"Let off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and she was all fiery and kept on getting closer and closer, too.... "I love you," she says. And he, like one of the damned, walks about from one place to another and brags, the coward, about his happiness.... Gives one man a rouble, and two to another.... Gives me money for a horse. Let off everybody's debts.... ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... really need the table, and it's nice to have him out of the way. This is as good as travelling in a private car. We can 'stand on our head in our little trundle-bed, and nobody nigh to hinder.' Oh, girls, I'm so crazy glad that we're on our way home that I'm positively obliged to do something to let off steam. I've exhausted my vocabulary trying to express my delight, so there's nothing left ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... middle of September or sooner. The droppings during the winter must be put into a heap, and allowed to heat gently, say up to eighty or ninety degrees; then they must be turned over twice daily to let off the heat and steam; if this is neglected the natural spawn of the droppings is destroyed. The cottager should provide himself with a few barrowfuls of strawy dung to form the foundation of his bed, so that the depth, when all is finished, be not less than a foot. ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... bride. We were married in the right-hand closet in the corner of the dancing-school, where first we met, with a ring (a green one) from Wilkingwater's toy-shop. I owed for it out of my pocket-money. When the rapturous ceremony was over, we all four went up the lane and let off a cannon (brought loaded in Bob Redforth's waistcoat-pocket) to announce our nuptials. It flew right up when it went off, and turned over. Next day, Lieut.- Col. Robin Redforth was united, with similar ceremonies, to Alice Rainbird. This time ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... are supported by figures. Those who commit crimes which excite pity, such as infanticide and abortion, are less and less likely to be prosecuted, and if they are, they are frequently let off, however flagrant the offence. The average number of acquittals during the last twelve years is twenty-six per cent. A magistrate nowadays is ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart's thrashing-machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire. We caught the rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded labourers were let off with a short imprisonment. The village genius, thank Heaven, is sent packing ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... novel in 20,000 lines—told after the method not of Scott, but of Balzac; it tears the hearts out of a dozen characters; it tells the same story from ten different points of view. It is loaded with detail of every kind and description: you are let off nothing." But he adds later:—"If you are prepared for this, you will have your reward; for the style, though rugged and involved, is throughout, with the exception of the speeches of counsel, eloquent and at times superb: and as for the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was," said the housekeeper. "When he was no more than twelve years old, not nigh as big as the little Chevalier, he let off the big blunderbuss in my bed-room, and I on my knees at prayers the while. God bless his sweet face, I always knew ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... of these wounded Belgians is of supreme importance and infinite significance. You, who were once afraid of them and of their wounds, may think that you would suffer for them now, gladly; but you are not allowed to suffer; you are marvellously and mercilessly let off. In this sudden deliverance from yourself you have received the ultimate absolution, and ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... striding over to Androcles) Here: don't you be obstinate. Come with me and drop the pinch of incense on the altar. That's all you need do to be let off. ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... Jack's dignity to thrash anybody, now, but a grown-up baronet; so he let off little Hicks, and passed over the general titter which was raised at his expense. However, he entertained us with his histories about lords and ladies, and so-and-so "of ours," until we thought him one of the greatest men in his Majesty's service, and until the school-bell rung; when, with a heavy ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time," replied Victor; "but the next thou might not be so well let off. The girl has a sharper wit than she shows ordinarily. She hath learned too well the ways of convents. I trust her not wholly, Benoit. Keep thy eyes open, Benoit. We'll not have her go the ways of her mother if it can be helped." And the worldly and immoral old grandfather ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... lady," said Sandy,—"you never looked up. You needn't run now, I'm sure, when he thinks of taking a turn. All we've got to do is to mind our own business, Mr. Laval says. I guess we can. But I did want to let off those chains." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... question of his sins, and realizes that they deserve just punishment, one of the first impulses is to pray and beg of God to be let off, to be forgiven; and, alas! much of the religious instruction to the sinner is to the same effect. Jesus to Nicodemus gave no such instruction (John 3:14-16); Philip to the Eunuch gave no such instruction (Acts 8:29-39); Paul and Silas to the jailer ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... different towns in the big league and back in a special Pullman and sometimes 2 of them so as we could all have lower births. Well we didn't have no births on the French R. R. and it wouldn't of done us no good to of had them because you wouldn't no sooner dose off when the engine would let off a screem that sounded like a woman that seen a snake and 1 of the boys says that on acct. of all the men being in the army they had women doing the men's work and judgeing by the noise they even had them whistleing ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... up to the light of the lantern. "I promised this one to Arthur Conway. We quarrel every time we meet. I cannot think why he asked me; he disapproves of me even more than his mother does—such an interfering old lady. He will be overjoyed to be let off. And I don't want to dance to-night. I am looking forward so tremendously to to-morrow. I shall stay and talk to you, but you must give me a cigarette to keep me ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... expect I went white, for he exclaimed: "Darn it, I suppose I ought not to have told you. But I had to let off to some one. I don't want to tell the Doctor. In fact, he ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... disabilities. It was, for instance, a common practice to impose on them penalties far heavier than were imposed upon freemen for the same offense. A free citizen of Pennsylvania who indulged in horse racing and gambling was let off with a fine; a white servant guilty of the same unlawful conduct was whipped at the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... really in a good deal of trouble just the moment before I ran against your chair, Miss Earle, and I hope you will excuse me on the ground of temporary insanity. Why, you know, they even let off murderers on that plea, so I hope to be forgiven for being careless in the first place, and boorish in ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... beetle; don't start off so proudly, or trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated, till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple. Above all things, don't let off some foul smell, I adjure you; else I would rather have you ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... was at Lille and a grand fete was given in the evening to celebrate the second restoration of the Bourbons. Fireworks were let off, the city was brilliantly illuminated and boys (hired of course) went about the streets singing the ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... the writer was musing over the treasures of one of the most amiable of the bibliographical brotherhood, when his eye rested on a document endorsed with the following mysterious notification: "A Squib for Dibdin, to be let off on the next Fifth of November." What in the name of Guido Fawkes have we here! Thinking that the explosion in "NOTES AND QUERIES" would do no harm, but perhaps some good, a note was kindly permitted to be taken of it for that publication. It ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... new coffeehouse is established, a couple of drums start it advantageously, and beat like a recruiting party up and down the street, to the dismay of all Forestieri. The drum tells you when the thunny is at a discount, and fire-works are let off at fish stalls when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... within the past fifteen hours. Colonel Morgan instructed me to move with the remainder of my regiment, upon the enemy's encampment. Just as we entered the woods, and were within some five hundred yards of the enemy, a smart firing was heard upon the Richmond pike. It turned out to be a volley let off at a picket, whom Gano had failed to capture, and who ran into the camp. We thought, however, that the fight had begun, and instantly advanced at a gallop. In accordance with the plan previously arranged, Breckinridge was to attack on foot, and Gano was to support him, mounted, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... see the Secretary of War, which no doubt they did, though without any apparent effect. The only result was the impossible suggestion that if I would give the names of my guilty classmates I might be let off. I had made an early call upon the "Little Giant," Senator Douglas, to whom I had no letter, and whom I had never met; had introduced myself as a "citizen of Illinois" in trouble; and had told my story. He said he was not ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... nevertheless, as Little Dorrit had said; over a lime-splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept a ladder and a barrel or two. The last house in Bleeding Heart Yard which she had described as his place of habitation, was a large house, let off to various tenants; but Plornish ingeniously hinted that he lived in the parlour, by means of a painted hand under his name, the forefinger of which hand (on which the artist had depicted a ring and a most elaborate nail of the genteelest form) referred ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... than it is in modern times; the sons of knights and the eldest sons of esquires[13] were permitted to take a degree after three years, and 'graces' might be granted conferring still further exemptions; e.g. a certain G. More was let off with two years only, in 1571, because being 'well born and the only son of his father', he is afraid that he 'may be called away before he has completed the appointed time', and so may 'be unable to take his degree conveniently'. The University is ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... off on. I don't know what it is with this preacher. He's a good man accordin' to his lights, but he makes me fidgety a rumblin' away about his work and his creeds and things like a volcano that don't never blow up. I wish he'd let off a little steam once in a while, or spit out a few rocks and stones jest to liven up things ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... eye on the car, the Woggle-Bug rushed on. He frightened two dogs, upset a fat gentleman who was crossing the street, leaped over an automobile that shot in front of him, and finally ran plump into the car, which had abruptly stopped to let off a passenger. Breathing hard from his exertions, he jumped upon the rear platform of the car, only to see his charmer step off at the front and walk mincingly up the steps of a house. Despite his fatigue, he flew after her at once, ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... as she plumped the breathless and scandalized Aunt Hannah into the biggest easy chair. "I feel better. I just had to let off steam some way. It's so lovely you came in ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... companies came forward with the ladders as the storming party moved up to the gateway. And just at that moment there the sentry let off his alarm shot. It set all within the San Vincente bastion moving and whirring like the works of a mechanical toy; feet came running along the covered way; muskets clinked on the stone parapet; tongues of fire spat forth from the embrasures; and then, as the musketry quickened, ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... he adds, your ladyship will not remain as tenant to "such a fellow." And yet the man had notoriously held the office of Lord Mayor, which made him, for the time, Right Honorable. The Italians of this day make no scruple to let off the whole, or even part, of their ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... national flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno. A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour. Now and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards invisibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke in the bright sky. Crowds of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... order was a very useful one; for many, in the excitement of coming for the first time under fire, were inclined to let off their pieces at random in the air; and the deliberation required to take aim, if only at a bush behind which a rebel might be concealed, had an excellent ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... glowing mass of color. Round the second turn of the grade they came upon Stanley, walking with his hands thrust in his trousers pockets and whistling softly to himself as if he were thinking deeply. Perhaps he was glad to be let off so easily. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... her cousin, calmly. "The more you change the more we shall like it. Geoff and I aren't set in our ways, and are glad enough to be let off duty for a week. The hut is yours just as long as you will stay; do just what you like with it. Though we're pretty good housekeepers too, considering; ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... forward to a grand speech to the jury that would make 'em all blubber and acquit Pete without leaving the box, on the grounds of emotional or erratic insanity—or whatever it is that murderers get let off on when their folks are well fixed. He sputters quite a lot about this monstrous travesty on justice before they can drill the real facts into his head; and even then he keeps coming back to Pete's ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... picturesque costumes, hurried past the travellers towards the village; and as they came to a foot-path that joined the road, an old Negro approached them. Saluting him in the Portuguese language, the hermit said, "Friend, why do they let off rockets to-night?" ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... for the coming of him whom they regarded as their lawful monarch. They spent the morning together, as usual; went first to the stables and patted and talked to their horses; then they played at bowls on the lawn; after which, they had a bout of sword play; and, having thus let off some of their animal spirits, sat down and talked of the glorious times to come, when the king was to have his ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... entirely from memory. On a certain occasion I hinted to him my incredulity about his ability to report as he had frequently informed me. To put the matter beyond doubt, he requested me to accompany him to Clinton Hall to hear some literary magnate let off his intellectual steam. I accordingly accompanied him as per arrangement. We were seated together in the same pew. He placed his hands in his pockets and continued in that position during the delivery of the discourse, and when it was finished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... people, whom he beat or killed. At last Big John, the son of M'Leod of Raasay, went and fought the creature in the dark, and tucked him under his arm, to carry him to the nearest light and see what he was like. But the Brownies hate to be seen, and this one begged hard to be let off, promising that he would never come back. So Big John let him off, and he flew ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... too glad to be so easily let off to raise objections. So that afternoon she and Clover were taken out to "choose their material," Mrs. Page said, but really to sit by while she chose it for them. At the dressmaker's it was the same: ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... being determined by the occurrence of soffioni; and here the same processes are followed, and the same phenomena observable. The water from the lagoon above, after it has received impregnation during twenty-four hours, is let off, and conducted by an artificial channel to the second lagoon; and from thence, with similar precautions, to a third, a fourth, and so on, till it at length reaches a sixth or eighth lagoon, where the process of impregnation is supposed to be completed. By this ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... embodiment. None of them is, therefore, quite at his best in the policeman's presence. Their attitude may be described as one of uneasy familiarity, bursting here and there into jocular nervousness, but never quite attaining the rollicking point. You may sometimes take advantage of this feeling to let off a joke on a beater. Select a stout, plethoric one, and say to him, "Mind you keep your eye on the policeman, or he'll poach a rabbit before you can say knife." This simple inversion of probabilities and positions is quite certain to "go." A hesitating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... Some said that Sisyphus had done his job of porterage long enough; Tantalus would be dying of thirst, if he were not relieved; the drag must be put at last on wretched Ixion's wheel. But it was determined not to let off any of the old stagers, lest Claudius should dare to hope for any such relief. It was agreed that some new punishment must be devised: they must devise some new task, something senseless, to suggest some craving ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... welcome her back again. It was such an enthralling prospect that Patty's eyes shone whenever she thought about it, and she sometimes executed a little dance of delight in the privacy of her cubicle, to let off some of the ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... do the honors. He had ordered dress-makers for me; he wished me to wear some jewels which he had in the house, and informed me that it would be the grandest thing of the kind that had ever taken place. Fire-works were going to be let off; the grounds were to be illuminated, and nothing that money could effect would be spared to render it the most splendid festival that ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the other again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of baskets, and behaving in the most gallant manner possible. Then there was such a ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on the battery, with instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation before they were let off, and such an awful noise when they did go, that the air resounded with the screams of ladies. The young Misses Wardle were so frightened, that Mr. Trundle was actually obliged to hold one of them up in the carriage, while Mr. Snodgrass supported the other; and Mr. Wardle's sister ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to execute the order of Johnston, ordered his own men to shoot the unhappy victim. In another county three females, one of sixty-three years of age, one of eighteen, and one of twelve, were charged with rebellion; and refusing to abjure the declaration, were sentenced to be drowned. The last was let off upon condition of her father's giving a bond for a hundred pounds. The elderly woman, who is represented as a person of eminent piety, bore her fate with the greatest constancy, nor does it appear that ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... from such a pen. You will better understand the pleasure [337] that it gave me, when I tell you that I set about the publication of that volume with serious misgiving, feeling as if the world had had enough of me, and it would be fortunate for me to be let off without criticism. And now, you and Bellows and Martineau (in a private letter) come with your kind words, and turn the tables altogether in ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... tears how poor Jane Shore, dressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving through the streets; or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle that ever man had, and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to have been let off. Comes swift to comfort me, the Pantomime—stupendous Phenomenon!—when clowns are shot from loaded mortars into the great chandelier, bright constellation that it is; when Harlequins, covered all over with scales of pure gold, twist and sparkle, like amazing ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.—I shall do very well again after a little while—and then, it will be a good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives, and I shall have been let off easily." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... be happy! I have had so much anxiety and trouble this last year that I'm just bubbling over with pent-up spirits. This engagement has put the finishing touch to my self-control, and I must do something at once to let off steam. Did you hear me ask Rachel to go over to Farnham with us to-morrow? Father and mother and I are going to do it in record time in the new motor, and Rachel is coming, too. She has never been in a motor, and is eager to see what it is like. It's quite a triumph to ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... reviewers were compelled to read the books which they had criticised without perusal, and it was terrible to watch the agonies of the worthy pressmen who were set to this unwonted task. 'May we not be let off with the preface?' they cried in piteous accents. 'May we not glance at the table of contents and be done with it?' But the presiding demons (who had been Examiners in the bodily life) drove them remorseless to ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... them. Here at the Pension Suisse we do not see a great many Americans. The fellow-boarders are principally Germans and Austrians with a sprinkling of French. (Amy has found her twenty-four red pebbles, so she is let off from being an owl. She is now engaged in throwing them one by one into the sea. Each must hit the water under penalty of her being turned into a Muscovy duck. She doesn't know exactly what a Muscovy duck is, which makes her all the more particular about her ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... READY. 1. How is it best to dress in winter? Why? (If this is hard to understand, think which would cool faster—hot soup in a deep cup or the same soup poured out into a plate? In which dish would the soup have the larger surface from which to let off the heat? You may now weigh only half as much as you will when you are fully grown, but you already have much more than half as much size or surface.) 2. What quality should all ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... reasons, and a girl going wrong with a man of another caste may be readmitted to the community. Divorce is not permitted, and an unfaithful wife may be abandoned; she cannot then marry again in the caste. Formerly, on the arrival of the marriage procession, the bride's and bridegroom's parties let off fireworks, aiming them against each other, but this practice is now discontinued. When the bridegroom approaches the marriage-shed the bride comes out and strikes him on the breast or forehead with a ball of dough, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... worse for you; but you needn't have waited quite so long before telling me. The one thing that I can't understand is Mr. Sherwood's behaviour. You had always given me such a different idea of him. Really, I don't think he ought to have been let off so easily." ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... tender your supposed aid, He would receive it? He and his physicians Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him; They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools, Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... unwonted light threw its glare upon the effigies of saints and angels, but it illumined also the man in the black felt hat and the woman with the sewing machine; even during the artificial apparition of the Virgin Mary herself upon the hill behind the town, the more they let off fireworks the more clearly the man in the hat came out upon the walls round the market-place, and the bland imperturbable woman working at her sewing machine. I thought to myself that when the man with the hat appeared in the piazza the Madonna would ere long cease ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... is come the seventh since he come in by that very back door—and I hadn't set eyes on him for seven long years. He stood in the door watchin' me, and suddenly he let off a yelp—like a dog, and there he was grinning at the fright he'd given me. 'Good old Aunty Flo,' he says, 'ain't you dee-lighted to see me?' he ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... was afterward called to account for having thus let off his enemies so easily when he had them so completely in his power; but he defended himself as well as he could by saying that the terms on which he had made the treaty were as good as could be obtained in any way, adding, hypocritically, that ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... can't say that I do, but I had to unload all the same. There is no one at the school to unload upon, you see. Besides, it could never be like you, any way. You always let things sort of percolate, before you let off steam, but it's mostly all steam, or hot ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... on languidly till about one, that is, sat in the heat and occasionally let off a shot at a very wide duck, and another member of our party took his turn in the boat with a professed oarsmen from the village who was worse than the first, so we gave up, one by one and dawdled up to the village, picking up some dead duck on the way. Here is a jotting of our retriever—a native ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... lithium bomb. This has not been tested, yet. A lithium bomb is nothing for a country the size of Afghanistan to let off inside its own borders. We intend making a test with it within the next ten days, however If your Excellencies will designate a target, which must be at the center of an uninhabited area at least five hundred miles square, the test can be made in perfect safety. If not, ...
— Operation R.S.V.P. • Henry Beam Piper
... was rather fine. We could just discern the black bodies of these boats, looking very much like turtles. But when they let off their big guns there was a conflagration. The river shuddered in its banks, and hurried on, bloody, wounded, terrified! Objects a mile away sprang toward our eyes as a snake strikes at the face of its victim. The report stung us to the brain, but we blessed it audibly. Then we could hear ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... to bring it him. I thought he would have given me a severe reprimand, but he contented himself with saying: "Change that man, he is a fool; and desire him for the future, never to attempt a eulogy of me." I sent for him, scolded him, and, like me, he was let off for ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... "I've been met with damned insolence.... Claiming of the house before your father's decently in his grave." He jerked fully erect. "Leave your affairs in the hands of that degenerate. If he doesn't do you dirt, you'll be the first he's let off! Come, Miss Barbara," to the girl who sat beside me, looking ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... many. The yellow yard-dog always slobbered joyfully at our approach; partly moved, I fancy, by love for us, and partly by the exciting hope of being let off his chain. When we went into the farmyard the fowls came running to our feet for corn, the pigeons fluttered down over our heads for peas, and the pigs humped themselves against the wall of the sty as tightly ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... more trouble. Menteith will spend anything from seven to ten years in p.s., learn to do without his daily whisky bottle, and possibly come out a decent citizen. The draughtsman, I expect, will be let off with eighteen months of the Jug. We are just, but not harsh. My birds don't interest me much once they have been caught; it is the catching that I enjoy. Down in the south, where I have a home of my own—which I haven't seen during ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... will not; so I give you fair warning; but as I always dine with you when I do not dine elsewhere, it will be a saving to you—for you will have your lodgings, Newland; and you know the house is my own, and I let off the rest of it; so as far as that bill is ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... enemies. But the party of Fabius still cherished their old animosity against him, and Cato inherited the hatred of his friend and patron. After the return of P. Scipio and his brother Lucius from the war against Antiochus, they were charged with having been bribed to let off the Syrian monarch too leniently, and of having appropriated to their own use a portion of the money which had been paid by Antiochus to the Roman state. The first blow was directed against Lucius Scipio. At the instigation of Cato, the two Petillii Tribunes of the people required Lucius ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... approachable to invalids. And on the score of economy in construction, repair, or accident, the plan here adopted is altogether preferable. In this plan, the water is drawn from the boiler by the turning of a cock; that from the cistern, by a minute's labor with the hand-pump. It is let off by the drawing of a plug, and discharges, by a short pipe, into the adjoining garden, or grassplat, to moisten and invigorate the trees and plants which require it, and the whole affair is clean ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... appeared to say to himself, "They're doing something else," and went to sleep again. The tin-type man sat by the window and looked through the shutters at the Plaza. They were making a noise on the Plaza. Now and then a military let off his gun, and the people shouted as if they wanted him to do it again. The Japanese bowed to Bill across the table, and ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, And she listened while I read them, till her ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... revolver in the hands of a novice is almost as dangerous as an automatic pistol. In fact it spells considerable danger to all in the vicinity. It was therefore scarcely surprising that the batman let off a round in his efforts to remove the cylinder. As ill luck would have it the Divisional General chanced at that moment to be passing through our lines preceded by an orderly. The bullet whizzed close past the General and brought down the ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... me of our married life together. In old days after every such outburst we felt irresistibly drawn to each other; we would meet and let off all the dynamite that had accumulated in our souls. And now after Ivan Ivanitch had gone away I had a strong impulse to go to my wife. I wanted to go downstairs and tell her that her behaviour at tea had been an insult to me, that she was cruel, petty, and that her plebeian mind ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... yell of discovery broke forth, and we were seen almost as soon as we were fairly out of reach. We had secured the only boat on that side of the island, and three or four of Dalrymple's powerful strokes had already carried us well into the middle of the stream. To let off our own store of fireworks—to pitch tokens of our regard to our friends on the island in the shape of blazing crackers, which fell sputtering and fizzing into the water half-way between the boat and the shore—to stand up in the stern ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... yourself with the thought of bringing desolation aid disgrace into our home, and of paying infamous assassins to come and share an old man's bread so as to poison his daughter, of stealing by night, like a brigand, armed with a dagger, into my sister's room, and of being let off by marrying the most beautiful woman ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them were reduced to miserable poverty. They were disqualified from ever holding any public place or office whatever, and from ever having a seat in Parliament. Yet, severely as they were punished, the outcry of the public at the time was that they had been let off far too easily. Walpole was denounced because he did not carry their punishment much farther. There was even a ridiculous report spread abroad that he had defended Sunderland and screened the directors from the most ignoble and sordid motives, and that ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... with the eclipse above mentioned. Froissart says 'Il commencierent a juper moult epouvantablement'; that is, 'to utter cries.' Another text makes mention of the English cannons at this point: 'The English remained still and let off some cannons that they had, to frighten ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... as a day signal; and also a kite with some kind of squib, let off by a slow-light and attached to its tail, as one by night. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... up an hour longer and you shall be let off," said Macauley to Burns, at a moment when ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... not very entertaining, though his English was fairly comprehensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one speech at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone (and in Platt-Deutsch I suppose) I could not understand. As to their niece, however satisfactory to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with a hopeful view as to ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... waters of the Eraut can be thrown towards Beziers, to aid those of the Orb, as far as the ecluse de Porcaraigne, nine geometrical miles. Where the Fresquel enters the canal, there is, on the opposite side, a waste, to let off the superfluous waters. The horse-way is continued over this waste, by a bridge of stone of eighteen arches. I observe them fishing in the canal, with a skimming net of about fifteen feet diameter, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... girl you are, Jess! Anybody would think that you were a minister going to hold church in the cottage. But I'm agreed, if you want to; I like singing anyway. It seems to let off a little of the 'go' in ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... dear!" said Mr. Porne, laying down the paper, "This young woman does appreciate her business! And we're to be let off easy at ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... at tellin' things," began Lewis. "I reckon I've seen some strange sights. I kin tell you about the only redskin I ever let off. Three years ago I was takin' a fall hunt over on the Big Sandy, and I run into a party of Shawnees. I plugged a chief and started to run. There was some good runners and I couldn't shake 'em in the open country. ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Jack wadna be for vexin' you an' his reverence. Master Henry an' Mat, the herd, let off fireworks outside the sexton's door, an' him an' the wife, an' the sisters an' the grannie jumpin' out o' their beds, an' runnin' about the house, thinkin' the Judgment Day was come, an' maybe that the Old Enemy was come ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... investigate all the sites in the neighborhood. Presently a location is chosen under a beam or rafter, and the work of collecting moss and mud for the foundation and hair and feathers or wool to line the exquisite little home begins. But the labor is done cheerfully, with many a sally in midair either to let off superfluous high spirits or to catch a morsel on the wing, and with many a vivacious outburst of what by courtesy only we ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... have too much of a good thing. The truth is, an immoderately good man is very much more dangerous than an immoderately bad man: that is why Savonarola was burnt and John of Leyden torn to pieces with red-hot pincers whilst multitudes of unredeemed rascals were being let off with clipped ears, burnt palms, a flogging, or a few years in the galleys. That is why Christianity never got any grip of the world until it virtually reduced its claims on the ordinary citizen's attention to a couple of hours every seventh day, and let him alone on week-days. If the fanatics ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... the blast of dynamite resounded among the hills. Cartridges were let off in the debris, and a cloud of dust and flying spray marked the result of the mining operation. The interlaced timbers in the cul-de-sac yielded very slowly even to the mighty force of dynamite. There were no finds of especial import. At the present rate of clearing, the cul-de-sac will not be ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... are, Colonel!" Geoff Olliver thrust a long tumbler into his senior's hand. "We're going to let off steam by drinking Miss Meredith's health before ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... ventilation as the plants grown in them may require. In three or four days the heat will be up in the bed, and then it should be covered with six inches of fine garden mould, which should be raked off level. When the soil is heated through, the seeds may be sown. Ventilation should be given to let off the steam and vitiated air, but with caution to avoid the loss of heat. Straw mats will be required to cover the sashes at night, and should be regularly put on. If the weather is very cold, shutters or boards in addition are necessary. ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... experiences. "I saw the men's faces, and I was desperately scared. I expected to go down in the next two yards. I felt the lead in my stomach. I thought I was done for. I don't know why they didn't fire. They must have been frightened by my sudden appearance. I let off my revolver at them and it kicked up an awful ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... altogether, Saint Eulalia's day proved a tremendous success. The festal joy was only marred by the unseemly behaviour of Miss Wilberforce, who profited by the occasion to let off some fireworks, or at ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... full of interest that he shouldn't perhaps after all be too easily let off. "I tried to think a few days ago that ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell me, do you go to church? When there, do you say, or do you not, that you are a miserable sinner, and saying so do you believe or disbelieve it? If you are a M. S., don't you deserve correction, and aren't you grateful if you are to be let off? I say again what a blessed thing it is that we are not all ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... but none of my brother's efforts toward my release met with any success. I heard afterward some whispers as to the cause, being that so many of high degree were concerned in the riots, and that if I, a poor devil of a convict tutor, were let off too cheaply, why then the rest of them must be let loose only at a rope's end, and that it would never do to send me back to Drake Hill scot free, while Sir Humphrey Hyde and Major Robert Beverly and my Lord Estes, and others, were ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... the borders of the creek could be greatly benefited by cutting surface ditches to let off the water; and later, probably it will be found that a few underdrains can be put in to advantage. These alluvial soils on the borders of creeks and rivers are grand sources of nitrogen and other plant-food. I do not know the fact, but it is quite probable that the meadows ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... has ranged against itself by its wanton attack upon European civilization. It appears to imagine that, after having been sufficiently "punished" for her temerity in opposing the Kaiser's hosts, France would be open to a bargain, under which she would be "let off" lightly on condition that she should agree to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... own arguments to hear, and the more an explanation is convincing the more he tries to shout it down, deafening himself as well as the poor fool who is struggling to make his meaning clear. Each one of us, I suppose, has to "let off steam" some time somewhere, and round about the Marble Arch, where fiery orators "let themselves go," must be the safety-valve of many an obscure home. Occasionally I go there—just to listen to men and women giving an example of that proverb about ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... ought not to have been let off so easily as he was, but his mother cried and pleaded, and Mr. Carroll was too kind-hearted to resist. So he did not punish them at all, save by utterly discarding the whole family and their concerns. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... curacoa and more cakes. Finally, a glass of noyau and still more cakes. It was only a little after seven in the morning. Yet politeness compelled us to consume these delicacies. I tried to shirk my duty; but this discretion was taken by my hosts for well-bred modesty; and instead of being let off, I had the richest piece of pastry and the largest maccaroon available pressed so kindly on me, that, had they been poisoned, I would not have refused to eat them. The conversation grew more, and more animated, the women gathering together in their dresses of bright blue and scarlet, the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... desert wide and wild, Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul May have its vent, where I may tell aloud To the high heavens, and ev'ry list'ning planet, With what a boundless stock my bosom's fraught; Where I may throw my eager arms about thee, Give loose to love, with kisses kindling joy, And let off all the fire that's ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... With his curly tail, Jack Sprat came to soot him, But happened to fail. He let off his gun, But missing the mark, The drake flew away Crying ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... cylinders of zinc strongly made, and in the rear was the drying room, an apartment with a very high ceiling and surrounded by blinds through which the air passed. On the right of the reservoirs a steam engine let off regular puffs of white smoke. Gervaise, habituated apparently to puddles, did not lift her skirts but threaded her way through the part of eau de Javelle which encumbered the doorway. She knew the mistress of the establishment, a delicate woman who sat in a cabinet with ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Him as has put us here expects us to show yon lass o' Stott's same as He's shown to us Hissel'. There's one bit o' readin' i' th' New Testament as noan o' yo' has had owt to say abaat—I mean where th' Lord tells o' th' two debtors. Th' fust geet let off; but when he wouldn't let his mate off, it were a sore job for him. Durnd yo' think as th' Almeety cares as mich abaat us as we care for aar childer? I somehaa thinks He does. Didn't him as played on th' harp say, "Like as a faither pitieth his childer, so th' Lord pitieth them ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... insists that he shall marry her. I don't understand all about it, but the girl lives in the same house with Lady Eustace, and if I call I shall find out. They say that Sir Griffin knows all about the necklace, and threatens to tell unless he is let off marrying. I rather think the girl is Lord George's daughter, so that there is a ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... enchantment. The flotilla entered the port safe and sound and he went back to the camp, where the sports and amusements prepared for the soldiers commenced, and in the evening the brilliant fireworks which were let off rose in a luminous column, which was distinctly seen from the English coast.—[It appears that Napoleon was so well able to cover up this fiasco that not even Bourrienne ever ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to you to make you early acquainted with what has taken place. I have seen, with much pleasure, that you have carried out the intention you hinted to me when I last had the pleasure of seeing you at Kingston. Your admirable letter must have had a good effect. I see that some little popguns were let off at you on the occasion, but they are too puny to excite anything but a smile ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... a moon, and I suppose he thought he had a voice. It didn't strike me so. After several somewhat melancholy songs, he let off his pistol two or three times and then ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... ended, "le beau Pasquier," in the fulness of his heart, would suddenly let off impossible fireworks of vocalization, ascending rockets of chromatic notes which would explode softly very high up and come down in full cadences, trills, roulades, like beautiful colored stars; and Therese ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... stacked the bottles noisily in their places he glanced around the little room, and wished he might turn a handspring, just to let off steam and be able to write to Harwood and the other fellows to say his office was big enough to admit of the feat. He wisely crushed the desire, for he recognized the fact that he was under surveillance. Just outside the windows stretched a little lawn, ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... crazy as you ever were," responded Bulger. "Not to sugar coat the pill, people have always said you were crazy—just before you let off your fireworks. You've got there because you dared do things that only a candidate for Bloomingdale would attempt. But you always landed, and we've another name ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... if you would have your Rocket sparkle much, you must put some grosly bruised Salt peter into the Composition; but then it must not lie long before it be let off, for fear it give and damp the Powder. If you would have it leave a blue Stream, as it ascends, put fine beaten and sifted Sulphur into it, but of neither of these more than a third part of Charcole; and in this manner greater and ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... paper, which made an incredible noise, and let off a Waterloo cracker, which reverberated along the walls like thunder, and done other deeds of the same kind below, we ascended, and walking over the back of the cavern, presently came upon the passage which leads to its inner opening; and there, leaning ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... an unseemly emotion when informed "her ladyship was not at home": the one, a cheerful youth, bound for a water-party at Skindle's, and fearful of missing his train, thanked Providence audibly for what he called "an unexpected let off"; the other, an older, graver, and far handsomer man, suffered an expression of palpable discomfiture to overspread his comely face, and, regardless of observation, walked away from the door with the heavy step that denotes a heavy ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... charged at full speed, grimly and silently. Against the gathering hush of evening rose only the drum-roll of our horses' hoofs and the dust cloud of their going. Except that Buck Johnson, rising in his stirrups, let off three shots in the air; and at the signal from all points around the beleagured ranch men arose from the brush and mounted concealed horses, and rode out into the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... hard play, that's all. You take lively, full-muscled animals, and they are always bucking and quarreling—trying to see which one is the best. Take two young, fat steers they'll lock horns at the drop of a hat. It's animal spirits, Nan. They feel that they've got to let off steam. Where muscle and pluck count for what they do in the lumber camps, there's bound to be more or ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... gamesh upstairs!" said Dick, with another giggle. "That lil' Dolly Merridew's jolly girl. Not sho nice as Dulcie, though. Here, you, let'sh go up and let off fireworksh on balcony, eh? Letsh ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the next. It sounded like a very, very big man, taking the very longest steps he could. But there wasn't any more mouth work. And for that I'm still offering up prayers of thanksgiving; for, if—say when it was just opposite where I lay, and not fifty yards off—it had let off anything sudden and loud, I'd have been killed as dead as ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Pat Moloney died at dawn she could not rest so much as she intended, to make up for the short night. She wrote one or two brief notes begging to be let off engagements, and told the servants to say she was not at home. She could not keep quite still, and she did not want to go out. Gradually, as the day wore on, she worked herself into more and more excitement. Her imagination pictured what might be the outcome of such a view of life and death ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... scarcely knew or cared whither. The excited state of his mind seemed to propel him to celerity of flight. This quickness of movement acted as a safety-valve, and let off some of the pressure. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... pinned. Common sense is demanded here as elsewhere. To put a watch in beat, too, is a very important item, which I do by placing sharp pointed tweezers, first on one side of the arm of balance and then on the other, and so pin my hairspring in the stud, that it will let off as readily on one side as the other. I had forgotten to say that every watch should have a little oil on the face of the pallet stones. I know full well that some workmen will say that there should be none, but I can tell of scores of watches that have failed and indeed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... let off a whistle that you could have 'eard acrost the river, and as for me, I thought I should ha' dropped. To have a woman standing sobbing and taking my character away like that was a'most more ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... back I eased the situation a bit more by saying, "That scream you let off, Pop, really helped. I don't know what gave you the ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... young fools—as he mentally termed them—were married by this time. He still clung to the idea that Jack Hanbury deserved punishment—a horsewhipping or something of the kind; but Madge was Madge. She was silly; and she had 'got into a hole;' still, she was Madge. She might be let off with a serious lecture on her folly and on her disregard of what she owed to the other members of the family. Only, the first thing was to ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... of view, folk song and dance. It is all still vividly clear to our mind's eye. We saw the first Magyar costumes in a village not far from Buda Pest. To make the few miles quickly, we had taken an electric trolley, vastly superior to anything in New York at the time of which we speak; and were let off in the centre of a group of small, low thatched cottages, white-washed, and having a broad band of one, two or three colours, extending from the ground to about three feet above it, and completely encircling the house. The favourite combination seemed to be blue ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... hands over with wot is called loominous paint, his cap was pushed at the back of his 'ead, and wet wisps of 'air was hanging over his eyes. For a moment Mrs. Burtenshaw's 'art stood still and then Silas let off another groan that put her on edge all over. It was a groan that seemed to come from nothing a'most until it spread into a roar that made the room tremble and rattled the jug in the wash-stand basin. It shook everything in the room but Bill, and he went on ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... a rough hand to shake Pilar out of sleep. Like a drowsy child who does not want to get up, she kept her eyes closed for awhile. Another week! Four days more! Two days more! But then she had to pack, for Anne exaggerated a slight cold, and at short intervals let off a dry cough with the suddenness and force of a pistol-shot, tied her head up in a white shawl, and begged to be allowed to send to Paris for warm underclothing and her fur cloak. In the hotel, too, from which all the servants had been dismissed, and ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Lame Art's carack. Sorry was Brian to see her go, for he had come to count much on her fine backing and inspiring courage, and knew not if he would ever see her again. As the ships raised anchor, Cathbarr suddenly let off the bastards with a great roar and raised on the shattered flag-pole an ensign he had secretly obtained from Shaun the Little. The ship-cannon barked out in brave answer and hoisted ensigns likewise; but as Brian looked up at the flag overhead, his despondent ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... my mother is an excellent woman, and very distinguished besides. My sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now. She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the end of the fortnight we will ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... quiet little street, pulling up in front of the Central Hotel, kept by a colonial Englishman and his wife. The former had been commandeered twice during the war, but he hastened to assure us that, though he had been at the laager, and even in the trenches before Mafeking, he had never let off his rifle, and had given it up with great pleasure to the English only the day before. This old-fashioned hostelry was very comfortable and commodious, with excellent cooking, but it was not till the next day that we ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... which still further heightened the ferocity of their expression, as they glared on their enemy with eyes in which hate was mingled with despair. When the Spaniards had approached within bow-shot, the Aztecs let off a flight of impotent missiles, showing to the last the resolute spirit, though they had lost the strength, of their better days. The fatal signal was then given by the discharge of an arquebuse—speedily followed by peals of heavy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... your abuse, monsieur," laughed Maggie. "So long as you do not ignore her, she is happy. But you may set your mind at rest as regards to-morrow. I have never let off a gun in my life, and I am sensible enough not ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... yet the opportunity was likely to pass away, and nothing to come of it. After one or two fruitless efforts, he gave it up, and leant back in his seat. His fellow-traveller began, as quietly as he could, to say office. Time went forward, the steam was let off and put on; the train stopped and proceeded, and the office was apparently finished; the book vanished in ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... the palace itself, while the view from the reception-rooms was most unique. The glare of lamps lighted up a square, in which was a garden fitted with the grotesque frames of the various fireworks of the evening. Birds and beasts of all descriptions were there, waiting to be let off. Meantime, extraordinary equipages came driving up in rapid succession; the magnificent coach-and-six of the King was followed by the unpretending buggy of the bold subaltern, while natives of high degree ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... she feared the landlady, the chamber-maid, the waiter—everybody and everything; her heart beat so fast that she could hardly speak, much less go through the ordeal of ordering dinner in a strange hotel with a strange landlady. She begged and prayed to be let off. If Theobald would only order dinner this once, she would order it any day ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the Sunni sect. They revere the Muhammadan saints, and on the night of Shabrat they let off fireworks in honour of their ancestors and make offerings of halwa [36] to them and place lamps and scent on their tombs. They swear by the pig and abstain from eating its flesh. The dog is considered an unclean animal and its tail, ears and tongue ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... whites and 4 free negroes serving terms for larceny, there were no slave prisoners in that category. Doubtless on the one hand the negro rapists had been promptly put to death, and on the other hand the slaves committing mere theft had been let off with whippings. Furthermore there were no slaves committed for counterfeiting or forgery, horse stealing, slave stealing or aiding ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... through the rabble that swarmed behind; so he was obliged to follow in the rear, remote from his good friend and servant. The King had been nearly condemned to the stocks himself for being in such bad company, but had been let off with a lecture and a warning, in consideration of his youth. When the crowd at last halted, he flitted feverishly from point to point around its outer rim, hunting a place to get through; and at last, after a deal of difficulty and delay, succeeded. There ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... obliged to pass great part of them in Norfolk, I find it is not so very terrible to dispose of them up and down. In about three weeks I shall set out, and see Wilton and Doddington's in my way. Dear Harry, do but get a victory, and I will let off every cannon at Plymouth: reserving two, till I hear particularly that you have killed two more Frenchmen with your own hand.(1069) Lady Mary(1070) sends you her compliments; she is going to pass a week with Miss Townshend(1071) at Muffits; I don't think you will be forgot. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash of eleven hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... said; "we've let off these two young scamps; but you had better send them to sea, or at all events away ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let off a heavy howitzer; which I did, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... The latter, incapable of withstanding the shock, gave way, or were trampled down under the feet of the horses, or pierced by the lances of the riders. Yet their flight was conducted with some order; and they turned at intervals, to let off a volley of arrows, or to deal furious blows with their pole-axes and war-clubs. They fought as if conscious that they were under the eye of their Inca. It was evening before they had entirely quitted the level ground, and withdrawn into the fastnesses of the lof y range of hills which belt ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... overhead. Everybody stared upwards wondering if it were going to "bomb," for we were just opposite to the railway station. But it passed over and flew away. As it went guns fired at it, and many of the Serbs let off their rifles. We have often wondered where all the bits of the shells go to, for nobody ever seems to be hit by them, even when they are ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... are captivated by one of your own invention, and try to build up your meaning round it; if you cannot get it in somehow or other, though it may have nothing to do with the matter, you are inconsolable; do you remember the mobled queen you let off the other day? It was quite off the point, and you did not know what it meant yourself; however, its oddness tickled the ears of the ignorant many; as for the cultivated, they were equally amused at you and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... amazingly explosive and uncontrollable temperament that goes all to pieces from its own conservation and accumulation of force. By and by you will have all blown up,—you quiet descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans, and have let off your superfluous wickedness like blizzards; and when the blizzards of each family have spent themselves you will grow dull and sober, and all on a level, and be free from the troubles of a transition state. Now, you're neither a new country nor ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... fight with Pop about the Belafonte record it's cold and windy out and there are no kids in sight. I slam my ball back and forth against the wall where it says "No Ball Playing," just to limber up and let off a little spite, and then I go ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... did let off a rifle a few times, and I dessay one or two poor, ignorant black feller-countrymen that had been fun' my cattle as full of spears as so many hedgehogs—I dessay they got in the road of a bullet or two. They're always gettin' in the road ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... a rule, the mill girls merely observe 'That's a lady,' and let me go by unmolested—unless I happen to be carrying flowers. They do so love flowers, poor things and I cannot resist their pathetic entreaties when they beg for 'One, missus, on'y one!' Some of my lady friends are not let off so easily as I am. The girls chaff them unmercifully about their dress and personal peculiarities, and if they show signs of annoyance they call them names that are not to be repeated. The mill girls wear ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... was to accompany her uncle to Ireland, and do the honours of his court, for he was a bachelor, and pleaded hard with his party on that score to be let off ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... At this rate, a man has his reputation in his own hands, and, by the help of puffing and the press, may forestall the voice of posterity, and stun the 'groundling' ear of his contemporaries. A name let off in your hearing continually, with some bouncing epithet affixed to it, startles you like the report of a pistol close at your car: you cannot help the effect upon the imagination, though you know it is perfectly harmless—vox et praeterea nihil. So, if you see the same name staring ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... we had it. You called for Emancipation, and I have given it to you. Whatever you have asked, you have had. Now you come here begging to be let off from the call for men, which I have made to carry out the war which you demanded. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I have a right to expect better things ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... let them, just as they would let houses. A merchant in a small way would need but one cellar, while some of us occupy twenty or more; therefore, there are for the most part communications, with doors, between the various cellars, so that they can be let off in accordance with ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... relations with Germany were variously evidenced throughout 1913. The King and Queen attended in Berlin the wedding of the Kaiser's daughter, and the popular Press, in picture and paragraph, told the genial British public what a thoroughly delightful girl the Kaiser's daughter was. The Kaiser let off loud "Hochs!" of friendly pride, and the Press of the world responded with warm "Hochs" of admiration and tribute; and the Kaiser, glowing with generous warmth, celebrated the occasion by releasing ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... gone through; the Admiral let off another speech of welcome, and plunged with the Honourable Frederic into a long discussion of Troy, its scenery and neighbourhood; the three girls sat bolt upright, each on the edge of her chair; and their brother took his hostess' extended hand ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she moved away. "He can be trusted to roam the place and always does when we're here. The Airedales and the Sealyham can also run about alone as soon as they get used to obeying you. But the little dogs must never be let off the leash unless they are watched every instant, for something ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... anxiously searching all this time. I don't know how far secrecy may be necessary, but, at present at least, do no let this fact go beyond yourself. Her husband has reduced her to what you see. I must leave her for half-an-hour; meanwhile, will you prepare supper, make a cheerful fire, let off the gas, and give us a couple of candles? Make the room as home-like as you can, in short. After my sister and the little girl are gone to bed, put a couple of blankets on the sofa in the sitting-room for me. I ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... as a tanner it took twelve months for the tanning of hides. This was by far the most extensive tannery in America. It had a capacity of 1,500 sides. The only "improvement" then known—1784—was the use of a wooden plug in the lime vats and water pools to let off the contents into the brook. The bark was ground by horse power. There was a curb fifteen feet in diameter, made of three-inch plank, with a rim fifteen inches high. Within this was a stone wheel with many hollows and the wooden wheel ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... all so sharply cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard basaltic trap must have been riven into its present shape by a force acting from beneath, and that this probably took place when the ancient inland seas were let off by ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... galleries, and the like, on Sunday; you may, as Luther says you ought, "dance on it, ride on it, play on it,—do anything"—but see that which is most likely to instruct you. You may visit tawdry shows, and inspect badly painted scenery; you may let off fireworks; gamble to your ruin; smoke the eyes out of your head, and dance the head off your shoulders; but you shall not, with few exceptions, look upon works of art, or the results of science in museums and picture galleries. Let it be said, however, that ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... sound and the pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to be let off. But though the tears scalded his eyes and his limbs quivered with pain and fright he held back the hot tears and the cry ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... were of continual occurrence, and they were interspersed with other persecutions of a less dangerous description. Drums were beaten, horns blown, guns let off, and blacksmiths hired to ply their noisy trade in order to drown the voices of the preachers. Once, at the very moment when Whitefield announced his text, the belfry gave out a peal loud enough to make him inaudible. On other ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to it, however, and finally his appetite for "sausage" was satisfied. He found one just where it ought to be, swooped down upon it, and let off his fireworks with all the gusto of an American boy on the Fourth of July. When he looked again, the balloon had vanished. Prince's performance isn't so easy as it sounds, by the way. If, after the long dive necessary to turn the ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... some safety-valve to let off his vexation, he selected poor Tom for that purpose. When the obsequious servant came to lead away the horse, his master gave him a sharp cut of the whip, saying, "I'll teach you to tell tales again, you black rascal!" But having a dainty ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child |
