"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... haven't the sense to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow, if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you, instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest. All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as far as your imagination carries you. And ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... into the slack of the man's coat and the torn shirt, the ex-sergeant forced the prisoner up the short stairs that conducted to ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... fierceness between the Smalls and the mainland, amid the dangerous reefs which extend out from the island of Skomer. As it was nearly slack tide when we got up to the lighthouse, and as the water was smooth, papa and Uncle Tom agreed to land. The yachts were hove-to, the boats lowered, and we pulled in on the northern side, where we had no ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... The House of Commons was disposed for gentler measures. But he was able to make it listen to his harsher counsels, and from this time his hand appears in all that was done. The first conference was a tame and dull one. The spokesmen had been slack in their disagreeable and perhaps dangerous duty. But Coke and his friends took them sharply to task. "The heart and tongue of Sir Edward Coke are true relations," said one of his fervent supporters; "but his pains hath ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... reckoning, and was then to the north of San Francisco. He also explained that, the passage up being longer than usual, viz., eighteen days, the coal was short; that at the time the firemen were using some cut-up spars along with the slack of coal, and that this fuel had made more than usual steam, so that the ship must have glided along faster than reckoned. This proved to be the actual case, for, in fact, the steamship Lewis was wrecked April 9, 1853, on "Duckworth ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid a photograph on the paper—the photograph of a girl with a curly head, and a foolish slack mouth. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the attorney and his companion, "and I'll bring Tom to you in a minute. He's having a lush with some of his pals; though I thought we were going to have a mill, for Jack Perkins, who is to be hanged o' Monday, roused out his slack jaw at him for some quarrel about a gal, and Tom don't bear such like easily. Howsumdever, they made it up and clubbed a gallon. Stay, I'll get you a candle end;" and leaving them in the dark, not much, if the truth must be told, to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... an end of getting: know, the more Your wealth, the less the risk of being poor; And, having gained the object of your quest, Begin to slack your efforts and take rest; Nor act like one Ummidius (never fear, The tale is short, and 'tis the last you'll hear), So rich, his gold he by the peck would tell, So mean, the slave that served him dressed as well; E'en to his dying day he went in dread Of perishing ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... Moors, Arabians, Ethiops black, Of the left wing that held the utmost marge, Spread forth their troops, and purposed at the back And side their heedless foes to assail and charge: Slingers and archers were not slow nor slack To shoot and cast, when with his battle large Rinaldo came, whose fury, haste and ire, Seemed earthquake, thunder, tempest, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... ta cross currents, sir,' said Rob. 'Yo-ho there! Slack the main-sheet!' and the boys were easing off the rope before they had realised ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... hand warningly. Over his shoulder Bennington dimly saw a tall muscular figure, tense with the expectation of effort, lean forward to the slack of the lariat. He stared ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... little shadow in his powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let slack, ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... leaves the ridge for Fall Creek Valley, Sammy never tightened the slack rein, and the pony never shortened his stride by so much as an inch. It was well that he was hill bred, for none but a mountain horse could have kept his feet at such a terrific pace down the rocky slope. Down the valley road, past the mill, and over the creek they flew; ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... Government. Most of the navigable rivers of this country are comparatively long and shallow. In order that they may be made fully useful for navigation there has come into vogue a method of improvement known as canalization, or the slack-water method, which consists in building a series of dams and locks, each of which will create a long pool of deep navigable water. At each of these dams there is usually created also water power of commercial value. If the water power thus created can be made available ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... mind. No power could impede the march of his mercy to the predestined point; no casualties defeat his great design; and no lapse of years, or revolution of centuries, diminish the ardour of infinite love, to secure the felicity of his people. The Lord was never "slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness;" for it must never he forgotten, in estimating the movements of eternal Providence, that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... then, and haul aft the leeward. Slack out the mizzen sheet a little, Jack. That's it; now she's off again, like ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... love," he said, "if necessary. My appointment list is uncommonly slack just now, and even if it weren't, I'd make a considerable sacrifice rather than be out of this. This fellow Mayes is a dangerous man; and I feel it a point of honour that he shall not continue to escape. Moreover, I have begun to form a certain theory as to the Red Triangle, ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... signs, that his bonds might be loosed. The officer shook his head and refused, but he allowed some of his soldiers to slack the cords on one side, whereby Gulliver was able to feel more comfortable. After this, the little people drew out the arrows that still stuck in his hands and face, and rubbed the wounds with some pleasant-smelling ointment, which so soothed his pain that very soon ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... Robert's son, and if he will be such a fool as to run after blood and wounds, I have no more to say! Though 'tis pity of the old name! Ha! what's this? 'Wedded against my will—no troth plight.' Forsooth, I thought my young master was mighty slack. He hath some other matter in his mind, hath he? Run into some coil mayhap with a beggar wench! Well, we need not be beholden to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... flames began to bite on one side he could hobble around the post to the opposite side. As the flames spread he would become very active, but each revolution around the post would shorten the slack of the wrist-cord. With the entire circle of fuel ablaze he would slowly roast. Black Hoof muttered some gibberish and ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... arms around Mary if one was buried in the field of battle and the other was minced up in a saw-mill, and he couldn't clasp her to his bosom unless he threw a lasso with his teeth and hauled her in by swallowing the slack of the rope. As for the piano—well, you know as well as I do that an armless man can't play a Beethoven sonata unless he knows how to perform on the instrument with his nose, and in that case you ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... only as two shades before they were whisked out of his view. The train rumbled on; then it went from half speed to a stop with one jerk that brought a cry from the coaches. During the next second there was the successive crashing of couplings as the coaches took up their slack. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' was the woman's words ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... like dat. Dat a long way from the frontier. Tree years Sam work dar in plantation. Den he sold again to a man who hab boats on de riber at New Orleans. Dar Sam work discharging de ships and working de barges. Dar he come to learn for sure which de British flag. De times were slack, and my massa hire me out to be waiter in a saloon. Dat place dey hab dinners, and after dinner dey gamble. Dat war a bad place, mos' ebery night quarrels, and sometimes de pistols drawn, and de bullets flying about. Sam 'top dar six months; de place near de riber, and de captains ob de ships ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... laboriously been rowing on slack-water, all the way from Brownsville, with the help of an hour's sail this morning; whereas, now that we were in the strong current below the dam, we had but to gently paddle to glide swiftly on our way. A hundred steamers, more or less, lay closely packed with their bows upon ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... hands and the feet. Georgie had been conscious of walking a little lamely lately; he had been even more conscious of the need of hot towels on his face and the "tap-tap" of Mr Holroyd's fingers, and the stretchings of Mr Holroyd's thumb across rather slack surfaces of cheek and chin. In the interval between the hair and the face, Mr Holroyd should have a good supper downstairs with Foljambe and the cook. And tomorrow morning, when he met Hermy and Ursy, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... United States. A superior quality of Australian coal finds a ready market in Pacific coast points as far north as San Francisco, and large quantities of Nanaimo, B.C., coal are sold in Oregon, Washington, and California. A small quantity of the "slack" or waste of the Nova Scotia mines is imported to Boston to be made into coke. The Canadian fields supply a considerable part of the ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... the mule to a wagon, if he be wild or vicious, keep the lariat the same as I have described until you get him hitched up, then slack it gently, as nearly all mules will buck or jump stiff-legged as soon as you ease up the lariat; and be careful not to pull the rope too tight when first put on, as by so doing you might split the mule's mouth. Let me say here that I have broken thousands of four ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... with thieves and the like, much more than the detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. It was a very slack institution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume maker's, or ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... of a long silence, the slack, luxurious silence of digestion. I got no answer, naturally, from the torpid Lin, and then it occurred to me that he would have asked me what I thought, long before this, had he known. So, observing how comfortable he was, I ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... welcomed with serious respect the overtures which came to him, after 1856, from eminent historians. When they were old men, he and Ranke, whom, in hot youth, there was much to part, lived on terms of mutual goodwill. Doellinger had pronounced the theology of the Deutsche Reformation slack and trivial, and Ranke at one moment was offended by what he took for an attack on the popes, his patrimony. In 1865, after a visit to Munich, he allowed that in religion there was no dispute between them, that he had no fault to find with the Church as Doellinger understood ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... sounded rather like a fairy tale, but the enormous crowd round the centre of interest, and the comparatively slack business being done at other tables, proved its truth. None of the newcomers, even the tallest, could see, but they could hear, and they could feel the thrill from ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... me, Slack?" he asked. "Has Mr. Bolt come in? Ah, there you are, Bolt. Come down to my room." He led the way down the green corridor, the divisional ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Bevan did not like St. Matthew's (because it was not slack or easy), and he too could believe anything of Clement. No doubt poor Felix found those great brothers getting ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... old rascal!" he shouted, as he fastened the end of a rope firmly to the branch, and gathered in the slack so as to have the running noose handy. "I've got you now. Come, come along; have another ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... weathered, neglected appearance of barns and stables was depressing. It was through a neighboring gap in the fence that Marston's team had brought their lifeless master home; and Edgar had seen enough to realize that the man must have grown slack and nerveless before he had succumbed. The farm had broken down Marston's strength and courage, and now another man, less gifted in many ways, had taken it in charge. Edgar wondered how he would succeed; but in spite of a few misgivings ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... about as exotic as a flowering weed which can spring so strongly and so fibrously from slack. And yet such a weed can bleed milk. If Stella Schump was about fourteen pounds too plump, too red of cheek, and too blandly blue of eye, there was the very milk of human kindness in her morning punching up of her mother's pillows and her smoothing down of the gray and poorly hair. She could ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... race for existence. The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late into the evening if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack," Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the woodshed adjoining the kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping over ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... a man over many a rut in portraiture, and a knowledge of patting clay and using a chisel has saved many a sculptor, but technical equipment alone never made an illustrator, because he deals too directly with life in action. Slack drawing and impatience of method will always be pardoned in an ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... be given very harshly, with a snapping explosiveness. Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking. Way down the road, trilling like a toad, Here comes the dice-horn, here comes the vice-horn, Here comes the snarl-horn, brawl-horn, lewd-horn, Followed by the prude-horn, bleak and squeaking:— (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.) Here comes the hod-horn, ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... the relief of Leyden, which, notwithstanding his exertions, had grown slack during his sickness, were now vigorously resumed. On the 1st of September, Admiral Boisot arrived out of Zealand with a small number of vessels, and with eight hundred veteran sailors. A wild and ferocious crew were those eight hundred ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... were na slack; Now stand as tightly by your tack: Ne'er claw your lug, an' fidge your back, An' hum an' haw; But raise your arm, an' tell your crack ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... European solution of using the unemployed to build up excessive armaments which eventually result in dictatorships and war. We encourage an American way—through an increase of national income which is the only way we can be sure will take up the slack. Much progress has been made; much remains ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... issuing therefrom reliable, seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most embarrassing of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men, distracted with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything or, grown slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the weapons of prudence, exerted a powerful ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... would argue on prevenient grace if the subject were proposed to him, I think his virtual divinities were good practical schemes, accurate work, and the faithful completion of undertakings: his prince of darkness was a slack workman. But there was no spirit of denial in Caleb, and the world seemed so wondrous to him that he was ready to accept any number of systems, like any number of firmaments, if they did not obviously interfere with the best land-drainage, solid building, correct measuring, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... sir, as I feels more respect for you than I do for the whole regiment put together. I talks a bit, and I never come anigh you, sir, without feeling slack." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... on the book that I never raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I could not ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... houses, and so narrow The brute's bulk blocked the road; the huge green stack Of dewy fodder that it slouched beneath Brushing the yellow walls on either hand, And shutting out the strip of burning blue: And I'd to face that vicious bobbing head With evil eyes, slack lips, and nightmare teeth, And duck beneath the snaky, squirming neck, Pranked with its silly string of bright blue beads, That seemed to wriggle every way at once, As though it were a hydra. Allah's beard! But I was scared, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... my pocket and might have shot him through and through, but that novel proceeding did not occur to me until it was too late. I would have taken a Sam Patch leap into the water, and have wrestled with my antagonist in his own element, but I knew the slack, thus sure to occur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went. He was caught very lightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle and somersault would break the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... be a bad place to land if there weren't two of us," he went on. "It is our being together in this yacht that is likely to cause suspicion. You could easily pretend that you'd come over from Gibraltar, and the port authorities there are pretty slack." ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... "Don't take the slack so fast. Hard a port. Now kick your stern over. That's the stuff. Pay ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... accompanied, raised his paddle in self-defense. The trout left the water about ten feet from the boat, and came directly at me with fiery eyes, his speckled sides flashing like a meteor. I dodged as he whisked by with a vicious slap of his bifurcated tail, and nearly upset the boat. The line was of course slack, and the danger was that he would entangle it about me, and carry away a leg. This was evidently his game; but I untangled it, and only lost a breast button or two by the swiftly-moving string. The trout plunged into the water with a hissing sound, and went away again with all the line on ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... scorching and blistering our backs, till past noon, during which time we must have drifted nearly twenty miles up the river, which was as broad as the arm of a sea at the entrance; then the tide turned, and we drifted back again till it was dusk, when it was again slack water. All this while we kept a sharp look-out to see if we could perceive any Indians, but not one was to be seen. I now proposed that we should take our oars and pull out of the river, as if we had only gone up on a survey, for the brig had got under weigh, and had anchored, for want of ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... in the matter of education. "Never mind expense," he had argued in the old days with Parkinson when that slack mariner could see no reason for making the Vega seaworthy; "you sail the schooner, I pay the bills." And so with his sons and daughters. It had been for them to get the education and never mind the expense. Harold, the eldest-born, had gone to Harvard and ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... ended we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be led to know ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, 'We hail this new ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... strove to steal that chain of gold, Which links the subject to the king, And change it for a brazen string. But sure, if nothing else must pass Betwixt the king and us but brass, Although the chain will never crack, Yet our devotion may grow slack. But Jove will soon convert, I hope, This brazen chain into a rope; With which Prometheus shall be tied, And high in air for ever ride; Where, if we find his liver grows, For want of ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... this would not be noticeable, but it made such a difference in the work we are describing, that the strength of the cable would have been greatly lessened had the strands been bound together in the sunshine, while some of the wires were slack, and some were tight. Even the wind interfered sadly; but by choosing dull, still days, when all the wires were subjected to the same temperature, they were at last ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... boy had tripped and fallen. Bettles stopped long enough to grip him by the slack of his furs, then headed for a pile of cordwood already occupied by a number of his comrades. Yellow Fang, doubling after one of the dogs, came leaping back. The fleeing animal, free of the rabies, but crazed with fright, whipped Bettles off his feet and flashed on up the street. ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... as follows: Mix ingredients with water into stiff dough; knead well, mould, place in bread tins, and bake in slack oven for from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours (or weigh off dough into 1/2 lb. pieces, mould into flat loaves, place on flat tin, cut across diagonally with sharp knife and bake about ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... remaining life, and from the day when I first felt the fascination of that humble printer's workshop, I never ceased to regard myself as in a special degree a child of the printing-press. How delightful were the hours which I and David, the journeyman aforesaid, spent together when business was slack—and it was often slack! Then it was that together we would compose the most wonderful announcements of the great enterprises to which I was to commit myself in after life. Now it was the prospectus of a "genteel academy" of which I was to be the principal, and again it was the announcement ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... in a sudden flash of naive hope a solution of their problem, he tried to take her with him. Making a sling out of a strip of blanket, he passed it about his waist, sat her in the slack, and rose in the air. Thus, holding her beneath the shadow of his wings as in a swing, he flitted about, above the meadow, rising, chuting down in long, smooth slants, circling, soaring. Once he thought he heard from her a slight suppressed cry, and then, after a while, astonished at her silence, ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... night or twain: Nor no delight he hath, no appetite nor mind. But to the wild forest, to hunt the hart or hind, The roebuck, the wild boar, the fallow-deer, or hare: But how poor Ragan shall dine, he hath no care. Poor I must eat acorns or berries from the tree. But if I be found slack in the suit following, Or if I do fail in blowing or hallooing; Or if I lack my staff or my horn by my side: He will be quick enough to fume, chafe, and chide. Am I not well at ease such a master to serve, As must have such service, and yet will let ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... big human creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; his mouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed to move about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; a cap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever, merely an old ragged coat buttoned ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... mart of the world for your desert. And when October comes on, it has one characteristic of spring,—life busily returns to the city; you see the shops bustling up, trade flowing back. As birds scent the April, so the children of commerce plume their wings and prepare for the first slack returns of the season. But November! Strange the taste, stout the lungs, grief-defying the heart, of the visitor who finds charms and joy in a ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the narrow lane Jose unrolled the cord, and I, taking one end in my hand, sat down in the darkness, laying the gag and a strip or two of hide on the ground near me. Jose moved to the other side of the lane, and we let the rope lie slack across the road. Then we waited in silence for the coming of Lurena, feeling confident that he would not leave the house till ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... all and every one of such shall be reputed by us enemies to God and the covenanted work of reformation, and punished as such, according to our power and the degree of their offence.... Let not any think that (our God assisting us) we will be so slack-handed in time coming to put matters in execution as heretofore we have been, seeing we are bound faithfully and valiantly to maintain our covenants and the cause ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... all traitors unto God, and are all under the condemnation of His holy law. Shall the traitor arraign the Judge? And unto the repenting traitor, God's hand falleth not in punishment, but only in loving discipline and fatherly training. You slack not, I count, to give Honor her physic, though she cry that it is bitter and loathsome; nor will God set aside His physic for your Ladyship's crying. Yet, dear my Lady, this is not because He loveth to see you weep, but only because He would heal you of the ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Civil Service which you so adorn Would lose its prestige, visibly grown slack, And all its lofty pledges be forsworn Were you to deviate from your boots of black; Were you to shed that coat of sombre dye, That ebon brain-box (imitation beaver) Whose torrid aspect strikes the passer-by With ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... ship would have miss-stayed under such handling as we have to-day, to say nothing of the clumsy look of it," continued the new captain. "I shouldn't wish to be out in a gale with a crew as slack as ours is ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... always at his side, he could not forego a single pleasure. Sometimes he saw his real position, and made good resolutions, but they came to nothing in his idle, easy life; and the mainspring of will grew slack, and only responded to the heaviest ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... the cricket, of course, unless he finds that it happens to be a slack day in the City," Sarah replied. "As for the polo, well, no one works on Saturday ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flame; The window seemed a furnace door That gave upon a bed of ore; The thunder rumbled out the muttered Words that his failing tongue had uttered— Another flash, a rending crack— The old man crumpled like a sack; I felt his stringy arms go slack. How could he sit so dead, so still! While wind snouts snuffed ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... bow of your boat," I said. He did so. I drew in the slack until a fair towing length remained and made it fast. While he was busy I ventured to glance at Miss Colton. Her eyes were snapping with fun and she seemed to be enjoying the situation. But, catching my look, her expression changed. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... they began to Play. A 3d. Inconvenience is, that oftentimes, if a High-stretch'd small String happen to slip down, 'tis in great danger to break at the next winding up, especially in wet moist weather, and that It have been long slack. The 4th. is, that when a String hath been slipt back, it will not stand in Tune, under many Amendments; for it is continually in stretching itself, till it come to Its highest stretch. A 5th. is, that in the midst of a Consort, All the Company must leave off, because of some Eminent String ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Moggy, with her thick-wicked kitchen candle, to seek repose; and Betty, resolving not to be long behind, waited only 'to wash up her plates' and slack down the fire, having made up her mind, for she grew more nervous in solitude, to share Moggy's bed for ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... workmen generally, as I have said, have worked loyally and well, there have, I regret to say, been instances where absence, irregular timekeeping, and slack work have led to a marked diminution in the output of our factories. In some cases the temptations of drink account for this failure to work up to the high standard expected. It has been brought to my notice on more than one occasion that the restrictions ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... attend to these rules, there will not be any difficulty; but bear one thing in mind, without which you will never put on a bandage even decently; and that is, never to drag or pull at a bandage, but make the turns while it is slack, and you have your right forefinger placed upon the point where it is to be folded down. When a limb is properly bandaged, the folds should run in a line corresponding to the shin-bone. Use, to retain dressings, and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... been the slackest of theatre conductors, the slackest of the slack old school. I may have mentioned that once I had the misfortune to play the piano part in a number of his trios; and though these are the only compositions of his known to me they suffice. A man who had the patience ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... the housebreaking business is slack And cracksmen are finding it slow— For all the seasiders are back And a great many more didn't go— Here's excellent news from the front And joy in Bill Sikes's brigade; Things are looking up since The German CROWN PRINCE Has been giving a fillip ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... both stood on the ground, I took hold of the rope and shook it. I am not generally nervous, but I was a little nervous then. I did not shake the grapnel loose. Then I let the rope go slack, for a foot or two, and gave it a big sweep to one side. To my great delight, over came the grapnel, nearly falling on our heads. I think I saw Maiden's Heart make a grab at it as it came over, but I am not sure. However, he poked ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... Tuscans but in name? Fie! shall a woman scatter you in flight? O, slack! O, never to be stung to shame! What use of weapons, if ye fear to fight? No laggards ye for amorous jousts at night, Or Bacchic revels, when the fife ye hear. The feast and wine-cup—these are your delight; For these ye linger, till the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... had a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn, when the man's hand reached out and clutched him, half by the jowl, half by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no threat in that reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, all-confident, and it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... river, and ready to give a good account of any Spaniard who should venture to sail up the Thames. Then at the end of the next reach the hamlet of Grays was passed on the right; a mile further Greenhithe on the left. Tide was getting slack now, but the Susan managed to get as far as Purfleet, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... bell is of older date than the canon of our church, which directs "that when any is passing out of this life, a bell shall be tolled, and the minister shall not then slack to do his duty. And after the party's death, if it so fall out, then shall be rung no more than ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... on with deliberation, observing closely, yet half-lazily—for his brain was slack and needed rest—the different types about him, musing on the possibilities of their lives, smiling at the gambols of the intent girls, and the impudent frolics of the little boys who seemed the very spawn of sand and sea and sun, till he had nearly passed the harbor, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... anything now wanting to the destruction of the throne, but that the people, not apt to see their own strength, should be put to feel it; when a prince, as stiff in disputes as the nerve of monarchy was grown slack, received that unhappy encouragement from his clergy which became his utter ruin, while trusting more to their logic than the rough philosophy of his Parliament, it came to an irreparable breach; for the house of peers, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... Leather quietly. "It takes some time to sink, for you have only one shot on; but it looks more natural, and it has not yet reached the fish. I think I'd draw in my slack line now, sir, and be ready ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... not better that a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position, have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... these figures apply only to the well-organised trades unions, which, as a rule, comprise the best and most highly-skilled workers in the several trades, who are less likely than others to be thrown out in a "slack time," that the building and season trades are not included in the estimate, and that women's industries, notoriously more irregular than men's, are altogether ignored, it will be evident that these statistics ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... with some smoking platters, inviting us to share in his mess; and I will confess that one gets no venison at sea. Master Western, civility to girls, at your time of life, comes as easy as taking in the slack of the ensign halyards; and if you will just keep an eye to her kid and can, while I join the mess of the Pathfinder and our Indian friends, I make no ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... had found his wharfage and was edging the Belle Julie up to it. The bow men paid out slack, and Griswold and the black, dropping from the swinging stage, trailed the end of the wet hawser up to the nearest mooring-ring. Though haste in making fast is the spring-line man's first duty, Griswold took ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... and thats my native tongue, that if-so-be he is thinking of putting any Johnny Raw over my head, why, I shall resign. I began forrard, Mistress Prettybones, and worked my way aft, like a man. I was six months aboard a Garnsey lugger, hauling in the slack of the lee-sheet and coiling up rigging. From that I went a few trips in a fore-and-after, in the same trade, which, after all, was but a blind kind of sailing in the dark, where a man larns but little, excepting how to steer by the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... smallest of these brooks is influenced by the tide, so that at the two periods of slack water there ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... off, tightened up anew, or paid out as required. Clove hitches, used as illustrated in Fig. 55, and known as the "Waterman's Knot," are often used, with a man holding the free end, for in this way a slight pull holds the knot fast, while a little slack gives the knot a chance to slip without giving way entirely and without exerting any appreciable pull on the man ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room for their ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... hold, rolling the other man over. Thorvald obeyed his pull limply, lying face upward, sand in his hair and eyebrows, crusting his slack lips. The younger man brushed the dirt away gently as the other opened his eyes to regard Shann with his old ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... John Storm did not come. At seven she was ringing at the bell of a little house in St. John's Wood that stood behind a high wall and had an iron grating in the garden door. The bell was answered by a good-natured, slack-looking servant, who was friendly, and even familiar ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... soon brought us out of the high mountains and into a narrow valley when the stream became more moderate in its speed and we floated along easily enough. In a little while after we struck this slack water, as we were rounding a point, I saw on a sand bar in the river, five or six elk, standing and looking at us with much curiosity. I signaled for those behind to go to shore, while I did the same, and two or three ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and limbs, had taken from the celebrated eyry in the neighborhood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied with the attention which had been bestowed on his favourite bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the falconer's lad, whose duty it was to ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the church and held thanksgiving services. A stillness brooded over the town. Life hardly moved; the strands hung slack. Thanksgiving soon changed to revival. Services lasted a week. The ministers preached terrible sermons, burning with terrible words. "Repent before it is too late. Twice God has warned this town." People vowed vows and sang as they had never sung before the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a corpse. The tension is relaxed, the muscles become slack, the resistance of the stomach ceases and the bag of honey is emptied by the robber's vigorous pressure. You see, therefore, that the Philanthus is expressly obliged to inflict a sudden death, which will do away at once ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... principles laid down. Capital which the owner does not employ in purchasing labor, but keeps idle in his hands, is the same thing to the laborers, for the time being, as if it did not exist. All capital is, from the variations of trade, occasionally in this state. A manufacturer, finding a slack demand for his commodity, forbears to employ laborers in increasing a stock which he finds it difficult to dispose of; or if he goes on until all his capital is locked up in unsold goods, then at least he must of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... as he'd be much the better off for that. A foreman, if he's got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... danger lay in stumbling upon some outpost or sentry who might perceive me before I saw him and so cover me with his rifle before challenging, but I knew from observation since my arrival in Cuba that the discipline among the Spanish soldiers was very slack, and I had a pretty firm belief that isolated sentries usually took a nap while waiting ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... said, "you can pull in the slack until you get to the end. Then make it fast to your ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pretty near not paying it, for work has been rather slack this season; but the firm of Ramsay & Son helped me out by paying me promptly for the sails I made for ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... they passed out to sea. "Our rigging is slack. Our decks are lumbered up. Our stores are badly stowed. Our crew is so very mixed that I must stop in Ireland to get more able sea-dogs. Was ever captain ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... relish for his porridge, dashed a handful of salt into it with an instinctive sense that it was his duty as a father to prevent his son enjoying himself. Ruskin's mother gratified the sensual side of her maternal passion, not by cuddling her son, but by whipping him when he fell downstairs or was slack in learning the Bible off by heart; and this grotesque safety-valve for voluptuousness, mischievous as it was in many ways, had at least the advantage that the child did not enjoy it and was not debauched by it, as he would have been ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... despotism. For speaking against Louis Napoleon in an omnibus, a Frenchman was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and men have been exiled for a less offense. The police are everywhere to detect conspiracy or radicalism, but are more slack in reference to the safety of people ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... figures of the musicians now leaned together for a moment. The violins wailed in sad search for the accord, the assistant instrument less tentative. All at once the slack shoulders straightened up firmly, confidently, and then, their feet beating in unison upon the floor, their faces set, stern and relentless, the three musicians fell to the work and ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... tent, and brought out the remainder of the hemp line, the same from which he had cut the bridle. This, he bent on to it, and, giving the end into our hands, bade us go back with it until all the slack was taken up, he, in the meanwhile, steadying the kite. Then, when we had gone back to the extent of the line, he shouted to us to take a very particular hold upon it, and then, stooping, caught the kite by the bottom, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... the squire, "I guess we've been rather slack. I must send my boys over to see how ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... almost without a change of position. For the work was paid for in proportion to its quantity, and the poor people were glad enough when there was so much to do, since there was then just so much more to be earned. There were times when the demand was slack and when Fischelowitz would not keep his people at their tables for more than two or three hours in a day. They might occupy the rest of their time as they could, and earn something in other ways, if they were able. When those hard ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... the balcony, and then descend, taking with him the man on guard at the door. Apportion men and bags in all the boats but one. That one I shall take charge of. Put Greusel in command of the flotilla, and tell him to convey his fleet as quietly as possible to the eastern shore; then paddle up in slack water until he is, say, a third of a league above Pfalz. There he must await my skiff. You will stand by that skiff until I join you. I shall likely be accompanied by three women, so retain the largest and most comfortable ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... where do you look for them? Do you go to the top, or to the bottom?"] I declared that so far was I from agreement with these calumnies, that I was of opinion that those homely and truly English qualities which had to some slight extent grown slack among the upper classes were to be met with in all their strength as much in the more intelligent portion of the now unrepresented classes, as among those familiarly styled "their betters." With regard to the question of the fitness of the artisans for the franchise, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... take his holiday now, in the slack of the London year, and the heat was great! He need not be all day with his father, and the thought of Lufa would be entrancing in the wide solitudes of the moor! Molly he scarce thought of, and his aunt was to be forgotten. He would go for a few days, ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... to grumble about, sir; but I must say that it has been more slack than it was. We have all done our best, but we have missed you terribly; and the men don't seem to take quite as much pains with their drill as they used to do, when you were in command. However, that will be all right now that ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... tilts; The Pagan's shield with painted flowers bedecked Is shattered and his hauberk torn away. Through his heart's core the pennon of the Knight Is driven, bearing death,—or laugh or weep Who may. At such a blow the French exclaim: "Barons, strike ever! Strike and be not slack Against the Pagan hordes; to Carle belongs The right. With us the justice ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... once-precious objects. Men shored up the heavy things and ran planks under them, and then deftly fitted rope slings for them to be lifted by. It was late afternoon by now. Long shadows were slanting as the crane truck's gears whined, and the slack took up, and the first of the four charred objects lifted and swung, spinning slowly, to the truck that had come from ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... an' five horses, on a pint of water an' three cans of tomatoes? When that storm hits it's goin' to be hot. We've just naturally got to make that water-hole! Come on, ride like the devil before she hits, because we're goin' to slack ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx |
