"Nick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the nick of time and slipped away from him. But she didn't fly far. So Tommy followed. And he stole up very slyly; and once more, when he was quite near the old ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the family of the Horeszkos: of which fact the memory is still famous among men. My boy, rarely does a bookkeeper on an estate mend pens so deftly as this penknife cleaves heads: it were long to count them! And noses and ears without number! But there is not a single nick upon it, and no murderous deed has ever stained it, but only open war, or a duel. Only once!—may the Lord give him eternal rest!—an unarmed man, alas, fell beneath its edge! But even that, God is my witness, was pro ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... very day; and were also engaged on that day in drawing out the lists and testing the men for the other army: whereby it so happened that a large number of men had been collected in Rome spontaneously in the very nick of time. These troops the Consuls boldly led outside the walls, and, entrenching themselves there, checked Hannibal's intended movement. For the Carthaginians were at first eager to advance, and were ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... us, a form of knife which is used for the most delicate operations known in surgery. And it was to be used for a delicate operation that night. You must know, with your wide experience of turf matters, Colonel Ross, that it is possible to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a horse's ham, and to do it subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely no trace. A horse so treated would develop a slight lameness, which would be put down to a strain in exercise or a touch of rheumatism, but never ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of Sir Redvers Buller, to whom the Boers, by a play of words, had given a somewhat disrespectful nick-name. He had not been long in Natal before his chance came. I must, however, be silent about his successes and his failures, for, as I left Natal on the 9th of December, I had no personal experience of his methods. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... his living, he is not permitted to do so in a natural way, by hard work and years of patient effort, but is suddenly adopted by a millionaire whose pocket-book he has returned; or a rich uncle appears from sea just in the nick of time; or the remarkable boy earns a few dollars, speculates in pea-nuts or neckties, and grows rich so rapidly that Sinbad in the diamond valley is a pauper compared to him. ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... reindeer to go fast. I prepared myself for the occasion, for I did not know how steep was the descent. I said to myself, "Paul, you must not upset; bend your body on the opposite side when the sleigh makes the curve, and be quick when the time arrives. Do this in the nick of time." ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... as often in real life, at least one cannot count upon it with the certainty of the theater. But when Miss Primrose Cash knocked upon the door of the Phipps' sitting room and delivered her call to the seance, she was as opportune and nick-of-timey as was ever a dramatic Governor's messenger. Certainly that summons of hers was to Galusha Bangs a reprieve which ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a wild night. There was continued tumult in the streets and, at one time, shortly before dawn, a gang of rioters actually broke into the palace and groped about in search of the queen's apartments. Just in the nick of time the hated Marie Antoinette hurried to safer quarters, although several of her personal bodyguard were ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... advantage of a nick-name. Dickson thought he was being addressed as "Dogson" after the Poet's fashion. Had he dreamed it was Leon he would not have replied, but fluttered off into the shadows, and so missed a piece of ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... finished just in the nick of time. Snow came down so thickly that had the falls occurred a few days earlier, the cases from which the place was constructed would have been effectually buried and the construction made ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... her round? My dear girl, if it had rested with me, we should both be lying in smithereens at the present moment, on the rocks below. She realised the drop just in the nick of time, and wheeled ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... replied Diana; "and shrewdly suspect, moreover, that he would hardly have appeared so very much in the nick of time, if I had not happened to meet Rashleigh in ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Sally. "If she is ill she would rather see the old Nick himself than Miss Stetson. I'll ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... gamekeeper over to Ashbridge 'All," said Mr. Baker eagerly, "you'd a bin shot but for me. Some gents will never learn 'ow 'to 'old their guns. I knocked the barrel up just in the nick. That Mr. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... sympathize with my enthusiasm when they consider the dangers to be encountered, after three days of constant anxiety and little sleep, in threading our way through a swarm of blockaders, and the accuracy required to hit in the nick of time the mouth of a river only half a mile wide, without lights and with a coast-line so low and featureless that, as a rule, the first intimation we had of its nearness was the dim white line ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... is you," said his uncle. "You know now what your nick-name will be. Every boy has one or another: and yours might have been worse, because you might have done many a worse thing to ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly. .. In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color, driven in ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... frozen ground. It would only make one little spot soft and sloppy; the fire would soon go out: then it would freeze right up agin. Now, with you it's spring all over; you feel tender and meller-like, and everything good is ready to sprout. Well, well! if I do have to go to old Nick at last, I'm powerful glad he's had this ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... famous smuggler, with the awkwardness of a man of the people who long remains under the yoke of respect to a great lord, though he admits no barriers after he has once jumped them, and regards the aristocrat as an equal only, "this," he said, "and you have come in the nick of time to hear it. I am no speaker of gilded phrases, and I shall say things plainly. I commanded five hundred men during the late war. Since we have taken up arms again I have raised a thousand ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... forward, more merry than delicate, and at length two or three of the elder women (for the girls were somewhat diffident and bashful) began to assail Raymond with various pungent witticisms. Some of the men took part and an old squaw concluded by bestowing on him a ludicrous nick name, at which a general laugh followed at his expense. Raymond grinned and giggled, and made several futile attempts at repartee. Knowing the impolicy and even danger of suffering myself to be placed in a ludicrous light among the Indians, I maintained ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... He was not hard on the captain. Nothing was further from his thoughts. Friend! Of course he was a good friend and a faithful servant. He begged Powell to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to strike a bargain with Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were good to the captain, he (Franklin) would find it in his heart to love Old Nick for the captain's sake. That was so. On the other hand, if a saint, an angel with white wings ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... good fellow," cried Will, with a laugh, slapping the native on the shoulder; "you have just come in the nick of time to take care of us all, for, besides having utterly lost ourselves, we are quite ignorant of forest ways in this region—no better ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... hurts," all in a groggy tone and in one breath. I inserted a finger between the lips of her quim, and tried gently to put it up, but felt an impediment. She had never been opened by man. I then put my prick carefully in the nick, and gave the gentlest possible movement (as far as I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... with certain metallic gleams in it—like time-veiled copper and brass. His flawless frame was covered with tight-banded muscle. There was no appearance of fat. His skin was smooth—without wrinkles. He was young; about forty years, or less. But there was the nick of a tusk-stroke in one ear; and a small red ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... this their conduct and testimony the Spirit of God justifies, and records to their honor. These few of many that might be adduced, declare the impudence, as well as fallacy and imposture of Seceders in this matter, and also justify the principles which they maliciously nick-name the anti-government scheme; and that for no other reason, but because it establishes the ordinance of magistracy among a people favored by God with divine revelation, upon his preceptive will, in opposition to their anarchical notions of setting it wholly ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... wouldn't consent—for which nobody blamed him— Squire Philip and Miss Cicely agreed to go off together one dark night. But the old man found them out and stopped them in the nick of time and got six inches of cold steel for his pains. However, he kept his girl, and Squire Philip had to fly the country. He went off that same night, they say: and wherever he ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said. "We'll keep Nick informed but he ought to remain where he is. We'll still want our men in the basic positions of ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... after writing the telegram, a task of no mean magnitude for him, "that puts the credit jest where it belongs. I ain't sayin' the lawyer didn't do his share; but he'd been snowed under if Tim hadn't been brought in the nick of time." ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... Nick Razorblade a barber was, A strapping lad was he; And he could shave with such a grace, It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... "And seeing him like that I thought I'd just go down and fetch myself a cup o' tea; but no sooner was I out o' the room than he must have slipped out and dressed hisself—shamming, you know—and if I hadn't come back in the nick o' time he'd ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... dear old stay-at-home you were, Howard," she said. "I wonder what would have happened to you if I hadn't rescued you in the nick of time! Own up that you like—a little ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... vow! Tam saw an unco sight! Warlocks and witches in a dance; Nae cotillion brent new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life and mettle in their heels. A winnock-bunker in the east, There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge; He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.— Coffins stood round, like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip slight, Each ...
— Tam O'Shanter • Robert Burns
... the old man although he felt honoured by his connection with a person reverend enough to enter the pulpit and preach the sermon every Sunday. So many Balfours were scattered over the world, in India and the Colonies, that the old rooms at the manse were full of eastern curiosities and nick-nacks from distant lands dear to the hearts of little folks. And, while the garden was a bower of delight, the house was a veritable treasure trove to the grandchildren from far and near who ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... utmost, but she told him no woman with Sioux blood in her veins ever deserted a brother—or lover. And so she had returned with a packet, presumably of money, and there they found the Indian clinched with Kennedy. Kennedy was rescued in the nick of time, and pledged to silence. The Indian rode away triumphant. Nanette climbed back to her window, exhausted, apparently, by her exertions, and Field started for his quarters, only to find the entire garrison astir. The rest ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... too, the tits that pull This rum concern along, so full, Should never back or bolt, or kick The load and driver to Old Nick. But, never fear, the breed, though British, Is now no longer game or skittish; Except sometimes about their corn, Tamer Houghnhums ne'er were ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... pause, said: "By Jove! how lucky, Miss Daisy. You've come in the nick of time. Just finished our pool. Now you and Mrs. Halton shall play a single and I ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... there; but it seems that I came down just in the nick of time," replied the little fop. "The fact is, I drank too much wine last night, and it makes me thirsty to-day. I was almost choked, and the ladies had seated themselves on a rock, to enjoy a view of the boundless ocean, you see; and it looked to me just as though they intended to stay there ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... and ended some other businesses of his, and so at noon I to London, but the 'Change was done before I got thither, so I to the Pope's Head Taverne, and there find Mr. Gawden and Captain Beckford and Nick Osborne going to dinner, and I dined with them and very exceeding merry we were as I had [not] been a great while, and dinner being done I to the East India House and there had an assignment on Mr. Temple for the L2,000 of Cocke's, which joyed my heart; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... woman, this portrait of a male struggle with sorrow was far more touching than any description of feminine and unresisted grief could be: and, when the doctor said he loved his patient, she stole her little hand into his in a way to melt Old Nick, if he is a male. Ladies, forgive ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... enemy had abandoned Big Springs and fallen back to Huntersville, the soldiers were permitted to break ranks, while Colonel Marrow and Major Keifer, with a company of cavalry, rode forward to the Springs. Colonel Nick Anderson, Adjutant Mitchell and I followed. We found on the road evidence of the recent presence of a very large force. Quite a number of wagons had been left behind. Many tents had been ripped, cut to pieces, or burned, so as to render them ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... asked her father who the man could be that desired such property. But her father shook his head, repeating the name, which was, I believe, Smith. And that, including the check, was all they had ever learned of this investor who had wanted what they did not want, in the nick of time. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... "Nick of the Woods" was written, the genius of Chateaubriand and of Cooper had thrown a poetical illusion over the Indian character; and the red men were presented—almost stereotyped in the popular mind—as the embodiments of grand and tender sentiment—a new style of the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... else? 'Tis a mad folly. Mark you, Master Brenton and Master Nick, I have said it from the first and let the blame be none of mine. 'Tis a mad thing you do here. See then," he went on, turning and waving his hand, "this vast room, these great presses, yonder benches ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... cab and prepared to descend, a faint—a very faint— sound almost in my ear, set me keenly on the alert. Just in the nick of time I ducked ... as the blade of a long knife flashed past my head, ripping its ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... to get as far as Brough under Stanemoor, and back by the great 'Nick,' and then athwart Cross Fell's desolate moor, but we had not taken the weather into our consideration, nor thought of possible sopping ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... presume," said Claud, in reply. "And I was far more indebted to the hunter, Phillips, for my own rescue, than you were to me for yours. I merely turned the furious brute aside. It was he who, coming up in the nick of time, brought ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... gaugers and their crony, Ould Nick, ran off wid the uncle of him, Nance and he and the childer lived together in their father's and mother's house; and if they didn't live and die happy, I wish ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... many big institutions would have failed and a run on savings banks would have begun. It is idle to speculate upon what the final outcome might have been. Suffice it to say that these grave consequences were prevented in the nick of time by the prompt and determined action of the Stock Exchange, and ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... telegraph lines for smiles to run over, were sobered by some weighty consideration. Her knitting-work lay idle in her lap; and she did not even notice that little Tillie had pulled two of the needles out, nor that mischievous Nick was sawing away on the back of her chair with his antiquated pocket-knife. Whatever the problem was, it troubled her all the forenoon; but after dinner she followed John to the door, and, said she, "I've ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... should have laid down its arms without striking a blow, would before the event," says an English military authority, "have seemed impossible. It set the investing force free to crush the new-made Army of the Loire, and it occurred in the nick of time to prevent the raising of the siege of Paris, which the Germans had ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... lingered in his ears long afterward. It was scarcely a gasp, nor moan, nor groan, but an inarticulate animal sound expressive of what the body feels when snatched in the nick of time from destruction. A moment later she had crawled through the darkness; her hands passed quickly over his sleeve, his shoulder, then found his neck and ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... she has nick'd you, Sir George, I think, Ha, ha, ha: Have you any more Hundred Pounds to throw away upon ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... unnoticed by the faro players; not a man within sound of the shot, for that matter, inquired what the trouble was about; and even Nick, picking up his tray filled with glasses and a bottle, walked straightway into the dance-hall looking as if the matter were not worth a ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Richmond jail. I understand that his friend, Mr. Merry, has gone yonder to visit him. Our country is degenerated to be no more than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. You come back just in the nick of time. You have saved this administration! You bring back success with you. If the issue of your expedition were anything else, I scarce know what would be my own case here. For myself, that ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... almost succeeded, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw, German guns were heard by the citizens of the town and Warsaw was in deadly peril, but Siberian troops arrived in the nick of time and Hindenburg was obliged to retire. (Vol. II, 462-466.) Still his main purpose was achieved. Russian armies in Galicia had been weakened to save Warsaw and were compelled to retire behind the San and the Vistula. (Vol. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... operative. The Earl wore it all the time. Guess he kept up his reputation as a fighter that way. Be pretty hard to nick anyone with a sword if he had one of these running. And almost any clumsy leatherhead could slash the other guy up if he didn't have ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... nick name given to the western peasantry of Scotland, from then using the words frequently in driving strings of horses. Hence, as connected with Calvinistical principles in religion, and republican doctrines in policy, it was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... knocking in pins behind doors to make decent folk dance, jig, cut, and shuffle themselves to death—splitting the hills as ye would spelder a haddy, and playing all manner of evil pranks, and sinful abominations, till their crafty maister, Auld Nick, puts them to their mettle, by setting them to twine ropes out of sea-sand, and such like. I like none of your paternosters, and saying of prayers backwards, or drawing lines with chalk round ye, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... chicken-soup, in which a slice of bread was soaked, slopped over the untidy thumb that carried it. But I omitted this course, as the red ants floating on the surface of the broth rendered the dish a questionable delicacy. The boarders had adjourned to the parlor, and were busy reading "Diamond Dick," "Nick Carter," and the other five and ten cent favorites. A heavy rain had set in, as I drew my chair up to the light and tried to lose myself in the ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... write to her mother, and then lingered awhile with the letter before her, her head in her hands, pondering with emotion what she and Philip owed to George Anderson, who had, it seemed, arrived by a night train, and walked up to the hotel, in the very nick of time. As to the accident itself, no doubt the guide, a fine swimmer and coureur de bois, would have been sufficient, unaided, to save her brother. But after all, it was Anderson's strong arms that had drawn ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... English army at the battle of Sherra-muir, where the Scotch wore the blue ribbon as a scarf, or on their bonnets (which was their favourite colour). The English army then, to distinguish themselves, assumed a black rosette on their hats; which, from its position, the Scotch nick-named a "cock'ade" (with which our use of the word "cockscomb" is connected) and is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... about two or three houses and an inn; there is likewise a species of barrack, where half a dozen soldiers are stationed. In the whole of Portugal there is no place of worse reputation, and the inn is nick-named Estalagem de Ladroes, or the hostelry of thieves; for it is there that the banditti of the wilderness, which extends around it on every side for leagues, are in the habit of coming and spending the money, the fruits of their ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... in a 'Ighland botch; But if our Sis saw fit To pitch Hindoo instead of Scotch I'd get the hang of it, Because her heart it is that talks What now is plain to me. At war where bloody murder stalks, 'N' Nick his hottest samples hawks. I have been given to see What simple human kindness is, what brotherhood ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... "Hadrian has nick-named him 'the obscure.' The more difficult it is to understand the discourses of these gentlemen the more highly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to prove he was a woodman, but seldom had cause to use it because he lived in a magnificent tin castle in the Winkie Country of Oz and was the Emperor of all the Winkies. The Tin Woodman's name was Nick Chopper. He had a very good mind, but his heart was not of much account, so he was very careful to do nothing unkind or to ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... companion, Brown, I think, always in the evening got out his writing-materials in the same order—first the paper, then the ink, then the pen. 'I say to him,' says Keats, 'why not the pen sometimes first?' We don't like precision; look at the word 'Methodist,' which originally was a nick-name for people of strictly disciplined life. We like something a little more ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hesitating for a second, made a snatch at his collar; and, clutching hold of it, in the very nick of time, saved him by a miracle—had he been carried overboard, no earthly power could have ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... the captain, turning to our coastguardsman, "the missin' of that steamer, at which I growled so much that day, turned out to be a great blessin' after all, although it seemed such a misfortune. For it caused me to arrive just in the nick of time to save two human lives—besides givin' the old girl here somethin' to think about and work upon for the next twelvemonth to come—whereas, if I had arrived the day before, I would have bin sleepin' in ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... arrow to its head was that of a slight, strong creature who was not a man. Lightfoot, wild with love and anxiety, had shot past Old Mok just as he laid down his bundle of arrows, and, when she saw her husband's peril, had leaped forward with arrow upon string and slain his latest assailant in the nick of time. Now, with arrow notched again and a face ablaze with murderous helpfulness, she hovered near, intent only upon sending a second shaft into ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... "Let's nick the sword," said Ting-a-ling, "and then it will be a saw." And so, with a sharp little flint, they nicked the edge of it, and the edge of the green fairy's knife (for he had no sword), and as they commenced to saw ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... cook had proved to be a violent, intermittent drunkard. She had chased the other maid out of the house, and then, while Mrs. Watson rushed for the police, she had drunk herself into the stupor in which she had been found. But now, in the nick of time, the station cab came up with the luggage, and so the still placidly slumbering culprit was carried out to it, and sent off in the charge of the policeman. Such was the first entry of Mr. and Mrs. Crosse into their home at ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... school, I had the narrowest escape possible of intruding myself into another place of accommodation for distinguished people; in other words, I was very nearly being sent to college. Fortunately for me, my father lost a lawsuit just in the nick of time, and was obliged to scrape together every farthing of available money that he possessed to pay for the luxury of going to law. If he could have saved his seven shillings, he would certainly have sent me to scramble for a place in the pit of the great university theater; but his purse ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... neither," said she. "I reckon they'll not often go short of vinegar in that house; Master Benden's face 'd turn all the wine, let alone the cream. I'm fain my master's not o' that fashion: he's a bit too easy, my Nick is. I can't prevail on him to thwack the lads when they're over-thwart; I have to ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... you did it!" insisted Mr. Swift, "and you did it in the nick of time. Now I wouldn't for a moment think of offering you a reward for saving my son's life. But I do feel mighty friendly toward you—not that I didn't before—but I do want to help you. Alec, I will go into ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... course, Samson Silych, I merely say that just for instance—talk at the right time, keep still at the wrong time; words don't hurt. But you see, the Old Nick is powerful—he ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... a man made out of tin, who was a woodman named Nick Chopper. But he was as alive as we are, 'cause he was born a real man, and got his tin body a little at a time—first a leg and then a finger and then an ear—for the reason that he had so many accidents with his axe, and cut himself up in a very ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... beside Le Heup at the dining table, he had questioned them and they had told him a graphic story of how they had been chased by a great pack of wolves and how they had managed to escape with their lives by climbing a tree only just in the nick of time; and, moreover, how the ferocious brutes had kept them there all night long, and how, consequently, they had been nearly frozen ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... have further observ'd, not to remain always the same, but to be continually chang'd by a kind of fluctuating motion, not unlike that of the waves of the Sea, so as that part of the limb, which was but even now nick'd or indented in, is now protuberant, and will presently be sinking again; neither is this all but the whole body of the Luminaries, do in the Telescope, seem to be depress'd and slatted, the upper, and more especially ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... in his proposal. It was far more sensible to come direct to Reading than to make a detour through London. Rooms were got ready. In the one destined for Liosha, we had already stowed the cargo of trunks which the Great Swiftness had delivered in the nick of time. The next day I took the car to Reading and waited ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... it?" said Sholto, eagerly. "Mind, if you refuse, and will not give it up after promising, I will nick that lying throat of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Job contending with the devil I saw It did my wonder, not my pity draw; For I concluded that without some trick, A saint at any time could match old Nick. Next came a fiercer fiend upon his back, I mean his spouse, stunning him with her clack, But still I could not pity him, as knowing A crab tree cudgel soon would send her going. But when the quack engaged with Job I spy'd, The Lord ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... great square tower of the cathedral. The Palace is really on a level with it, so great is the rise in the ground. This apartment, like all the rooms indeed, is richly perfumed by flowers; exquisite china and silver nick-nacks are everywhere, and the Bishop evidently does not believe in the untold troubles associated with the presence of peacocks' feathers. There are several fans made from the "unlucky" stalks. One table seems given up to the congregating of tiny china animals—the most diminutive of pigs, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... volatile disposition. For some time indeed he had supported himself comfortably in this way; for through friends of his family he had had good introductions, and, although he wasted a good deal of money in buying nick-nacks that promised to be useful and seldom were, he had no objectionable habits except inordinate smoking. But it happened that a pupil—a girl of imaginative disposition, I presume—fell so much in love with him that she betrayed her feelings to her countess-mother, and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... had wrenched himself loose from Zita's arms and was struggling with the ropes that still bound him even after he had managed to roll out from under the elevator in the last nick of time. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... exclaimed Mr. Stanley, looking out from time to time, "we got in our potatoes just in the nick of time." ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... in my tracks and addressing a small brown-leafed beech. "What! little Hyla, are you still out? You! with a snow-storm brewing and St. Nick due here to-morrow night?" And then from within the bush, or on it, or under it, or over it, came an answer, Peep, peep, peep! small and shrill, dropping into the silence of the woods and stirring it as three small pebbles might drop into the middle of ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... see, thought the neighbor, who'll lift the latch, As he handed him out the innocent match; The reason was this, St. Nick had been busy an hour or more, And that was the reason ...
— Our Little Brown House, A Poem of West Point • Maria L. Stewart
... allowed to say that most assuredly I can conceive nothing less qualified to excite feelings of devotion, or more certain to awaken contempt and loathing, than the images of this description, the tinselled virgins, and the wretched daubs, nick-named paintings, which abound in the churches of Picardy and Normandy, the only catholic provinces which I have yet visited; so that, if the taste of the inhabitants is to be estimated by the decoration ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... name, but indeed it is a nick-name that is given me by some that cannot abide me: and I must be content to bear it as a reproach, as other good men ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... said Murphy, "a sjambak can lick twenty men in space-suits. A little nick doesn't hurt him, but a little nick bursts open a space-suit, and the man inside ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... "You let my Nick in," murmured Beezy sleepily, and Creed laughed out in sudden relief. It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across the little side porch and making his plea for ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... hare" was this: "It transpired in the very nick of time, that a suspicion of usury attached to these Israelites without guile, in a transaction with Hurst and Robinson, as to one or more of the bills for which the house of Ballantyne had become responsible. This suspicion, upon investigation, assumed a shape sufficiently ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Robsart, also other costumes and dominos. Emilie Melville was my customer for her concert and opera robes; so was Mme. Mulder and Mme. Elezer. I made the robes for Signora Bianchi in the opera of "Norma," for Mrs. Tom Breese and Mrs. Nick Kittle. Mrs. Tom Maguire and Mrs. Mark McDonald were regular customers for years. Mrs. Maynard, a wealthy banker's wife, who lived on Bush street, and her daughters justly appreciated my work, and I found in Mrs. Maynard a lifelong ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... work just in the nick of time. The gathering of tramps, scratching, yawning, working out their accustomed dislocations, were getting into their places. Zavorotny, at a distance, with his keen eyes caught sight of Platonov and began to yell over the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... gaining influence, and a vehicle for moral instruction. "Orators," he says, "joke with an object, not to appear jesters, but to obtain some advantage." But we may feel sure he did not keep this dry and profitable end always in view, for he wrote a jest-book, and was nick-named by his enemies "Scurra ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... two inches thick and the bone and fat trimmed. Now nick and score the edge of the fat and brush with salad oil, and then broil the same as ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... found in their adventures some far-fetched parallel to her own. But then their experiences were so much wider and more varied in that old charmed, sunny, fairy life; the knot of their difficulties was so readily cut, by a simple reference to some Fortunatus' purse, or the arrival in the very nick of time of some friendly fairy. Madelon did not draw the parallel quite far enough, or it might have occurred to her that benevolence did not become wholly extinct with the disappearance of fairies, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... comfortable and thoroughly "at home" as he did, steering Horniblow to victory at Brixworth. I had heard that my old friend was on his way to England to join the Staff College, but had never reckoned on such a successful "nick" as this. By my faith, my turns of luck beyond the Atlantic were not so frequent as to excuse forgetfulness, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Ziffak his first knowledge of the mistake they had made, and, leaping into his canoe, he drove it across the stream with resistless speed, reaching the spot in the nick of time, and barely doing that, since he was forced to raise his voice while yet on the river, in order to hold ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... sake. He had unusual endurance, and could keep at work or play long after others were tired. He was a famous ball player, and distinguished himself at the green corn dances. There he drank without flinching such large draughts of the bitter "black drink" that he was nick-named by some ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... then allowed his mouth to expand in that contortion which had won him the nick name ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... gets out of a cab where she ought not to have been, she looks about her on all sides, first to the right and then to the left, settles her veil, and, as soon as she is sure that no one is watching her, sets off as if old Nick was behind her." ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... myse'f; not that they was any hidin' out 'mongst the Bivinses er the Sanderses—bless you, no! bekaze here's what wa'n't afeared er all the Wornums in the continental State er Georgy, not if they'd 'a mustered out under the lead er ole Nick hisse'f, which I have my doubta if he wa'n't somewheres aroun'. I never seen 'er, but I heern tell er how she was a-cuttin' up. You mayn't think it, but that 'oman taken it on herse'f to call up all the niggers on the place an' ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... to perform wonders, but I am sure your dilatory ways are unparalleled. Had not my good genius inspired me, my happiness had been already wholly overthrown. There was an end to my good fortune, my joy. I should have been a prey to eternal grief; in short, had I not gone to this place in the very nick of time, Anselmo would have got possession of the captive, and I should have been deprived of her. He was carrying her home, but I parried the thrust, warded off the blow, and so worked upon Trufaldin's fears as to ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... to Nick's Cove (I knew all about that, because it was where the campers were and besides I knew about it anyway). If you will look on the map you'll see it and you'll notice how there are mountains there—kind of ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... been gravely contemplating, and met the troubled eye of her young host with an enigmatical flash of her own. But she made no answer in words. Instead, she lifted her right hand and ran one slender finger thoughtfully up the casing of the door near which they stood till it struck a nick in the old mahogany almost on a ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... their elbows in capacious but empty pockets, they cast longing looks and wondered, as they had no stockings, where Santa Claus could put their presents when he had brought them. To all this show and preparation there was one exception: one place shrouded in total darkness—it was the shop of Nick Baba, the village shoemaker. That was for the time deserted; left to its dust, its collection of worn-out soles, its curtains of cobwebs, and its compound of bad, unwholesome odors. This darkness and neglect was about to end, however, and give place ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... laid a beseeching hand upon mine. "Peter!" His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and the hand plucked tremulously at my sleeve, while in the wrinkled old face was, a, look of pitiful entreaty. "Oh, Peter! oh, lad! 'twere Old Nick as done it—'twere the devil as done it, weren't it—? oh! say 'twere the devil, Peter." And, seeing that hoary head all a-twitch with eagerness as he waited my answer, how could ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... "Uncle Nick" Wilson was always begging him to tell about pioneer days in the Northwest. When "Uncle Nick" was eight years old, the Wilson family crossed the plains by ox team. When he was only twelve, he slipped away from home to travel north with a band ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... of the trade of puffing is related in the Dialogue, on the authority of Pliny, who tells us that those wretched sycophants had two nick-names; one in Greek, [Greek: Sophokleis], and the other in Latin, LAUDICAENI; the former from sophos, the usual exclamation of applause, as in Martial: Quid tam grande sophos clamat tibi turba, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... side and looked out over the courtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones all scratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a faded purple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightly imperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that had not been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone like a wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... "Homesick, just at the nick of fortune? Do you know that a sub-lieutenancy is vacant in my company? Sub-lieutenant, with rank of ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... 'Aye!' Nick Hogben answered. 'So thou saidst in Stamford town three years gone by. And thou saidst more and the manner of it. But betwixt the buying the gowns and the more of it lie many things. As this: Did she take the gown of thee? Or as this: Having ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... had long been desirous of a peace, and that the Athenians had no longer the same confidence in the war. Both being alike tired, and, as it were by consent, letting fall their hands, he, therefore, in this nick of time, employed his efforts to make a friendship betwixt the two cities, and to deliver the other States of Greece from the evils and calamities they labored under, and so establish his own good name for success as a statesman for all future ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... speaking tribes, and, thanks to the impetus given to the investigation of systems of relationship and allied questions by Lewis Morgan, was the pioneer of a series of efforts which have rescued for us at the nick of time a record of the social organisation of many tribes which under European influence are now rapidly losing or have already lost all traces of their primitive customs, if indeed they have not, like the tribes formerly resident ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... same time, what the world calls good, and would hardly persevere after what had been said to her. Lizzie was sure that, a month since, her cousin would have yielded himself to her willingly, if he could only have freed himself from Lucy Morris. But now, just in this very nick of time, which was so momentous to her, the police had succeeded in unravelling her secret, and there sat Frank, looking at her with stern, ill-natured eyes, like an enemy rather ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Verplanck Bill could not muster sufficient support to become law, it revived tariff discussion on promising lines, and it brought nullification proceedings to a halt in the very nick of time. Shortly before February 1, 1833, the leading nullifiers came together in Charleston and entered into an extralegal agreement to postpone the enforcement of the nullification ordinance until the outcome of the new tariff debates should be known. The failure of the Verplanck measure, however, ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... promptness, immediateness. V. be prompt, be on time, be in time; arrive on time; be in the nick of time. Adj. timely, seasonable, in time, punctual, prompt. Adv. on time, punctually, at the deadline, precisely, exactly; right on time, to the minute; in time; in good time, in military time, in pudding time^, in due time; time ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the aid of squirrels, gray and red, which cut the stems with their teeth. The leaves, with the help of the shifting winds, gently cover the fruit, or some portions of it, and make the best kind of protection from dry air and severe cold; and they come just in the nick of time. Dame Nature is generous. She produces an abundance; enough to seed the earth and enough to feed the squirrels, birds, and some other animals. The squirrels eat many nuts, but I have seen them carry a portion for some distance in several directions, ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... of a postboy named Nick Muggins, who is employed by the noble suitor to intercept letters, and the aid of Crop, who acts as a sort of go-between, are put in requisition for this purpose; but the villany of the latter is finely defeated in his mistaking a silly, forward ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... to him—parted company wid her on the spot; said he would take part wid the masther and the other two, and tould her to her teeth that he did not care a damn about the property, and that she might leave it as a legacy to ould Nick, who, he said, desarved it better at her ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... window, leapt upon the footboard and turned the handle. Although the entrance to the tunnel was perilously near now, I managed to wrench the door open and to swing myself into the carriage. Then, by means of the strap, I reclosed the door in the nick of time, and sank, panting, upon the seat. I had a vague impression that the black chauffeur, having recovered himself, had raced after me to the uttermost point of the platform, but, my end achieved, I was callously indifferent to the outrageous ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... ketch me with an automobile—no, nor a motor-boat, neither; nor any other of them durn things that's goin' to set me livin' like as if I was shot out of the cannon's mouth. What's the good of bein' whizzed through life as if the old Nick himself was at your heels—workin' faster, eatin' faster, dyin' faster? I see ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... much the aggregate amount of which they have despoiled you—it is the knowledge that every other person in Paris is seeking and planning to nick you for some sum, great or small; it is the realization that, by reason of your ignorance of the language and the customs of the land, you are at their mercy, and they have no mercy—that, as Walter Pater so succinctly phrases it, that is ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... stop to say that "The Skipper," as his father always called him, was Bob, otherwise Robert Trevor; and Dot, so nick-named for reasons plain to see, was by rights Dorothy, and they had that morning been excused from lessons, because Captain Trevor had sent a message from Portsmouth that he was going to run over ...
— The Little Skipper - A Son of a Sailor • George Manville Fenn
... all that's wonderful, if this isn't a pretty how-do-you-do. Mrs. Fairfax and her girl are penniless, and I came so near marrying Claire. I have found this thing out quite in the nick of time. The girl is clever enough, but it takes money, and plenty of it, to make me put my head into the ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... much like other rooms in that quarter of the world. There were few luxuries in the way of furniture which fallen man can desire which were not to be found there, but over and above this, there was an elegance in the arrangement of all the nick-nacks and ornaments, and an appropriateness and good taste in the placing of every piece of furniture and vase of flowers, which showed that a higher order of mind than the upholsterer's or housemaid's was constantly overlooking and working there. Everything seemed ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... go on? They'd amuse themselves a bit, to be sure ... why shouldn't they ... they'd amuse themselves, and then drop it.... They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... inclined her own again slightly to the other men, and let the portiere close behind her. It had been as dramatic an entrance and exit as the two visitors had ever seen upon the stage. It was as if Aram had given a signal, and the only person who could help him had come in the nick of time to plead for him. Aram, stupid as he appeared to be, had evidently felt the effect his wife's appearance had made upon his judges. He still kept his eyes fixed upon the floor, but he said, and this time with more ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Mason and Lord Reginald were aft, at supper. So sudden and silent had been the rising, that they had only just before reached the scene of action when the lugger ran alongside. "Thank you, Voules; you came in the nick of time," cried Lieutenant Mason, when the Frenchmen ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... and then, without any warning at all, old Whitetail the Marsh Hawk had glided out across the Smiling Pool with his great claws stretched out to clutch Grandfather Frog, and Grandfather Frog had dived into the Smiling Pool with a great splash just in the very nick ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... ous sheaf stew'ing a miss' pre'vi ous guile, yeo'man as sess' im'pi ous chyle chlo'ral ab'scess a'que ous rend know'ing sick'le par'ti cle wrench go'ing nick'el crit'ic al dearth con dole' tal'ents dil'i gent worth con trol' bal'ance el'e gant mirth en roll' si'lence fal'li ble earth dis pel' com peer' prel'a cy spurt fore tell' ad here' ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... "Nick Vedder? He's dead and gone these eighteen years." "Brom Dutcher? He joined the army and was killed at Stony Point." "Van Brummel? He, too, went to the war, and is ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... us that the cavalry boys were on 73. By Gridley's orders, the two Ruffords and some others turned an engine loose to run down the road for a head-ender with the freight that was bringing the soldiers. Dawson chased the runaway engine with the coupled-up Nadia outfit, caught it just in the nick of time to prevent a collision with 73, and brought it back. He's down in the car now, with one of the young women crying on his ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... experience, so many people did not behave well; and as it happened, the thing could be put right. If it had been yesterday, how helpless he would have been in the emergency! But old Playford's death had come just in the nick of time. As for himself and his chance—his last chance—well! He looked across at that other door behind which Ted lay. Ted and he had stuck together through ill report and good, had helped each other out of many a scrape, had ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... exactly twenty-three hours, from 6:30 o'clock in the morning till 5:30 the next morning. With all that, I was supposed to lead my regiment across a bridge to take a position guarding a new bridge in course of construction; but the bridge, as we discovered in the nick of time, was mined; twenty minutes later it flew ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... she says: "Your majesty's slightest wish is a command to me, your servant!" and is about to surrender her loveliness to Cupid's forces and temporarily lose her heart, but her soul forever—in the very nick of time comes her guardian-angel ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... into all this with the red coat of a soldier and the keen, ambitious heart of a Jew, at the very nick of time. He saw at once the enormous possibilities hidden in the near future for a man who took this country at its proper value, handling what he secured with coolness and foresight. He know that he only ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... leadership to Nick Undrell, a man of blemished reputation, a drunkard, a desperate gambler, and a convicted thief, but a magnificent horseman, a capable scout, and the hero of many an ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... the poor sedan, the batter'd Frame-work, nobody there nor here could ever Lift it, painfully neck to nick adjusting.' ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... describes him as a man of prodigious strength, and of such uncommon stature as to approach almost to a gigantic size. He wore a beard above a foot long, and his face as well as his body was covered with dark red hair, from which his nick-name originated. The description given by Sir Walter Scott does not entirely correspond with this portraiture. "His stature," says that writer, "was not of the tallest, but his person was uncommonly strong and compact." The great peculiarity of his frame was the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... your wife, I'd be along with you those nights, Christy Mahon, the way you'd see I was a great hand at coaxing bailiffs, or coining funny nick-names ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... Dexie, I have been wondering what your name is, ever since I came. Is it an abbreviation or a nick-name?" said Plaisted, anxious to turn the conversation. "I have never met with a young lady bearing ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... "In the nick of time, Ralph!" exclaimed Lord Tamerton, clasping his hand warmly. "We are trying to create a mediaeval atmosphere in keeping with our surroundings, and as host I was about to announce in the approved manner of Chivalry that ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... year or two. When last he was raced, he made the running, For a stable companion twice at Sunning. He was placed, bad third, in the Blowbury Cup And second at Tew with Kingston up. He sulked at Folkestone, he funked at Speen, He baulked at the ditch at Hampton Green, Nick Kingston thought him a slug and cur, 'You must cut his heart out to make him stir.' But his legs are ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield |
