable annoyance, though it suggested nothing inconsistent with rectitude on the part of the boy, further than that there was something underhand going on. One supposition after another arose in the old lady's brain, and one after another was dismissed as improbable. First, she tried to persuade herself that he wanted to take the provisions to school with him, and eat them there—a proceeding of which she ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... dangers will come, and the younger generation will rise as they did in 1790. They did grand things then.—Just now you change ministries as a sick man turns in his bed; these oscillations betray the weakness of the Government. You work on an underhand system of policy which will be turned against you, for France will be tired of your shuffling. France will not tell you that she is tired of you; a man never knows whence his ruin comes; it is the historian's task to find out; but you will undoubtedly perish ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... long whistle of astonishment. "Of all the underhand tricks!" he exclaimed when the full significance of Joe's act was borne in on him. He was stupefied to think that Joe was a traitor to the school. "That'll fix his chances of getting into the Thessalonians," he said vehemently. "His name is coming up next week to be voted on. Just wait until ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... date. "Gad!" he replied, "the reason is that you wrote this fine book as a novelist, not as an historian." The Shady Affair recreates for us the Napoleonic atmosphere, silent and heavy, yet electrically charged with grudge, hatred, and ambition, all ready to burst out at one or another point. Underhand plotting was the order of the day; there was a language of the eye rather than of the tongue, since no one was sure that in his own family there might not be eavesdroppers listening ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won—I almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein' sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have an equal chance with me—else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever rightfully accused me of dealing against him. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... ascribe absurdly evil motives to all men, and to be duped himself in consequence. [Footnote: John Mason Brown, "Political Beginnings of Kentucky," 138.] He never understood the people with whom he was dealing. He was sure that they could all be reached by underhand and corrupt influences of some kind, if he could only find out where to put on the pressure. The perfect freedom with which many loyal men talked to and before him puzzled him; and their characteristicly American habit of indulging in gloomy forebodings ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the hut after the mansion-house was deserted, and there constantly resided; and their ferocity, with the old woman's reputation of being a witch, contributed a good deal to keep visitors from the glen. With this view, Bailie Macwheeble provided Janet underhand with meal for their maintenance, and also with little articles of luxury for their patron's use, in supplying which much precaution was necessarily used. After some compliments, the Baron occupied his usual couch, and Waverley ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile." Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the nation, the other party to the contract, assents to it? There can be none until that nation amends its Constitution. Massachusetts when she accepted that Constitution, bound herself to send only such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an errand is a partner in the perjury. Massachusetts has no right to assent to my protest—she has no right ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... exposed, and others underhand Their kindly mothers shelter and maintain: While the adults, in many a various band, Some here, some there dispersed, their living gain. Arms are the trade of some, by some are scanned Letters and arts; another tills the plain: One serves in court, by other guided go The herd ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... itself on dishonesty (a tyranny, that is, under the title and fiction of a democracy,) must practise and admit corruption in its own and in its agents' dealings with the nation. Accordingly, of cheating contracts, of ministers dabbling with the funds, or extracting underhand profits for the granting of unjust privileges and monopolies,—of grasping, envious police restrictions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the integrity of commerce,—those who like to examine such details may find plenty in French history: the whole French ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... against him or his will. We will make no levy or assessment of money for any purpose without his express commission; and will never enter into any secret leagues, intrigues, or plots, nor engage in any underhand practices or enterprises, but, on the contrary, we promise and swear to notify him or his officers of all that we shall be able to learn and discover that is devised against his Majesty.... Moreover, we protest that we will not leave ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... of dirty, underhand thing to do, Fanwell," he was protesting to his companion. "Not a ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... Hume endeavoured to procure an inquiry into these acts of Oriental filibusterism; but the underhand influence of an unprincipled Administration, backed by an interested commercial clamour, was too strong for him; and the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... before the rupture of the peace of Amiens, certain intriguing speculators, whose extravagant zeal was not less fatal to the cause of the Bourbons than was the blind subserviency of his unprincipled adherents to the First Consul, had taken part in some underhand manoeuvres which could have no favourable result. Amongst these great contrivers of petty machinations the well-known Fauche Borel, the bookseller of Neufchatel, had long been conspicuous. Fauche Borel, whose object was to create a stir, and who wished nothing better than to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... original disciples who stood nearest to Jesus, and of the group of three whom He kept specially at His side. Their present place might well lead them to expect pre-eminence in the kingdom, but their trick was mean, as being an underhand attempt to forestall Peter, the remaining one of the three, as putting forward their mother as spokeswoman, and as endeavouring to entrap Jesus into promising before the disclosure of what was desired. Matthew tells that the mother was brought in order to make the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... saw them repeat these maneuvers. She was completely mystified by them and yet she had an uncomfortable feeling. They were so stealthy that she could not help guessing that something underhand ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... it, and found that his paid services had been absolutely employed on behalf of his Lordship, he almost regretted the encouragement he had given to Nickem. In the first place he might want Nickem. And then he felt that in his present position he ought not to be a party to anything underhand. But Nickem was gone, and he was obliged to console himself by thinking that Nickem was at any rate employing his intellect on the right side. When he left his house with Larry Twentyman he had told his wife nothing about Lord Rufford. Up to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... means in defense of a just cause (e.g. by producing false witnesses, or alleging false laws), than to defend an unjust cause, since the former is a sin against the form, the latter against the matter of justice. Yet it is seemingly lawful for an advocate to make use of such underhand means, even as it is lawful for a soldier to lay ambushes in a battle. Therefore it would seem that an advocate does not sin by defending an ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... bald; he had a short black beard and moustache and his carriage was upright and dignified. He could be stern, even severe, when things aroused his anger, and nothing could touch his temper quicker than underhand dealings or a mean act. But his whole being was steeped with love of his kind ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... devil then," cried Mr. Searle, turning almost fiercely on me, "has he put forward this underhand claim to my property?" ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... slander and misunderstanding." He was, we doubt not, fiercely assailed by the Evangelical party, which he had left, and which he denounced in no gentle language; he was, as we can well believe, "constantly attacked, by some manfully, by others in an underhand manner, and was the victim of innuendoes and slander." We cannot, however, help thinking that Mr. Brooke unconsciously exaggerates the solitariness and want of sympathy which went with all this. Mr. Robertson had, and knew that he ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... the interval a fresh vicissitude of mind had befallen him. He, Westray, had been singled out as the instrument of vengeance; the clue was in his hands; his was the mouth that must condemn. Yet he would do nothing underhand, he would take no man unawares; he would tell Lord Blandamer of his discovery, and give him warning before he took any further ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... more than ever, and twisting her head round, "Even you have grown dull!" she cried. "She does, of course, indulge in expectations, but they are actuated by some underhand and paltry notion! She may go on giving way to these ideas, but I, for my part, will only care for Mr. Chia Cheng and Madame Wang. I won't care a rap for any one else. In fact, I'll be nice with such of my sisters and brothers, as are nice to me; and won't even draw ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... The underhand enmity of these pretended friends, which Florine would have scented with the innate faculty of a courtesan to get at truth amid a thousand misleading circumstances, was by no means Raoul's greatest danger. His partners, Massol the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... think that more than one word came out. And even for that one, judging by the temperature of my face, I had blushed as if for a bad action. Assuming a detached tone, I wondered how on earth he had managed to spot the little underhand game that had ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... such bargains as that above described between the Standard Oil Company and the Railways, whereby a discriminative rate was maintained in favour of the Company, is "unfair," though it was underhand and illegal. In the ordinary sense of the term it was a "free" contract between the Railways and the Oil Company, and in spite of its discriminative character might have been publicly maintained had the law not interfered ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... noticing any piece of furniture freshly upholstered in her well-appointed apartment. You must immediately make her explain to you the advantages of the change; and then you must ransack your mind to discover whether there be not some underhand motive ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... convents of women men come not but underhand, privily, and by stealth? it was therefore enacted that in this house there shall be no women in case there be not men, nor men in case ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... reached by her paying with the sacrifice of Mr. Densher for her reduction of Lord Mark to the absurd. So they separated softly enough. She was to be let off hearing about Lord Mark so long as she made it good that she wasn't underhand about anybody else. She had denied everything and every one, she reflected as she went away—and that was a relief; but it also made rather a clean sweep of the future. The prospect put on a bareness that already gave her something in common ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... to dispirit." Mr. Bartlett quotes Margaret,—"There has been a pretty considerable mullin going on among the doctors." But mullin here means stirring, bustling in an underhand way, and is a metaphor derived from mulling wine. Mull, in this sense, is probably a corruption of mell, from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the easy dollars that supply the year's plain clothing and meals, the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is, to the toss and pallor of years of money-making, with all their scorching days and icy nights, and all their stifling deceits and underhand dodgings, or infinitesimals of parlors, or shameless stuffing while others starve, and all the loss of the bloom and odor of the earth, and of the flowers and atmosphere, and of the sea, and of the true taste of the women and men you pass ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... are good! I confess I thought of your doing it, but the idea came all of a sudden and I hated it. I still hate it. It's making you do an underhand thing; it's cheating ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... on his errand of mercy, and soon had the timid little old maid in the more congenial atmosphere of the parlor, where little by little, though in a very stealthy and underhand way, the talk grew more general, and the restraint slackened more and more, until sewing and reading were both forgotten and the fun became fast and furious, culminating in the sudden appearance of Jake Dexter dressed up as an ancient and altogether unlovely ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... sharp reply, and then, as if relenting, "Well, yes, you may; but be brief, and no underhand dealing, mind, for if you attempt to help him you shall be a dead man the next moment, as sure as I'm a living one. An' you needn't be too soft, Westly," he added, with a cynical smile. "Your chum has—Well, it's no business o' mine. You can ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... that fire," put in Florence, with spirit. "Al, if you live out heah a hundred years you'll never learn that Greasers are treacherous. I know Gene Stewart suspected something underhand. That's why he wanted us to hurry away. That's why he put me on the black horse of Don Carlos's. He wants that horse for himself, and feared the Don would steal or shoot him. And you, Bill Stillwell, you're as bad as Al. You never distrust anybody till it's too late. You've ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... guide a German Army to Wellingsford? Was he, a modern Guy Fawkes, plotting to blow up the Town Hall while Mayor and Corporation sat in council? He was not the man to utter purely idle threats. What the dickens was he going to do? Something mean and dirty and underhand. I knew his ways, He was always getting the better of somebody. The wise never let him put in a pane of glass without a specification and estimate, and if he had not been by far the most competent builder in the town—perhaps the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... arrive. I have been advised to erase from the shop windows the words 'Despatch of the British and Foreign Bible Society,' but I intend to do no such thing; those words have tended very much to call attention, which was my grand object. Had I attempted to conduct things in an underhand manner, I should at the present moment scarcely have sold 30 copies instead of nearly 300, which in Madrid are more than equivalent to 3,000 sold on the littoral. People who know me not, nor are acquainted with my situation, may be disposed to call me rash; ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... gone to pieces within him suddenly. He ceased to be himself in manner completely, and even in disposition, in so far that his faded neutral eyes matching his discoloured hair so well, were discovered then to be capable of expressing a sort of underhand hate. He was at first defiant, then insolent, then broke down and burst into tears; but it might have been from rage. Then he calmed down, returned to his soft manner of speech and to that unassuming quiet bearing which had been usual with him even in his greatest days. But ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... will be able to give us more information than Sir Philip," remarked Merrington in a friendly tone to Captain Stanhill, as the door closed behind the subordinate officials. "A woman is generally more observant than a man—particularly if anything underhand has been ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... spies for the last month! A plot between my business acquaintances and the banks! A snake creeping into my house and crawling over my accounts! But I will break up the conspiracy! And you will find out what it mean, to try and ruin a reputable firm by underhand devices! ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... me, and the more I thought of him and his underhand behaviour, the more I seemed to hate him, till at last I felt in quite a frenzy against him. I vowed to myself that in the morning I would see him, and if I could force him to confess his dastardly behaviour ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... effected, nor did the cities meet by their deputies, as was desired; the Lacedaemonians, as it is said, crossing the design underhand, and the attempt being disappointed and baffled first in Peloponnesus. I thought fit, however, to introduce the mention of it, to show the spirit of the man and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... John and Susan Meadows walk out of church man and wife I put a thousand pounds into your hand and set you up in any business you like; in any honest business, for from that day our underhand dealings must end. The husband of that angel must never grind the poor or wrong a living creature. If Heaven consents to my being happy in this way, the least I can do is to walk straight and straightforward the rest of my days, and I will, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Weren't there enough other women in Athens for you to philander with, without beginning to make love to her, the girl I had entrusted to you, and trying this underhand trick on me? ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... pretend I'm clever," he remarked, "or very wise," And at this she murmured, "Really," with the right polite surprise. "But women," he continued, "I must own I understand; Women are a contradiction—honorable and underhand— Constant as the star Polaris, yet as changeable as Fate, Always flying what they long for, always seeking what they hate." "Don't you think," began the lady, but he cut her short: "I see That you take it personally—women always do," said he. "You will pardon me for saying every woman ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... English mind. He was quick to take an advantage, long-suffering, sly, nursing his revenge in silence like a vindictive slave, until at last the moment of retribution should be his; sufficiently truthful and brave to have grown noble in another atmosphere, but with a ready bent to underhand and brooding vengeance. Insensible, it seemed, to gratitude. Proud with the unreasoning pride of an Oriental; cruel, and violently passionate. One soft and tender speck there was in this dark and sullen heart; it was an exceedingly great ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Archelaus.... I'm about sick of him and his underhand ways. You don't know how he's made me suffer in all sorts of little things this past month. Talking to my own men at the inn and the farms, laughing at me. Even John-Willy Jacka goes after him now, that used to be a youngster with me.... You can go ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the horse-pistol, and with the very wind of her coming behold me separated from my love! Gratitude and admiration contended in my breast with the extreme of natural rancour. My appearance in her house at past midnight had an air (I could not disguise it from myself) that was insolent and underhand, and could not but minister to the worst suspicions. And the old lady had taken it well. Her generosity was no more to be called in question than her courage, and I was afraid that her intelligence would be found to match. Certainly, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contraband dealers." We might imagine them, as in a flash of lightening, as a long line of restless nomads, nocturnal and pursued, an entire tribe, male and female, of unsociable prowlers, familiar with to underhand tricks, toughened by hard weather, ragged, "nearly all infected by persistent scabies," and I find similar bodies in the vicinity of Morlaix, Lorient, and other ports on the frontiers of other provinces and on the frontiers of the kingdom. From 1783 to 1787, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fanaticism is aroused there is no better neighbor than the Turk, he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover, he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor is he at all underhand—he never makes a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Urkunden, p. 356, the celebrated paper called "Memorandum of a Prussian Statesman, 1822," which at the same time recommends a systematic underhand rivalry with Austria, in preparation for an ultimate breach. Few State-papers exhibit more candid and ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... He is one of the best fellows I ever met with, and his daughter is the loveliest girl in the world. What do you all mean by making mysteries about nothing? He has given me an invitation to go and see him. I suppose the next thing you will find out is, that there is something underhand even ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... that I was received merely because I was his guest. But it's no use. He will neither accept the invitations he gets, nor stop brooding about the ones where he's left out. What I'm afraid of is that the wound's ulcerating. He had always one of those dark, secret, angry natures - a little underhand and plenty of bile - you know the sort. He must have inherited it from the Weirs, whom I suspect to have been a worthy family of weavers somewhere; what's the cant phrase? - sedentary occupation. It's precisely the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "you couldn't get no sympathy from me, Polatkin. A feller which acts underhand the way you done, trying to make up a Shidduch for Elkan behind my back yet—you got ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... themselves unnecessary airs, and cannot go to see a friend, but they must kiss and slop the maid; and all this is done with an air of gallantry, and must not be resented. Nay, some gentlemen are so silly, that they shall carry on an underhand affair with their friend's servant-maid, to their own disgrace, and the ruin of many a young creature. Nothing is more base and ungenerous, yet nothing more common, and withal so little taken notice of. D-n me, Jack, says one friend to another, ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... rate he let Mistress Talbot lead him away without resistance. The other children would have followed, but their father detained them to hear the particulars of the commission and the capture. Richard desired to know from his son whether he had any reason for suspecting underhand measures; and when Humfrey looked down and hesitated, added, "On your obedience, boy; this is no ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stopping, when she had climbed halfway upstairs, of suddenly jerking her head round to see whether any one were looking at her. You would have sworn, had you seen her, that she was deeply engaged upon some nefarious and underhand plot; yet it was not so-she was simply going to dust some of her hideous china treasures in ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the correct method of its application, for in such cases the delinquent is usually an effective rather than an ineffective person, and when he has purged his fault we continue to punish him in petty and underhand ways, mostly degrading to those on whom they are inflicted and always degrading to those who inflict them. We have found no substitute for the sharper way of our ancestors, which was not only more effective socially, but even more pleasant for the victim. For if it was a cause of temporary ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... for that purpose; but while he was preparing it, Lord North himself brought in a bill on the 2nd of March, which proposed gentlemen who had no seat in parliament as commissioners of accounts. Barre complained of the underhand dealing of the minister, but said that he would concur in the measure, though he had been thus robbed of the honour of introducing it himself. Other members of the opposition were not so liberal. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... cloth-of-gold settee in her private Cabinet, and cooled her somewhat heated face with a jewelled ostrich-feathered fan, "I had better tell you frankly that I think both you and that designing little adventuress have behaved in a very underhand way in this business—a way that I naturally resent. Mirliflor, as you very well know, came here on darling Edna's account, and you deliberately threw that Miss Heritage in his way—I haven't the least doubt you told her ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... particularly like the attack yesterday, and the story is going about that he will soon ask for terms, and that if he gets the honors of war the Prince may have the town. It will be another feather in his cap, and, to my thinkin', he has got ower many for his deservin'—an underhand and evil-hearted loon." And Grimond spoke with such vehemence and a keen dislike that Claverhouse suspected he had heard something more ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... are many difficulties in this view, chiefly from the character of the speech itself, which has the stamp upon it of too evident sincerity to have been composed with any underhand intentions. The tone is in harmony throughout, and the beginning leads naturally to the conclusion which Cranmer ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... such an honest enemy," Bodine replied. "He makes hard bargains with our people when he can, but have you ever heard of his cheating or doing anything underhand? I learned a good deal about his business character while in Georgia, and his course to-day corresponded with what I had been told. Moreover, his feelings got the better of him, and he revealed in one passionate sentence that his eldest son was killed, and, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... a man of profound learning and prudent speech, his papalistic enemies could get no grip upon him. Yet they instinctively hated and dreaded one whom they felt to be opposed, in his strength, fearlessness and freedom of soul, to their exorbitant pretensions and underhand aggressions upon public liberties. His commerce with heretics both in correspondence with learned Frenchmen and in conversation with distinguished foreigners at Venice, was made a ground of accusation, and Clement VIII. declared that this alone sufficed to exclude him from any dignity ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... is this," Trego propounded cunningly: "had Lyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question, had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason to suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not have betrayed him ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... threatned to be burned by the french; but God be thanked, wee escaped from their hands by avoiding a surprize. And in that place my Brother told me of his designe to come and see new England, which our servants heard, and grumbled and laboured underhand against us, for which our lives were in very great danger. Wee sent some of them away, and at last with much labour & danger wee came to Port Royall, which is inhabited by the french under the English Government, where some few ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... diplomacy and underhand scheming, one of the Mandan chiefs, Big White, agreed to go to Washington with the expedition. But none of the Minnetarees could be prevailed upon to leave their tribe, even for a journey to the Great Father, of whose power and might so much had been told them. The journal, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... you, Charley,' I said, 'there is something about her I do not and cannot understand. It seems to me always as if she were—I will not say underhand—but as if she had some object in ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... in either Venegas or Cuesta. Cuesta is loyal enough, but he is obstinate and pig headed and, at present, he is furious because the Supreme Junta has been sending all the best troops to Venegas, instead of to him; and he knows, well enough, that that perpetual intriguer Frere is working underhand to get Albuquerque appointed to the supreme command. As to Venegas, he is a mere tool of the Supreme Junta and, as likely as not, they will order him to do nothing ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... at the time he had sold the property to Mrs. Bragley's husband, Pacomb had made five other grants, and, now that the property had proved more valuable than he had hoped for, he was trying underhand means to recover it. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... indulged in expressions of irritation, which nearly proved the means of commencing this new neighbourship by a duel; accusing General Stanley of having possessed himself by unfair means of Sir Laurence's confidence, and employed agents, underhand, to effect the purchase. In consequence of these groundless representations, it transpired in the country that the decayed baronet had actually volunteered the offer of the estate to the veteran proprietor of Stanley Manor; that he had solicited him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... of Wakefield,'—for whom he wrote some trifles,—he married his step- daughter, Miss Carnan, in the year 1753. He now removed to London, and became an author to trade. He wrote a clever satire, entitled 'The Hilliad,' against Sir John Hill, who had attacked him in an underhand manner. He translated the fables of Phaedrus into verse,—Horace into prose ('Smart's Horace' used to be a great favourite, under the rose, with schoolboys); made an indifferent version of the Psalms and Paraphrases, and a good one, at a former period, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... did not join her in the garden. She was not happy about this latest development of affairs. It was one thing to watch Miss Norton by legitimate methods, and quite another to try underhand ways. She wondered whether the service of her country really demanded such a sacrifice of honour. For a moment she felt desperately tempted to run to Winifrede's study, explain the whole situation, ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the forenoon over a dirty trick played by Brother Clerihew, the ex-butler. (Brother Clerihew had a name for underhand practice; indeed, his inability to miss a chance of it had cost him situation after situation, and finally landed him in St. Hospital.) This time he had played it upon poor old doddering Brother Ibbetson. Finding Ibbetson in the porter's gateway, with charge of a lucrative-looking ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it. The Criticisms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an Intention rather to discover Beauties and Excellencies in the Writers of my own Time, than to publish any of their Faults and Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from some of my underhand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me so far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor shall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, so long as I keep clear of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... never thought much about things that were wicked. Either they were brave things to do and you did them if you wanted to, or they were underhand, hideous things and then you didn't want to do them. But suddenly Esther seemed to her something floating, tossed and driven to be caught up and saved from being swamped by what seas she knew not. Jeff walked over to the dark figure by the truck. Whether ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the influence of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the privilege, underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well to keep up communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he was free; he ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rose to go. It seemed impossible to accuse this splendid impersonation of vigorous manhood of cunning and underhand methods, of plagiarisms and of theft. As he stood there he resembled more than anything a beautiful tiger-cat, a wonderful thing of strength and will-power, indomitable and insatiate. Yet who could tell whether this strength was not, after all, parasitic. If Ethel's ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... were rather tellable. He even knew a lot about China, too, which is more than most people do who have lived in China many years. Had he been of that sort, he might have written rather valuable books, containing his shrewd observations and intimate, underhand knowledge of political and economic conditions. But he was emphatically not of that sort, so continued to lead his disreputable, roving life for a period of ten years. At the end of which time he met a plaintive little ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... fundamental thought and theory upon which this country was founded and has prospered and developed so marvellously up to the present time. Those officials, no matter where placed as regards power and responsibility, who by underhand means would throw us into this entirely new method of life without due thought and consideration, are politically dishonest, no matter how sincere they may be, and are as traitorous to American life and thought as are the pro-German or ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... accused of having entered into an alliance with the Khan of the Crimea. He was summoned to Moscow, where he was arrested, but he managed to escape. His dukedom, however, was annexed to Moscow. Two years later, in 1523, (p. 108) the Duke of Novgorod-Severski was put in prison for underhand dealing with Poland, and that dukedom was added to Vassili's territories. This rounded up ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... and treachery and despicable underhand doings. Marcus, you must forgive me—I was a desperate woman fighting for my life's happiness. I thought I would try one forlorn hope. I kept you out of the way and came up here to see Carlotta. Don't ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... know that there is anything more I need say. I came here to have it out with you. That is my way, perhaps an American way, of doing things. We don't care for underhand dealings. We like things ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... offers of loyalty, and presumed himself authorized to make proposals to others on the King's behalf. They both professed a single-hearted endeavour to settle the King's authority, and each managed by underhand influence, and by lavish promises, to secure some powerful support. Lord Broghill was the abler of the two, and by his profuse devotion "quickly got himself believed." The Chancellor's scorn of such a man is best expressed in his own words. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... came out of confinement the Rover boys thought he might try to play some underhand trick on Tom, and consequently kept their eyes open. But nothing developed for some days, and then it came in a most ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... always in her," was the reply. "I've told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... if it needs bolstering up by such methods as this. The argument is that he let the paper go in without objection because he thought the matter trivial anyway, and he wanted the jury to see the underhand method of ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... Papist himself, nor did he wish any one belonging to him to be Popish, for he had read enough of the Bible to know that no one can be saved through Popery, yet had he a sneaking affection for it, and would at all times, in an underhand manner, give it a good word both in writing and discourse, because it was a gaudy kind of worship, and ignorance and vassalage prevailed so long as it flourished—but he certainly did not wish any of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... 12) a native of the Romagna, who was brought to my father at the age of eight, because his parents were convinced that his conduct was due to a morbid condition. Unlike the above-mentioned case, his evil acts were always carried out in an underhand way. He showed great spite towards his brothers and sisters, especially the smaller ones, whom he attempted to strangle on several occasions, and was expelled from school on account of the bad influence he exercised over his schoolfellows. He delighted above everything in robbing ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... I echoed, defiantly, "and I don't intend to be treated like a naughty child, by anyone. I've done nothing wrong, or underhand. We've only been engaged since yesterday, though we both fell in love at first sight on shipboard, and we've written to mother and you, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... is not to be depended on, yet it is to be made as firm as possible; and they are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion: and some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the league it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand up, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... back from Memphis, and brought a paltry scrap of papyrus on which some wretched scribbler had written in the name of Philometer, that nothing was known of Irene at court, and complaining deeply that Asclepiodorus had not hesitated to play an underhand game with the king. So they have no idea whatever ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the portrait of a man who, in his way, was truly extraordinary. Does it not require rare faculties to play such a part,—to enable one through thirty years to seduce women; to constrain one to employ great gifts in an underhand sphere only,—inciting a people to rebel, tracking the secrets of austere politicians, and triumphing nowhere but in boudoirs and on the ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... campaign, and breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there was nothing secret or underhand in ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... institutions, which are based upon the power of the State that maintains them, mankind shows itself as a huge menagerie, in which the captive beasts seek to tear the morsels from each other's greedy jaws. The sharpest teeth, the strongest claws and paws vanquish the weaker competitors. Malice and underhand dealing are victorious over frankness and confidence. The struggle for the means of existence and for the maintenance of achieved power fill the entire space of the menagerie with an infernal noise. Among the methods which are used to secure this organized bestiality the most prominent ones are ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... in their time. As if the infirmities of old age—the gray hair, the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and the knotted veins of the hands—were the symptoms of moral poison, they prowl about the quays with an underhand air of gloating over the broken spirit of noble captives. They want more fenders, more breasting- ropes; they want more springs, more shackles, more fetters; they want to make ships with volatile souls as motionless as square blocks of stone. They stand on the mud of pavements, these degraded ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... subordinate magistrates chosen suitable to such ends, and favoured, or laid by, proportionably as they promote or oppose them: if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand favoured, (tho' publicly proclaimed against) which is readiest to introduce it; and the operators in it supported, as much as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet approved still, and liked the ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... my notions On sartin pints thet rile the land; There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns Es bein' mum or underhand; I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur Thet blurts right out wut's in his head, An' ef I've one pecooler feetur, It is a nose thet wunt ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the danger which must arise on the accession of James. He had been active amongst those who were firmly determined to struggle against the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism in England, but he had lent himself to no underhand plots against the King, and, although conscious that there existed an undercurrent of intrigue in favour of the Duke of Monmouth, neither he nor those with whom he was associated had expected Monmouth's landing. It was natural, perhaps, that men like Wildman and Danvers should believe ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... if true. Sir H. Cholmly was with me this morning, and told me of my Lord Bellasses' base dealings with him by getting him to give him great gratuities to near 2000l. for his friendship in the business of the Molle, and hath been lately underhand endeavouring to bring another man into his place as Governor, so as to receive his money of Sir H. Cholmly for nothing. To the King's house to see "The Chances." [A comedy, by the Duke of Buckingham.], a good play I find it, and the actors most good in it. and pretty to hear Knipp sing ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... was not likely soon to forget me. Would he seek revenge? Beyond doubt he would, but I fancied it would be by some base underhand means. I had no fear that he would again attack me openly, at least by himself. I felt quite sure that I had conquered, and encowardiced him. I had encountered his like before. I know that his courage was not of that character ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... further. If it be so, come home to me, and I 'll work and slave for you, and you shall keep up your head and be a gentleman still, as you are, every inch of you. Don't mind what I've said at the beginning, dear: don't you know I'm hasty; and I was hurt. But you could not mean to be sly and underhand: 'twas only your high spirit, and it was my fault; I should not have shown you the letters. I hope you are well, and have quite lost that nasty cough, and that Mr. Vance treats you with proper respect. I think him rather too pushing and familiar, though ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of any of my fellow-students. Please understand this. When you have anything to say to me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... cried, "Reuben Baker is not a name to be ashamed of, and if you think that by any of your underhand hocus pocus you can trespass on my premises and prevent my caring for my own property you ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... that it would be well to be more considerate and gracious. And one thing more, my dear, I can have no passing of private notes between you and Constance Hacket. You see a good deal of each other openly, and such doings are very silly and missish, and have an underhand appearance such as I am sure your ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man no grudge; the more he envisaged the risks, the more he admired and respected him. Feebly though the bomb had been charged, carefully though directed by slow underhand bowling only at the legs of horses, at a moment when the royal carriage had actually passed, still a bomb is an incalculable weapon—pieces of it fly in the most unexpected directions; and it was evident that for the execution of this ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... home all flushed and eager, thinking joyously how little men—the poor dubs—ever suspect how it's put over on 'em, and the next day, which was Friday, I thought of a few more underhand things she could do. So when she run in to see me that afternoon, the excitement of the chase in her eye, she wanted I should go along on this picnic. I says yes, I will, being that excited myself and wanting to see really if I was a double-faced genius ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... underhand work. Fruen knew well I should not be long on the place; why not make me the scapegoat? She was determined to upset her husband's calculations, ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... relented so far as to admit the priest, but no argument could persuade him to leave him alone with the invalid. He was the agent of the family, and it was his duty to see everything that went on. He would have nothing underhand in ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... certainly an underhand way of suggesting that you stop doing something pleasant, or begin doing something unpleasant; and you would not have thought that Sara's dear mother would have had so unworthy a habit. But a stern regard for the truth compels me to admit ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... months, as the reader has already seen; and a large number of people appeared to have fixed upon him as a type of the respectable and hypocritical sinner, prosperous, refined, moving in good society and enjoying a fair reputation, yet secretly hardened and corrupt. It was not often that the underhand crimes of such men were plainly exposed to view, and, when they were, an example ought to be made of the offender as a warning to his class. Ever since Cora had gained a hearing in the police-court at Hammersmith, Alan was set down as a heartless libertine, who had grown tired of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Sir Simon as he rose to take his departure, "really very odd that you should have mentioned that chap just now—what's his name—Ulysses; as far as I remember he was a very cunning person, uncannily cunning, and I'm afraid really quite underhand, so to speak, and sometimes deceitful in his methods; and do you know, my boy, you rather remind me of him, now I come to think ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... am no Republican, and was as strong for secession as any man in the South, but I am for open, fair fight with my own enemies or those of my country; no underhand dealings for me; no cowardly attacks in overwhelming numbers upon the weak and defenceless. But if these disguises are not yours, whose are they? ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Duke coming out of his room, but did not like to speak to him; he got into his cabriolet, and nodded as he passed, but he looked very grave. The King seems to have behaved perfectly throughout the whole business, no intriguing or underhand communication with anybody, with great kindness to his Ministers, anxious to support them while it was possible, and submitting at once to the necessity of parting with them. The fact is he turns out an incomparable King, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... double foundation. A beginning of mystery menaced "the established order of things," which was suspicious and underhand. A sign which was revolutionary to the highest degree. The second thoughts of power meet the second thoughts of the populace in the mine. The incubation of insurrections gives the retort to the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... see nothing but calm and peace everywhere. They descended below to the very bank. Even at this close range the water was still and smooth, and the agitated words of the restless people did not cause the broad sheet to stir. Misha picked up thin, flat stones and threw them underhand into the distance so that, touching the water, they skipped repeatedly on the surface. He did this habitually whenever the wrangling distressed him. His hands trembled, the little stones ricochetted badly sometimes; this annoyed him, ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... Maguire for their concern in the Irish rebellion and massacre, Sir Alexander Carew for treachery at Plymouth, and the Hothams, father and son, for treachery at Hull. One Roger L'Estrange, a younger son of a Norfolk family, had been condemned to be hanged in Smithfield for an underhand attempt to win the town of Lynn for the King; but he was reprieved, lay in Newgate for some years, and lived for sixty years longer, to be known, even in Queen Anne's time, as Sir Roger ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... closed down the more established planets. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... a castle or town,' said he, 'and mines beneath the ground after nightfall secretly, is it underhand action to do the same, and to countermine them?' But I said I was not sure what you would think of it. You see, Mr. Mallock, I scarcely know a single person who unites the qualities that you do. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... close at hand—the same fatality still pursued us. She had once more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had found me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff. In her hearing, the Sergeant, with his own underhand object in view, had appealed to my interest in Rosanna Spearman. Again for the poor creature's own sake, I had met the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared—loudly declared, so that she might hear me too—that ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the presence of such a showing the Brooklyn Eagle, a Democratic journal friendly to Tilden, thus philosophised: "Bosses and thorough organisation are incompatible. The success of organisation depends upon reason. The success of the boss is due to underhand arts. No young man can hope for the favour of a boss who does not begin by cultivating ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... prosecution for selling a tobacco substitute, has stated that there is nothing in the Act to prevent a man from smoking what he likes. In the trade this is generally regarded as a nasty underhand jab at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... believing that Laguerre and his men were fighting for liberty. If I were going to credit him, there was not one honest man in Honduras, and no one on either side of this revolution was fighting for anything but money. He had made it all seem commercial, sordid, and underhand. I blamed him for having so shaken my faith and poisoned my mind. I scowled at his unconscious figure as he lay sleeping peacefully on his blanket, and I wished heartily that I had never set eyes on him. Then I argued that ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... of writing, and tossed it angrily into the fire. He hated underhand dealings, and scorned himself for the interest the note excited in him, wondering who could find advantage in informing him of the Duchessa's movements. But the note took effect, nevertheless, although he was ashamed of it, and all night he pondered ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... with delay; he would go abroad, and he "knew her Majesty's nature, that she neither careth though the whole surname of the Bacons travelled, nor of the Cecils neither." He was very angry with Robert Cecil; affecting not to believe them, he tells him stories he has heard of his corrupt and underhand dealing. He writes almost a farewell letter of ceremonious but ambiguous thanks to Lord Burghley, hoping that he would impute any offence that Bacon might have given to the "complexion of a suitor, and a tired sea-sick suitor," and speaking despairingly of his future success in the ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... who use the same weapons. The proof of that is that I am here talking to you, Monsieur German. I can think well of the Germans, although some day I hope to give them back with interest the thrashing we got from them. But it is not the same thing with our enemies at home: they use underhand weapons, sophistry, and unsound ideas, and a ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... to square the account in some sneaking manner. Well, I warn you now and here that it will not be healthy if you try any dirty tricks on me. If anything underhand happens to me, I'll know who was the originator of it, and I'll settle ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... one thing on earth before all others upon which Trevor Mordaunt would have staked his all, it was this Frenchman's loyalty to himself. He was as staunch as Chris's brothers were unstable. He believed him to be utterly incapable of so much as an underhand impulse. And he was content that Chris should have for friend this man who was so close a friend of his own, upon whose nobility of character he had come to rely as a power for good that could not fail to raise her ideals and deepen in her that sense of honour which was still scarcely ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... as it has the means of influence abundantly in its power, from applying that influence to Parliament; and perhaps, if the public method were precluded, of doing it in some worse and more dangerous method. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The science of evasion, already tolerably understood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a degree of purity impracticable in degenerate ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recover ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... trick, and I had to keep off drink for six months to do it, but there was something inside of me that just wouldn't stay quiet till I licked the stuffing out of him. He's a bully. He's the craftiest, sneakiest, most underhand skunk in the Valley. He's at the bottom of most of the trouble with cattle and feed hereabout, but he's too damned wary ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson |
