"Concoct" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crochet antimacassars next, or cross-stitch a sampler! Just imagine the thing if I tried! It would have dreadful results, because I should be sure to use bad language - I couldn't help it; and the article I should concoct would make people faint, or turn cross-eyed or colour-blind. I shan't do nearly so much harm in the end as a City secretary ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... petite mere!" said the official in the same tone of easy persiflage which he had adopted all along, "but we do know how to concoct a pretty lie, aye! and so circumstantially too! Unfortunately it was Citizeness Desiree Candeille herself who happened to be standing just where you are at the present moment, along with her maid, Celine Dumont, both of whom were ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... other mornings or afternoons at the Countess's. The evenings we spend at the theatre together, I in the box, he in the fauteuil once sacred to Romano. Every Saturday afternoon we concoct the repertoire for the week following, and he goes at once to secure tickets for the various entertainments I intend to visit ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... Septimius went to work with what items of knowledge he had gathered from him; but the interview had at least made him aware of one thing, which was, that he must provide himself with all possible quantity of scientific knowledge of botany, and perhaps more extensive knowledge, in order to be able to concoct the recipe. It was the fruit of all the scientific attainment of the age that produced it (so said the legend, which seemed reasonable enough), a great philosopher had wrought his learning into it; and this had been attempered, regulated, improved, by the quick, bright intellect of ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... like a spatula, and at other times like a pencil, ending in a point. The scale, moistened with a frothy liquid, became glutinous, and was drawn out like a riband. This bee then attached all the wax it could concoct to the vault of the hive, and went its way. A second now succeeded, and did the like; a third followed, but owing to some blunder did not put the wax in the same line with its predecessor; upon which another bee, apparently ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... came to my mind was—Bainbridge! Yes, prejudice and ill feeling apart, I could think of no other individual in the ship with the will and the disposition to concoct and carry out such a scheme. To begin with, he was the only discontented person, so far as I knew, on the ship. And his discontent was of that dangerous kind which is dissatisfied not with any one particular thing, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... married women, and all such other women as may desire it. I am willing that a property qualification should be exacted. Require, if you will, that each woman voter shall possess a gold watch, and keep it wound and up to time—a clothes wringer and a sewing machine; that she shall be able to concoct a pudding, sew on a button, and, at a pinch, keep a boarding-house and support ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the question arose, as to how the quaggas were to be captured. This was the first point to be settled; and the four,—Von Bloom himself, Hans, Hendrik, and Swartboy,—sat deliberately down to concoct some plan of effecting ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... the night, and then the veteran set to work to concoct one of these very remarkable programmes for which his name had become more or less famous in different parts of the country. It is true he was considerably perplexed over the difficulties that confronted him. Perplexities, ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... it not for the folly and presumption of your headlong boy, I would have left your employ quietly in a few days, and had nothing more to do with you or yours. To save my daughter annoyance from his silly sentimentality I was compelled to come into this hated place wherein you concoct your schemes to suck dry our Southern blood. He asked for permission to pay his addresses to my daughter, and I forbade it. I told him that he could only ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... grapes, white and purple, and of the native plum, so delicious when fully ripe in its three colors of black, white, and red. With these were plentiful flagons of ale, for already the housewives had laid down the first brewing of the native brand, and had moreover learned of the Indians to concoct a beverage akin to what is now called root beer, well flavored with sassafras, of which the Pilgrims had been glad to find good store since it brought a great ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... determination—instantly went in person to satisfy himself regarding this story about Tondo. Finding that it was imaginary, he realized how little credence should be given to novelties brought from afar when some one had dared to concoct such things under his very eyes; and he therefore allowed the peace negotiations to proceed by the agencies which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... nor Tugendheim knows the whole truth, but if they get together they might concoct a very ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... matters to such a pass. But having gone so far, Lovibond had found himself at a stand. His next step he could not see. Capt'n Davy must not be allowed to leave the island, but how to keep him from going away was a bewildering difficulty. To tell him the truth was impossible, and to concoct a further fable was beyond Lovibond's invention. And so it was that when Lovi-bond received the letter from Jenny Crow, he rose to the cue it offered like a drowning man to ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... whispered to him of treachery out of the night. It had been a wonderful evening. They had been treated to a feast such as he had seldom dreamed of. Surely these Mongols could concoct from beef, rice, sweet potatoes and spices the most wonderful of viands. And, as for tea, he had never tasted real tea before. The aroma of it still ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... servile revolt. If there be, in all our ranks, one, who—personal danger out of the question—would excite the slaves to insurrection and massacre, or who would not be swift to repeat the earliest attempt to concoct such an iniquity—I say, on my obligations as a man, he is unknown ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "Is always a covert thing. We betray each other in the dark, with silent foot-steps and sibilant voices. We whisper our lies. We concoct our intrigues with carefully closed doors. I did so. I was a priest of the Roman Church as I am now; it would never have done for a priest to be a social sinner! I therefore took every precaution to hide ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... tassels, a fabric introduced among the Cherokees by an English trader of the name of Jeffreys, and which met with great favor. Her anklets, garters, and bracelets of silver "bell-buttons" tinkled merrily as she moved, for she had postponed her tears in the effort to concoct some supper from the various scraps left from the day's scanty food. The prefatory scraping of the coals together caused a sudden babbling of pleasure to issue from the wall, where, suspended on a projection of rock, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... to the matter of extinguishing fires. It is only when roused by some great calamity that people bestir themselves; and then there is such a variety of plans proposed to avert similar cases of distress, that to attempt to concoct a rational plan out of such a crude, ill-digested, and contradictory mass of opinion, requires more labour and attention than most people are inclined to give it, unless a regular business was made of it. In Paris the corps of ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... after noting, as long as they chose, all the different phases of human society, the secret inclinations of those composing it, their follies, weaknesses, and points most vulnerable to temptation, they each returned to the dark dominions whence they came, to cogitate in retirement, concoct and reduce to form those schemes for securing the great object in view, which their observations and discoveries ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... and apparently lacks the necessary energy to come to a determination. Lincoln, even such as he is, contrives to humbug most of the Congressmen. Well! The first of January is close at hand, and Seward, the Congressional cook, will concoct unpalatable and costly dishes for Congressional digestion. Seward is the incarnation of confusion, and of ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... ever sung) to man in part Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found No ingrateful food: and food alike those pure Intelligential substances require As doth your Rational; and both contain Within them every lower facultie 410 Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste, Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate, And corporeal to incorporeal turn. For know, whatever was created, needs To be sustaind and fed; of Elements The grosser feeds the purer, earth the sea, Earth and the Sea feed Air, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... time at the chalet—two girls alone, messing just as we pleased in the kitchen, and learning from Ursula how to concoct pot-au-feu in the most approved Swiss fashion. We pottered, as we women love to potter, half the day long; the other half we spent in riding our cycles about the eternal hills, and ensnaring the flies whom Lady Georgina dutifully sent up to us. She was our decoy duck: and, in virtue of ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... Nothing could come now of going to her and reproaching her—only a public scandal and disgrace. No, he must play his part until he could consult with Francis Markrute, learn all the truth, and then concoct some plan. Out of all the awful ruin of his life he could at least save his name. And after some concentrated moments of agony he mastered himself at last sufficiently to go to his room and ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... But he would have lied had it been otherwise with him. It was his book to make time in which to collect his thoughts, concoct a bullet-proof story, plan against an adverse answer ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... any old recipe for a party and mix up a debut for a girl, but it takes more time to concoct one for a widow, especially if it is for yourself. I spent all the rest of the day doing almost nothing and thinking until I felt lightheaded. Finally I had just about given up any idea of a blaze and had decided to leak out in general society as quietly as my clothes would let me, when a real ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... used to concoct it in that bar, was generally enough for most of our customers, but he, before he left, contrived to put away three; also contriving, during the same short space of time, to inform 'Mam'sel Marie' that Paris, since he had looked into her eyes, had become the only town worth ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... clinging to the idea of keeping Fabian near him, "you must learn to know the habits of the desert, and of the Indians. The villains, who see, by the loss of three of their men, what stuff we are made of, have retired to concoct some stratagem. You hear how silent all ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... have it. It always runs straight through families; the doctor said so when I had it; and whatever I shall do with all of you on my hands at once, I can't imagine." There is always a great deal to do in times of sickness, so this was a very busy day. Lota had to make broth for Stella, to concoct medicine out of water and syringa-stems, to prepare dinner for the other children, and hear all their lessons, for of course education must not be neglected let who will have measles! Pocahontas was unusually troublesome. Imogene cried over the spelling lesson; and altogether ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... if we should conclude that a person had died of want, because he had left provision behind him. Our author certainly means to employ nothing but the combustible minerals of the present earth, in feeding the subterraneous fire which is to concoct a future earth; in that case, I will allow that his provision is deficient; but this is ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... blandly. "It isn't necessary. A straight public-relations set-up. We concoct a story and then let it leak out. We make it so good that even the people who don't believe it can't help spreading it." He nodded at Jamison. "Right now, Jamison, we want a theory that the sending of radiation at twenty times the speed ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... did. Therefore the prize must be big. A man of Enderby's caliber doesn't concoct a scheme of such ingenuity, and go into bondage with it, for nothing. Do you belong to ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... had time or opportunity to overpower you. And I suppose I need not remind you of what your fate will be in that case. Therefore, think well over the matter, and do nothing that you may afterward regret. You should be easily able to concoct a story to account for your present plight that should satisfy those who may find you in the morning, without referring to us. And now we will leave ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... meals we used to concoct around the campfires, out of the rich materials collected during the day's ride! Such stews, such soups, such broils, such wonderful commixtures of things diverse in nature and antagonistic in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... however true, they are really of little consequence. While many extol in vague terms of admiration the deep "spiritual insight" of the founders of Christianity, they do not trouble themselves to explain how it is that this exquisite illumination left them to concoct that huge mass of legendary follies and mystical doctrines which constitute, according to the modern "spiritualism," the bulk of the records of the New Testament, and by which its authors have managed to mislead the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... looked at one another's faces when they met, each wondering whether the other was to be the victim of the fifth nameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain in their scrap-books for materials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning paper was unfolded in many a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew when or where ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... in Herod? Was she a monster, a worse than vampire as she is represented by Wilde and Strauss? Was she an "Israelitish grisette" as Pougin called the heroine of the opera which it took one Italian (Zanardini) and three Frenchmen (Milliet, Gremont, and Massenet) to concoct? No wonder that the brain of Saint-Saens reeled when he went to hear "Herodiade" at its first performance in Brussels and found that the woman whom he had looked upon as a type of lasciviousness and monstrous cruelty had become metamorphosed into a penitent ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... hundred percent American mammoth was inspired by "The Ultra-Democratic, Anti-Federalist Cheese of Cheshire." This was in the summer of 1801 when the patriotic people of Cheshire, Massachusetts, turned out en masse to concoct a mammoth cheese on the village green for presentation to their beloved President Jefferson. The unique demonstration occurred spontaneously in jubilant commemoration of the greatest political triumph of a new country in a new century—the victory of the Democrats over the Federalists. ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... and indigestion to disgorge what we eat in the same condition it was swallowed: the stomach has not performed its office, unless it have altered the form and condition of what was committed to it to concoct.... ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... are not more than seven perfect in the great ocean of human writers, others, although friendly, have been of opinion that, at a time when everyone went about dressed in black, as if in mourning for something, it was necessary to concoct works either wearisomely serious or seriously wearisome; that a writer could only live henceforward by enshrining his ideas in some vast edifice, and that those who were unable to construct cathedrals and castles of which neither stone nor cement could be ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... the fire, I instantly put on some of the lynx meat to concoct some broth, which would, I knew, prove more efficacious than anything else I could give to my suffering companion, while I myself should ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... by the apparent hopelessness of their cause, they sink to the depth of infamy by establishing among us secret orders, the aim of which is to educate men of base passions to deeds of dark dishonor and unmeasured infamy; men who receiving such instruction will concoct schemes for the burning of cities, for the liberation of their prisoners; and, lastly, they have sunk so low in the mire of dishonor, impelled by savage ferocity and hate, that it would appear folly, if not downright ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... the reptiles didn't like to follow. When they left the place they took all our odds an' ends wi' them, an' set fire to the hut. Arter they was gone we set to work an' built a noo hut. Then daddy— who's got an amazin' turn for inventin' things—set to work to concoct suthin' for the reptiles if they should pay us another visit. It was at that time he thought of turnin' this cave to account as a place o' refuge when hard pressed, an' hit on the plan for liftin' the big stone easy, ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... vile, false insinuations that you may concoct will injure me, you are mistaken, Ebenezer James. I am too much respected in the place. So ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... had the doctor fussing over me until I am tired of it. What I need is some fun, Sam. Can't you think of something? Whenever I try to concoct some sort of a joke it makes my head ache," and poor Tom, who loved to play pranks as much as ever, ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... aid, inspect [Transcriber's note: 'microsopic' in original] Where, from the heart, unnumbered rivers glide, And faithful back return their purple tide; How fine the mechanism, by thee display'd! How wonderful is ev'ry creature made! Vessels, too small for sight, the fluids strain, Concoct, digest, assimilate, sustain; In deep attention, and surprize, we gaze, And to life's author, raptur'd, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... to understand what this meant. And in spite of everything my heart grew light. Why should Israel Barnicoat concoct a story about my being married in Plymouth, and tell it at Pennington? Why should the story be used as a reason ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... joke," he said, his small eyes on Henley, "considering the man you mean it for, but as I stood thar hearin' you concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this self-same peddler had got off on you you'd not be exactly in the mood for fun—at least not ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... in every business for an honest, hard-worker. It will not do to presume otherwise; nor should one sit down to grumble or concoct mischief. The most perilous hour of one's life is when he is tempted to despond. He who loses, his courage loses all. There are men in the world who would rather work than be idle at the same price. Imitate them. Success is not far off. An honorable ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... worked alone so as not to attract attention. Our job was merely to locate the illicit stills and then militia would be sent to raid and destroy them, and the vile stuff they concoct. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in the hurry, any good reason for firin' off my piece. But they say necessity's the mother of invention; so, just as I was givin' it up and clinchin' my teeth to bide the worst o't, and take what should come, a sudden thought came into my head. I stepped out ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." Not less singular were his opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... confiscations. Again, very good. The book I am now writing will, therefore, be tried in France, and its author duly convicted; this I expect, and I confine myself to apprising all those quidams calling themselves magistrates, who, in black and red gown, shall concoct the thing that, sentence to any fine whatever being well and duly pronounced against me, nothing will equal my disdain for the judgment, but my contempt for the ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... and it was probably then that he found a sponsor who made for him the claim that he was a son of Apollo. And the holy men peeped out of their peep-holes in holy admiration for any one who could concoct as big a lie as they themselves had ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... really been time to do anything, has there? And, anyway, we usually concoct something at the last minute. I do love dressing up, ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... of those who were most dear to him, to give a clue to the solution of this mysterious circumstance, and disclose the nature and extent of his connection with the enemy without; that the prisoner however resolutely denied, as before, the guilt imputed to him, but having had time to concoct a plausible story, stated, (doubtless with a view to shield himself from the severe punishment he well knew to be attached to his offence,) that Captain de Haldimar himself had removed the keys from the guard-room, opened the gate of the fortress, and ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... memberships is vacant—I intend to become a candidate; what I want immediately is a spirited address to the electors. I have been endeavouring to frame one all the morning, but in vain; I have, therefore, recourse to you as a person of infinite genius; pray, my dear friend, concoct me one by the morning!" "What you require of me," I replied, "is impossible; I have not the gift of words; did I possess it I would stand for the county myself, but I can't speak. Only the other ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... business. At first they agreed upon a declaration of rights to which they were entitled, they said, by the laws of nature, the principles of the British constitution, and their several charters. Their next step was to concoct a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation association, which was not to be infringed by any American citizen. This was followed by a series of solemn addresses; one to the king, expressing loyalty and affection; one to the people of Great ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... undertaken the duties of diplomatist to the Association in Weimar, and endeavored to obtain the Grand Duke's active intervention...But at this distance I cannot, for the time being, accomplish anything. My gracious Master has no leisure for lectures on artistic subjects that I might concoct in the Eternal City; and if I tried to enlighten him in any such way his first and only word in reply would be "Why does not Liszt come back, in place of writing such allotria?" [Observations beside the mark.]- -A short time ago I received ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... England yankee mind could concoct such humours and fascinatingly pert phrases as are found here. They are like the chatterings of the interrupted squirrel in the tree-hole at nut-time. There is so much of high gossip in these poetic turns of hers, and so, throughout her books, one finds a multitude ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... sort of girl who ought to be suppressed and crushed out of a college like ours. Vaunting her poverty in our very faces and refusing to make herself pleasant or one with us in any sort of way. Lucy Marsh and I had a long talk over her that night, and we put our heads together to concoct a nice little bit of punishment for her. You know she's horridly shy, and as gauche as if she lived in the backwoods, and we meant to 'send her to Coventry.' We had it all arranged, and a whole lot of girls would have joined us, for it's contrary to the spirit ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... must concoct one at once, and put it into execution without delay. There is not a ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... looks, which, however, would not bear close examination. She was of medium height, plump, and fresh, with fine shoulders and a rather rosy complexion. Her blond hair, bordering on chestnut, showed, in spite of her husband's catastrophe, not a tinge of gray. She loved good cheer, and liked to concoct nice little made dishes; yet, fond as she was of eating, she also adored the theatre and cherished a vice which she wrapped in impenetrable mystery—she bought into lotteries. Can that be the abyss of which mythology warns ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no parsnips"? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce. As the immortal Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler. Nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... doughnuts and pies spread through the camps a new distress loomed ahead for the Salvation Army. Where were the flour and the sugar and the lard and the other ingredients to come from wherewith to concoct these ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... out, Mollie. A woman who would concoct such a villainous plot would stop at nothing. Abduction would be followed by murder. I would not trust her from henceforth on her Bible oath. My life is not safe while she remains in ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... gods there be" that the girl was a good cook. She amazed the engineer by the variety of dishes she managed to concoct from the canned goods, the game that Stern shot, and fresh dandelion greens dug near the spring. These edibles, with the blackest of black coffee, soon ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... constrain, require, necessitate, occasion, oblige; create, construct, fabricate manufacture, compose, invent, prepare, concoct, shape, form, forge. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... excessively. By the time Ashe had done his best with the disheveled fried egg, the chicory blasphemously called coffee, and the charred bacon, misery had him firmly in its grip. And when he forced himself to the table, and began to try to concoct the latest of the adventures of Gridley Quayle, Investigator, his ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... busily helping to concoct a salmon mayonnaise, when, raising her eyes, she met her husband's gaze. He smiled back at her a look of approval and love, and ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... was a grave. I believed that Karpin was lying, that he had murdered his partner. And I didn't believe that Jafe McCann's body had floated off into space. I was convinced that his body was still somewhere on this asteroid. Karpin had been forced to concoct a story about the body being lost because the appearance of the body would prove somehow that it had been murder and not accident. I was convinced of that, and now all I had to do ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... cultivation. I stepped it out in as correct yards as I could command by striding, and to my dismay found there were just two acres, which discovery somewhat nonplussed me for a time; for to dig over two acres with a spade was no light task, and I took time to reflect and see if I could not concoct some easier means of turning the soil ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... the visitor. "Some little spendthrift of the provinces, I wager," was his next conclusion. He instructed the senior stable-boy to go in and light three candles, and chalked up the guest for nine. He also began to concoct his bill. The household thenceforth took ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... surprise to them all, for this dainty, helpless girl, who had been brought up to know nothing of the practical side of life, had developed a real genius for cookery; and during the past two months she had spent many a happy hour in the kitchen, helping the cook to concoct her elaborate dishes with a skill which won the praise of even that accomplished tyrant, and Florence was making rapid progress towards being able to take charge of the house and servants which had been promised ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... Hoods will find hiding places in the caves; innocent men, in deadly peril, will seek safety in the mountain fastnesses until the danger be past; conspirators will meet in the shadowy recesses to concoct their hellish plots, over which truth, courage, and honesty will finally triumph. Here the blue and the gray will meet to fight, and to be reconciled; and there will not be wanting the Helen McGregors and Die Vernons to give color and ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... he drew a blank, for Mark had long ago found it expedient to concoct a circumstantial account of how and when the central idea had ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... that he was doomed. Fate had struck at him mercilessly. He could only wait in dumb despair, and mutter prayers too long forgotten, and concoct bogus letters from a cousin's address in the south of England for the benefit of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... of his daughter's attractions, either personal or mental. However this might be, it is certain that when the demoiselle had ill-treated the poodle, and insulted the priest, and quarrelled with the cook—that high-priestess of the kitchen who alone, in all Normandy, could concoct those messes which the Baron loved—the master of Cotenoir decided on marrying his ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the post-office. If he sat down at a meal the shop-bell clanged, and hope springing eternal, he hurried forth in readiness to make up a packet or concoct a mixture; but it was an old lady who held him in talk for ten minutes about rates of postage to South America. When, by rare luck, he had a prescription to dispense (the hideous scrawl of that pestilent Dr. Bunker) in came somebody with letters ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... minister or favourite brings with him a whole host of expectants who must be provided for as soon as he takes the helm; and if all the favourites of his predecessor do not voluntarily vacate their offices for them, he either turns them out without ceremony, or his favourites very soon concoct charges against them, which causes them to be tumed out in due form, and perhaps put into jail till they have 'paid the uttermost farthing'. Under us the Governors-General, members of council, the secretaries of state,[11] the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the Poems. They have poetic subjects, ideas, similes: they are full of poetic yearning, crowded with poetic imagery; they have everything poetry needs, except poetry. They have not the poet's hall-mark. They are imitation poems, like the forged "ancient masters" they concoct at Florence, or the Tanagra statuettes they make in Germany. With all her consummate literary gifts and tastes, George Eliot never managed to write a poem, and never could be brought to see that the verses she wrote were not poems. It was an ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... 152/19. 'Apres la poire, le vin ou le prestre. Prov. After a (cold) Peare, either drinke wine to concoct it, or send for the Priest ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... would be dangerous to tell him about Brimbecomb. If the bright-eyed man in the drawing-room had only let her go before kissing her—if he had only remembered his love for Ann! She knew Horace was waiting for her to speak; but her mind refused absolutely to concoct a reasonable excuse, and she could not tell him a deliberate lie, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... me?—but it is not coming to that. Look here, now, I'll tell you the truth for once; though you don't believe me capable of it. I DID concoct that telegram—and sent it; just as a practical joke; and many a worse one has been only laughed at by honest men and officers. I could show you a bigger joke still—a joke of jokes—on the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... yet, Rege I must pay a visit to Mrs. O'Flannigan, then there is the hospital, and the dispensary, and I promised to concoct a bed for a poor fellow in the last stages of heart trouble. But ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... want, you little simpleton!" replied Mademoiselle Reine; "they probably want to concoct ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... are you aware who are the conductors of that paper, and that they are Chartists, Deists, Atheists, Anarchists, and Socialists, to a man? I have it from the best authority that they meet together once a week in a tavern in St. Giles's, where they concoct their infamous print. The chief part of their income is derived from threatening letters which they send to the nobility and gentry. The principal writer is a returned convict. Two have been tried at the Old Bailey; and ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... concerning a life to come. Many nations, early and late, have been quite under the spiritual direction of priests, and have believed almost every thing they said. Numerous motives conspire to make the priest concoct fictions and exert his power to gain credence for them. He must have an alluringly colored elysium to reward his obedient disciples. When his teachings are rejected and his authority mocked, his class isolation and incensed pride find a natural satisfaction ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... place for each state of existence, and we should not jumble that which Nature has separated. She has addressed herself, in one part, wholly to the mind; there is nothing for us to eat but bilberries, nothing to rest upon but rock, and we have no business to concoct picnics, and bring cheese, and ale, and sandwiches, in baskets, to gratify our beastly natures, where Nature never intended us to eat (if she had, we needn't have brought the baskets). In the other part, she has provided ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin |
