"Old hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... take an interest in my struggles. I often sit in his room in the rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, smoking and sipping whisky into the small hours. He is an old hand, who knows the market and frankly manufactures ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... As Taylor was an old hand, and wrote a most legible script, and style currente calamo, I told him to write what he could as the ceremony went on, and, the moment the doors were opened, to consign what he had written to a messenger whom I had hired for the day,—an American clerk of one of the exhibitors under ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... room, having been informed of the presence of a visitor. The Duca looked up, and his head shook involuntarily, as he at once began the slow process of getting upon his legs. But Macomer was already pressing him into his seat again, holding the old hand in both of his with ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... in the doorway, shading her eyes with her withered old hand, and staring intently in the direction that the soldiers ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... so, my boy," answered an old hand. "Depend upon it, he intends trying what the mounseers will think of ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... I was there, that many said that the plan was not of her invention, but rather that of Cardinal de Tournon, a wise and judicious prelate; but this is false, for, old hand as he was for prudence and counsel, my faith, the Queen knew more tricks than he, or all the Council ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... these,—what painful pewling and piping! Your not a babby. I take you to be some seven or eight and thutty years old—"in the morning of youth," as the flosofer says. Don't let any such nonsince take your reazn prisoner. What, you, an old hand amongst us,—an old soljer of our sovring quean the press,—you, who have had the best pay, have held the topmost rank (ay, and DESERVED them too!—I gif you lef to quot me in sasiaty, and say, "I AM a man of genius: Y-ll-wpl-sh ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Tucson road than we are. The stage must have gone through this morning early. It's nothing new anyhow. I've never known the time when the Indians were not in the neighborhood of that range. Moreno, too, is an old hand, sir." ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... is a blessing in disguise, as for once in a way one is of necessity compelled to "sink the shop." However, it is soon over. A plunge, a gasp or two, a few quick strokes, and I am through the breakers and on the shore—I mean on my seat. That was years ago—I am an old hand now. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Montcalm in Canada, and to rout Mr. Washington on Long Island, would prove itself worthy of its historical reputation on the oft-trodden battle-grounds of the Low Countries. "And so, my good friend, if you have any affaire la," said the old General, taking a pinch of snuff with his trembling white old hand, and then pointing to the spot of his robe de chambre under which his heart was still feebly beating, "if you have any Phillis to console, or to bid farewell to papa and mamma, or any will to make, I recommend you to set ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her. After the soldiers had searched every place in vain, even the thatch of the house, the woman showing no concern all the while, but groaning on, seeming scarce able to answer Mr. Ormond's questions—the constable, an old hand, roughly bid her get up, that they might search the bed; this Ormond would not permit:—she lay still, thanking his honour faintly, and they quitted the house. The goods which had been carried off were valuable, and were hid in the straw of the very ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... wiping his eyes with the back of his thick, hairy hands. It was a striking commentary upon her years of training that both of these men, successful from long and hard experience, paid her the compliment of thinking her an old hand at ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... He almost cried at the sight of this destitute, tottering, honest old man, and before the latter could get farther in his lament another shilling was in his palsied old hand, and the grey old forelock was enduring ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... "His furry old hand, twisting and trembling, Took the sweet gift—"You dear little darling," Uttered quite softly, tenderly kissing, The bright little face, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Hai, but she's a bad one, that same. But she plays and I play, with the winning for me—since the good cards are always in the old hand. Fear nothing, my rye. She cannot hurt, though snake that she ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... in cotton and wool until after 1830 is explained by these considerations. The stocking-frame held out against machinery still longer, and hand work still plays an important part in several processes of silk manufacture. Even now, in the very centre of the factory system, Bolton, the old hand-weaving is represented ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... do you say to my acting at the Montreal Theatre? I am an old hand at such matters, and am going to join the officers of the garrison in a public representation for the benefit of a local charity. We shall have a good house, they say. I am going to enact one Mr. Snobbington in a funny farce called A Good Night's Rest. I shall want a flaxen wig and eyebrows; ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... put my candle, designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. "What is it," I asked, "that you ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... BELLOWS. An old hand at the bellows. A colloquialism for a man up to his duty. "A fresh hand at the bellows" is said when ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... always bickering with Father Holt," cried my lady. "Come and kiss my hand, child," and the oak held out a branch to little Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon the gnarled knuckles of which ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abruptly, and planting his foot firmly upon the green-sward, exclaimed with ecstasy: "Three, by heaven! That for managers!" and snapped his fingers. His companion asked an explanation of this strange conduct. "You'll know before you have strutted in three more barns," said the "old hand." "In winter, managers are the most impudent fellows living, because they know we don't like to travel, don't like to leave our nests, fear the cold, and all that. But when I can put my foot upon three daisies—summer's near, and managers may ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... beginning of the Civil War, was a very Flanders for battles, and this sort of thing had ended by disturbing Mr. Boone considerably in the manipulation of an old hand-press, dubbed his Gutenberg, which worked with a lever and required some dozen processes for each impression of the Boonville Semi-Weekly Javelin. Finally, when Joe Shelby and his pack of fire-eaters were raiding Missouri for the second time, Daniel plaintively laid down his stick in the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the eldest of the group. "Bah! I say. Your 'Thousand and One Nights,' your fairy stories, all the wonders of nature,"—here he waved his trembling old hand excitedly,—"all these are but as nothing compared ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... had civilly borne each of them company for an hour in their several homeward rides from certain fairs, and had carried the pleasure of his society, they very gravely asserted, considerably beyond a joke; so that the state of the prisoner's affairs took a very sombre aspect, and the counsel—an old hand—intrusted with his cause declared confidentially that there was not a chance. But a yet more weighty accusation, because it came from a much nobler quarter, awaited Clifford. In the robbers' cavern were found several articles answering exactly to the description of those ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... yet met him collecting for a hospital, or succouring the wounded, or assisting the police, or hauling a mitrailleuse if he could help it. Yet the War dog worships the Army; it represents a square meal and a "cushy" bed. The new draft takes him for a mascot; but the old hand knows him better. A shameless blend of petty larceny, mendacity, fleas, gourmandism, dirt and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... so white as it should have been, the nails were not so well trimmed as a more fastidious mood might have demanded; but Westray did not notice these things. He took the shaky old hand, and gripped it warmly, not saying anything, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... crackerjack; connoisseur &c (scholar) 492; master, master hand; prima donna [Sp.], first fiddle, top gun, chef de cuisine, top sawyer; protagonist; past master; mahatma. picked man; medallist, prizeman^. veteran; old stager, old campaigner, old soldier, old file, old hand; man of business, man of the world. nice hand, good hand, clean hand; practiced hand, experienced eye, experienced hand; marksman; good shot, dead shot, crack shot; ropedancer, funambulist^, acrobat; cunning man; conjuror &c (deceiver) 548; wizard &c 994. genius; mastermind, master head, master spirit. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was only a matter of a few hours to clear out the others. Except for the visits of a few peasants the battle-field had scarcely been touched since the snow melted. The hillside was peppered with shell holes, the trenches littered with old hand-grenades, brown Russian over-coats, the rectangular metal cartridge clip cases—-about like biscuit tins—which the Russians leave everywhere, and some of the brush-covered shelters in which the Russians had lived, with their spoons and wet papers and here and there a cigarette box or ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... too busy planning conversation. He knew Miss Sackville was "as common as the rest of 'em—and an old hand at the business, no doubt." But he simply could not abruptly break through the barrier; he must squirm through gradually. "That's a swell outfit you've got ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Grafton. Don't be afraid, Mistress Edda, I'm not going to stake Bridgefield and reduce you to beggary. I'm an old hand, and was a cool one in my worst days, and whatever I get I'll ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interlude was provided by tea, and as Mrs. Guthrie, her old hand shaking a little, poured out a delicious cup for her visitor, and pressed on her a specially nice home-made cake, Mrs. Otway began to think that in the past she had perhaps misjudged Major ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... beside the table which held the sheets of folded foolscap. The ugly electric light from overhead fell full upon the pallid oval of her face, on her lace cap, and shimmering black dress. Only Marcia noticed that the hand which took up the foolscap shook a little. It was an old hand, delicately white, with ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... doubtless, of the eventual crushing of his people in the collisions of the great international struggle of the Europeans for the possession of this country,—all fostered tokens of time in the face of Colannah, and bowed his straight back, and set an unwonted quiver in the nerves of his old hand that had been firm in his heyday, and strong and crafty and cruelly bloody. But his face now was softened with pleasure, and the pride it expressed was ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... with the glaze of tears so that one blink would have overflowed them, Lilly laid her lips to the veiny old hand, her voice down into ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... for us now that we were no longer gods in a car, except an occasional beggar, to whom the Cherub would murmur, "God will aid you, sister!" "Pardon me, brother!" and then, changing his mind, drop a penny into a withered old hand, or a pink, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Birch was an old hand at running hare, and up to all sorts of dodges, so that I knew all it was needful for me to do was to husband my "wind," and run evenly with him, leaving him to shape our course and ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... reads this autobiography and wants a little advice from a very old hand, I will say to her, when a man threatens to commit suicide after you have refused him, you may be quite sure that he is a vain, petty fellow or a great goose; if you felt any doubts about your decision before, you need have none ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Dorfman, an old hand at confidential snooping, refused to quail before the much-publicized senatorial scowl. "It's tough putting on a hunt when you're not quite sure what ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... of his freckled face there beamed two honest light-blue eyes. His forehead was broad and slightly bulgy; his carroty hair was cut short to his head. Mrs. Church raised her wrinkled old hand and laid it for a minute on ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... shown. He understood, too, that he had so thoroughly frightened the wretched Pina that she was henceforth his slave, on whom he could count as safely as Stradella had depended on her in Venice. With the instinct of an old hand he glanced quickly round the room to see that no object had been displaced in a way to excite suspicion, and he then sat down in a straight chair, folded one knee over the other, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... caught his hand to her lips. She noticed with a tender contraction of her heart that it was an old hand—knotted, with ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... a striking instance. But he soon corrects himself, and writes for twenty folios (to the recto of folio 27) with more or less care in his clear Roman hand. Thence he begins to return rapidly, but by perceptible degrees, to the old hand, until, on the recto of folio 31, and a page or two before it, he writes, illegibly to most modern eyes, as in fac-simile No. 3, "a proverbe." Thereafter, except upon certain rare and isolated occasions, he never returns to his Italian hand, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... remember," muttered McTeague. Maria roamed about the room, McTeague following her in his huge stockinged feet. All at once she pounced upon a sheaf of old hand instruments in a coverless cigar-box, pluggers, hard bits, and excavators. Maria had long coveted such a find in McTeague's "Parlor," knowing it should be somewhere about. The instruments were of the finest ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... just take all the fear away. I kept feeling that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone now. Jed said"—here Nancy wavered—"he said the place ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... taken from the box, dusted by blowing on it and carefully examined. I really had before my eyes the pseudochrysalis of some Meloid. Its shape was unfamiliar to me. No matter: I was an old hand and could not mistake its source. Everything assured me that I was on the track of an insect that rivalled the Sitares and the Oil-beetles in the strangeness of its transformations; and, what was a still more precious fact, its occurrence amid the burrows ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song, So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong, You hardly could distinguish one in ten. He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: His gesture spoke ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... barefaced. Wanted our fourth volume of the 'Athenian Oracle.' I saw his eyes reached out this way, and that way, and always resting on that volume. I saw him edging along to the shelf. Got another odd volume just like it in his wicked old hand, ready to change it ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... like the man-servant, felt the genial influence of her master's amiability. He looked at her, for the first time since she had entered the house. A twinkling light showed itself furtively in his dreary gray eyes: he took a dusty old hand-screen from the sideboard, and made her a present of it! "There," he said with his dry humour, "don't spoil your complexion before the kitchen fire." The cook possessed a sanguine temperament, and a taste to be honoured and encouraged—the taste for reading novels. She ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... answer to his questions, but both he and Bear Chief soon realized that they were exhausting their horses in a useless pursuit. It was growing dark; the thief had too much start, and, with the experience of an old hand, he drove the horses over rocks, where they left no blabbing tracks behind. Once well into the Bad Lands, he was as effectually lost as if the earth had ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... yourself, Bob; you are not now at Tamworth, or in the house, but talking to an old hand that knows every move on the political board,—you need have no disguise with me. Come, be candid for once, and tell me, what are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... The wrinkled, tremulous old hand touched his shoulder with a kindly pressure. "Good is it that we understand each other. Nun! Come. First shall you go and Helga's horse lead, since it may be that with her one hand she cannot manage him. Why do you in ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... so lightly begins to use bad language, pulling to pieces certain expressions of mine, when he has himself used expressions which any respectable man would have shrunk from uttering; {127} for if the accuser were Aeacus or Rhadamanthus or Minos,[n] instead of a scandal-monger,[n] an old hand in the marketplace,[n] a pestilent clerk, I do not believe that he would have spoken thus, or produced such a stock of ponderous phrases, crying aloud, as if he were acting a tragedy, 'O Earth and Sun and Virtue,'[n] ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... very auspicious, and when we were going along at a pretty good gait, I pulled the reverse lever back to within one point of the centre, and opened her up a little more. She stood up to her work just as if she had an old hand at the throttle instead of a novice. I wish I were able to describe my sensations as the engine swayed to and fro in her flight. The fireman was rather an intelligent chap, and had no trouble in keeping her hot, and twenty-three ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... spirits, and shook her head over it; but her motherliness grew with every act of service, and when she had made him warm and comfortable, and he was dropping into the dead sleep of exhaustion, she drew her old hand tenderly ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you like, captain. I'm an old hand, and ready for anything. The guv'nors have took me on, and I'm come ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... in Governor Bradford's fine old hand, in a folio with a parchment back, and with some childish scribblings by little Mercy Bradford on the cover, passed at the Governor's death to his son, and at his death to his son. It reposed in the old ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... ring!" he said, And pointed to the sexton's gnarled old hand Spread on the black oak-table like the claw Of some great bird of prey. "A ruby worth The ransom of a queen!" The fire leapt up! The sexton stared at him; Then stretched his hand out, with its blue-black nails, Full in the light, a grim ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... search in the course of a few days, at the risk of lowering my character in the eyes of the brave Hippus; for our trick of making thieves feel safe by means of superficially searching them may indeed answer with novices, but would never avail with this old hand. It is certain that we shall find nothing ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... etc. etc." It ends the chapter on Russia with the following impertinence: "E se volete sapere piu innanzi dimandatene un altro ch'io Marcho Polo non cercai piu avanti." The Khalif is called Largaliffe; Reobarles, Reubarbe, with a marginal note in an old hand, "Reubarbe citta di Persia, donde viene il reubarbero herba medicinale." Completed by Dolfo Spini, 16th July, 1425. Paper. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Lord Russell: 'tis your golden wedding-day; We may not press your brave old hand, but you hear what we've to say. A blessing on the bridal that has known its fifty years, But never known its fallings-out, delusions, doubt, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... faced each other, Robert Fairchild serious and intent, Mother Howard looking at him with eyes defiant, yet compassionate. Suddenly they twinkled, the lips broke from their straight line into a smile, and a kindly old hand reached out to take ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... at him. "Confound it, what are you doing with no more rank than captain? On the face of it, you're an old hand, a highly ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... magnificent constitution; consequently, despite the indifferent nursing, the incompetent advice, the ill-cooked food, she quickly recovered strength. Hourly she felt better, although the nursing of her baby was a continuous tax upon her vitality. Following the "permanent's" advice, who was an old hand in such matters, Mavis kept quite still and did not exert herself more than she could possibly help. But although her body was still, her mind was active. She fretted because she had received no reply to her last little letter to ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... an old hand at the game and has learned to take things as they come. She'll be at work upon some other case within a week and will have forgotten that this one ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... Miller who took the statement that morning. Lucy's cramped old hand wrote too slowly for David's impatience. Harrison Miller took it, on hotel stationery, covering the carefully numbered pages with his neat, copper-plate writing. He wrote with an impassive face, but with intense interest, for by that time he ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... true enough, ma'am,' sighed the man; 'there's no getting to the bottom of their artfulness: but I'm an old hand, and I know all the ins and outs of the complaint. It isn't possible for Mr. Wendover to get any drink in this house, and he never goes out of it without me. Every drop of wine and spirits is under lock and key, and all the servants are ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... line, Manuel closed the book; then at a kindly beckoning gesture from the Cardinal, Aubrey advanced into the room, bowing with deep reverence and honour over the worn old hand ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... of Florio's first edition of his Worlde of Wordes in my library, which evidently belonged to his friend William Godolphin, as his name is written in it, there is also written in an old hand, under Florio's name on the title-page, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... curiosity the few books carefully covered in a corner shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... long ago Has haunted me; at last I know The heart it sprung from: one more sound Ne'er rested on poetic ground. But, Barry Cornwall! by what right Wring you my breast and dim my sight, And make me wish at every touch My poor old hand could do as much? No other in these later times Has bound me in so potent rhymes. I have observed the curious dress And jewelry of brave Queen Bess, But always found some o'ercharged thing, Some flaw in even the brightest ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Jeb's partner in this work, a lanky middle-westerner, called "Omaha" for love—although "John Hastings" was stamped in his identification disk—sprang out at a dog-trot, crossing the trench bridge and quickly getting into the plain below as if he were an old hand at this game instead of undertaking it now for ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... head and looked his son in the face. A heavenly smile crossed the sadness of his countenance, and his wrinkled old hand closed tremulous on ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... exclaimed Mrs. Carter, warmly. "Indeed, we won't do anything of the sort. I should like to see him try to turn us out! Old Hand, whose father used to blacken your poor grandfather's boots, turn us out of our own house! You don't know what ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... be well to get a little out of his reach. At all events, she had scarcely disappeared before the youngster was again on the wing. It was wonderful how much at home he seemed,—poising, backing, soaring, and alighting with all the ease and grace of an old hand. One only piece of awkwardness I saw him commit: he dropped upon a branch much too large for his tiny feet, and was manifestly uncomfortable. But he did not stay long, and at his next alighting was well up in the tree, where it was noticeable that ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. Tutt's desk. "There was a man!" he exclaimed inconsequently; then stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes—gold. All those great properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed a pioneer! That's what I was—a pioneer to find the gold where other people ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... is that it just did slip out, as you say. An old hand, a man accustomed to be at odds with the laws and the police, would have known better. Did he make the same statement ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... grandfather for whom the fatted calf was killed and ready. But first, ere he sat down at table, he must stroll out and around. And sons and daughters of his flesh and of the law needs must go with him fulsomely eating out of the gnarled old hand that had half a million to disburse. He led the way, and no opinion he slyly uttered was preposterous or impossible enough to draw dissent from his following. Pausing by the ruined water wheel which he had built from the standing timber, his face beamed as ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... he does or does not love her to-day as well as he did yesterday at this time.... Then, when spontaneity is dead, she is the chief mourner at its funeral.... A few couples never leave the Garden of Eden. They grow old hand in hand. They are the ones who bear and forbear; who have learned to adjust themselves to the intimate relationship of living together.... A certain amount of liberty, both of action and thought, must be allowed on ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... Here was the real hobo, the irrepressible absolute. Cheyenne stepped up and swung to the saddle with the effortless ease of the old hand. Bartley noticed that the pack-horse had no lead-rope, nor had he been tied. Bartley did not know that Filaree, the pack-horse, would never let Joshua, the saddle-horse, out of his sight. They had traveled the ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... I hope you got the night well?—A fine day for us this Sunday morning; my Grace is gone to early prayers, so your honour will be content with an old woman to make your breakfast. Oh, let me put in plenty, or it will never be good; and if your honour takes stir-about, an old hand will engage to make that to your liking, anyway; for, by great happiness, we have what will just answer for you of the nicest meal the miller made my Grace a compliment of, last time she ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... include within its pages some rules for the writing of novels;—or I might perhaps say, with more modesty, to offer some advice on the art to such tyros in it as might be willing to take advantage of the experience of an old hand. But the matter would, I fear, be too long for this episode, and I am not sure that I have as yet got the rules quite settled in my own mind. I will, however, say a few words on one or two points which my own practice has ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... appealed, her eyes big and terrified at the recollection of what had passed. "No, he didn't hit me, Joe; but he choked me. He grabbed me by the throat and shook me—his old hand's as hard ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... this time, but that was because the boarding officer was a green one. If an old hand at the business comes aboard it may be necessary to chuck him over the side and run for it. Therefore it is right you should know things, in order the more intelligently ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... some 3,000 to 4,000 American chestnut sprouts that range anything from 1 to 18 feet in height. But more promising—I have a cluster of fine young seedlings that I have been caring for. All the woods were cleared away from them to give them plenty of light. They are watered by the old hand bucket method in dry spells. I report on them occasionally to Mr. G. F. Gravatt and Mr. Russell B. Clapper of the U.S.D.A. They are a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... third volume, entitled "The Young Engineers in Nevada." The mine that finally proved a dividend payer was named "The Ambition Mine." A staunch Nevadan, Jim Ferrers, by name, became their partner in the Ambition. Jim, who was an old hand at Nevada mining, was now managing the mine while Tom and Harry, after going East and establishing an engineers' office in a large city not far from New York, had traveled to other states, studying mines and assay methods. Within the last few months, so rapid had been their progress in mine engineering, ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... a good wife to me, Rachel," he once said simply, when she was sitting by him in the dusk, holding his thin, blanched old hand in her work-hardened one. "A good wife. I'm sorry I ain't leaving you better off; but the children will look after you. They're all smart, capable children, just like their mother. A good mother . . . a good ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... leave him in the lurch the next. She cares not a rush for any of them, only wants to be run after. As to her followers, some of them are really smitten, I fancy. There was Fitzhugh, but he is an old hand, and can pay her in her own coin, and that sober-faced young Mervyn—it is a bad case with him. In fact, there is a fresh one whenever she goes out—a Jenny Dennison in high life—but the most bitten of all, I take ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... button-holing for advertisements, and occasionally and indiscriminatingly thrashing or being thrashed by the "esteemed contemporary" or the "outraged citizen;" the second of whom sets the type, reads the proofs, corrects them more or less, makes the rollers, works the old hand press, and curses the editor and the boy impartially; and the third of whom sweeps the office weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, inks the forms and sometimes pis them, carries the papers, and does generally the humble and diversified works of the "printer's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... having seen a couple of old hand-nets in some of the stores, which we immediately sent the trapper's son (a youth of twelve) to fetch. In a few minutes he returned with them; so, tucking up our trousers, we both went into the water and scooped the fish out by dozens. It required great quickness, however, as they ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... teasing finger at her. "Haw! Haw!" he laughed. "There's other people that's noticed a policeman hangin' round. He's a dandy, he is!—not. He let that old hand organ man give him a ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... ninety Gilbert Islands natives to work on the new sugar plantations near Honolulu. They behaved themselves splendidly—for they were well treated—for about a fortnight, and the skipper of the vessel (an old hand in the island trade) allowed them to lie on deck at night, feeling sure that they would give no trouble. More than this, he even told his officers and crew to discontinue carrying their Colts' pistols. ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... who was an old hand, and had perhaps been on a hundred expeditions of this kind, had surveyed the scene at a glance. Noticing in the fireplace the carbonized debris, upon which still ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... was situated at the back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense age, he looked, in Paul's young eyes, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... bit, and then burst out laughing. It was a rum go, wasn't it? The same talk for cows and Christians. That's how things get stuck into the talk in a new country. Some old hand like father, as had been assigned to a dairy settler, and spent all his mornings in the cowyard, had taken to the bush and tried his hand at sticking up people. When they came near enough of course he'd pop out from behind a tree in a rock, with his old musket or a pair of pistols, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Sergeant. You 're an old hand, and know your business, and there is no better scout on the plains than Sam Wasson. Good-bye, and ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... attempt at old-fashioned smuggling that ever was made on the north-east coast, and there is no doubt that the attempt would have been successful if only raw young sailors had been employed as guards, instead of an old hand who knew every move ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... the door brought her to her senses. She put a withered little old hand, very like a sparrow's claw, upon the window-sash to shut it hastily, and then, too proud to deceive, turned boldly to ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... was to get the work started," he was continuing. "The Federation Government felt that an old hand should do that. Well, it's started, now; you and Tony and whoever come out on the Schiaparelli must carry it on. You said it, yourself; you have a whole new world. This is only one city, of the last Martian ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... a weak, vacillating old man with whom you can do as you like, and you will find in me a skipper who will do his duty by you as far as lies in his power, nor expect more from you than you ought to render. If, however, you DO try any tricks, remember that I am an old hand, equal to most of the games that men get up to. I do want—if you will help me—to make this a comfortable as well as a successful ship. I hope with all ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... course. Don't scold me, son. You're all I have now, and I couldn't bear to send for you until you'd had your fling." His trembling old hand crept over and closed upon his boy's hand, so firm but free from signs of toil. "It was my pleasure, Bryce," he continued, "and you wouldn't deny me my choice of sport, would you? Remember, lad, I never had a boyhood; I never had a college education, and the only real travel ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... headquarters for a troop that desired to specialize in engineering. On the first floor were the old hand-forges, bellows, lathes, work benches, planing machines, and various other appliances. They were all out of date, to be sure, and some slightly rusty, but still quite usable after ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... how he managed I don't know; and he gave me a tremendous hauling over the coals for having been such an idiot; but it seems that instead of being a poor injured, deceived creature, with a broken heart, and all that sort of thing, she was a regular adventuress—an old hand at it, and had got lots of money out of other fellows for fear she would make a row. But Mr. Drayton had an interview with her. I was there, and I never shall forget it if I live to a hundred. You never saw anybody so quiet, so courteous, so resolute, and so immitigably ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... returned in a few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled, trembling old hand tenderly in hers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... said her Grace, standing close by her chair, and holding the old hand between her own two, which were so white and velvet warm, "and 'twas you who held him in your arms when he was but a little new-born thing, and often sang him to sleep, and were so loved by him. And he played ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... think that, as an old hand at playing the buffer in family jars, you had a much greater experience. Yesterday she was like an electric eel! And she gave her shock, too! The boy has not been home since. I am almost glad of that; it shows he has some sense of shame. I ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... were greatly moved, and they pressed closer round us to comfort us, and one dear old grandmother put her arms round me, and stroked my face with her wrinkled old hand, and said, "Don't be troubled; we will worship your God. We will worship Him just as we worship our own. Now, ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael |
