"Tricky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as tricky as Pope himself when it suits his purpose to be so, the Essay on Man was intended to form four books, in which, as part of the general design, the Moral Essays would have been included, as well as Book IV. of the Dunciad, but to have welded these Essays, which were published separately, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... These two Generals, Bourmont and Lecourbe, the two arms of Ney as commander, through whom alone he could communicate with the troops, he not only kept with him, but consulted to the last, before he declared for Napoleon. This would have been too dangerous a thing for a tricky politician to have attempted as a blind, but Ney was well known to be only too frank and impulsive. Had the Due de Berry gone with him, had Ney carried with him such a gage of the intention of the Bourbons to defend their throne, it is probable that he would have behaved ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... but it appears on the whole to be a simple, joyous, irresponsible kind of existence, much such as a party of happy children might lead among exceptionally favourable physical surroundings. Though tricky and mischievous, they are rarely malicious unless provoked by some unwarrantable intrusion or annoyance; but as a body they also partake to some extent of the universal feeling of distrust for man, and they generally seem inclined to resent ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... then," said he, "I shall want to be there to see. In spite of his pudding-bag shape he handles the sword as well as any man in England. I have crossed with him at Angelo's. And he has a devilish tricky record, Richard." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Burris. I got too much of paper in that Con-o-way. Court House. Got more paper in there than the house worth! Have to step to Con-o-way all the time. Struggle and starve myself out for these fifteen acres. Thirty miles to Con-o-way. Thirty miles back by the course I travels. All them tricky mens try to go and get old Ben's land sign to 'em. That's the mainest thing take me to Con-o-way every week. They all talk so sugar mouth till my name down; then when my name write is another thing. When I in too much trouble, I just has to step up to Con-o-way and see Mr. Burris. He's ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... quite well that such matters did not settle themselves, but he seems to have imagined that all he had to do was to sit tight and that matters would have to come his way. The tricky and shuffling behavior to which he descended would be unbelievable of a man of his standing were there not an authentic record made by himself. The suspense finally became so intolerable that the Cabinet acted without consulting the President any longer on the ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... of Chesapeake Bay have built out a shoal which, if you remember your chart, you will recall juts out in the bay over nine miles from the land. The same tides had scoured Smith's Island on the other hand—port side going out of the bay, but there are some nasty rocks in the channel. It's a tricky spot, that Smith's Point Shoal, and many a good vessel has gone ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... question, not knowing exactly what sort of a prize or blank answer he may draw. What the gypsy meant effectively was, "How do you account to the Gorgios for knowing so much about us, and talking with us? Our life is as different from yours as possible, and you never acquired such a knowledge of all our tricky ways as you have just shown without much experience of us and a double life. You are related to us in some way, and you deceive the Gorgios about it. What is your little game of ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... All his life he had been nursing a devil, feeding it on religion, clothing it in self-righteousness, so carefully touching up its toilet that it passed for saint rather than devil—especially in his own eyes, trained as they were in self-deception. For every action, mean or illiberal or tricky or downright cruel, he had a justificatory text; for his few defeats a constant salve in the thought that his vanquishers were carnal men, sons of Belial, and would find, themselves in hell some day. He was Dives or Lazarus as occasion served. If a plan miscarried, the Lord ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Well, it'll be tricky, but I think I can pull it off. I'm going to take him around and show him that we do take care of the widow and the orphan, and hope that he assumes we are as solicitous toward the rest of his ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... found a friend in charge of the dump there, and he let me draw what I wanted, so I turned back to try to get to the bridge by dark. One car after another got in trouble; first it was a puncture, then it was a tricky carburetor that refused to be put to rights; towing-ropes were called into requisition, but the best had been left behind, and those we had were rotted, and broke on every hill. Lastly a broken axle put one of ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... a baleful glare. "You should ask—with as much experience as both of us have had with these tricky motors. I choked it down, that's all. That same little fault has sent many a pilot home in a wooden box. Go get me a piece of that wire. We'll fix the skid, somehow, and when I get to Le Bourget I'll set her down on two points. And listen! ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... on this point; but Shannon, seeing that he was later to prosecute Stener himself for this very crime of embezzlement, and that Steger would soon follow in cross-examination, was not willing to let him be hazy. Shannon wanted to fix Cowperwood in the minds of the jury as a clever, tricky person, and by degrees he certainly managed to indicate a very subtle-minded man. Occasionally, as one sharp point after another of Cowperwood's skill was brought out and made moderately clear, one juror or another turned to ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... he said to himself. "Won't Thomas Smith, who's got no name to sign to a piece of paper, won't he just cuss when it's all did! It's worth my little loss just to get something dead on him. The tricky thief!" ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... in another way; then came a long spell of plucky cricket, a stand not masterly but dogged and judicious, in which many a ball outside the off-stump was allowed to pass unmolested, and a few were unfortunate in just beating the edge of the bat. On the tricky wicket Teddy's work was cut out for him, and beautifully he did it. It was a treat to see his lithe form crouching behind the bails, to rise next instant with the rising ball; his great gloves were always in the right ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... between a cough and a laugh. "Oh, he's a lady-killer, all right! The girls in here are always making eyes at him. You won't be the first." He threw some sheets of music on the piano. "Better look that over; accompaniment's a little tricky. It's for that new woman from Detroit. And Mrs. Priest will be in ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... in this matter much in the style of a tricky Van Buren politician, making a great bluster of words, and privately intending to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the Van Buren ticket, and it is quite likely that the expenses of the campaign had exhausted his funds. That he should never have paid the bet was ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... his tricky curves so well that puny Cedarville was beaten by the contemptuous score of seventeen ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... out. Anyhow, those punks are way overrated. Tricky, maybe, and they lie good. They'd rather bump you off than ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... God of the Hohenzollern will prove to you before long that your power and your might, those rocks of bronze, are no more in His hands than a feather tossed in the wind; He will show you that a tricky horse can unseat you, regardless of your dignity, when you take your favourite ride, the road to Peacock island, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... pray? Am I to withdraw because you have been discarded? Why should I not borrow from this tricky young ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... great canal, with Panama only fifteen miles away. However, in 1849 and for many years afterward, the Panama Canal across the Isthmus was not visible to the eye. There was no Gatun Lake and no Culebra Cut; there was only the beautiful, tricky Chagres River, flowing between its high jungly banks and divided, above Gorgona, where the Obispo entered.) So the canoe carrying Charley and his party turned south up the Chagres, and toiled on, amidst rugged green walls, to ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... a way of finding out about the ball before it takes place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at six-thirty, for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to get begun half an ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... legislator, "it's tricky—deuced tricky. The nastiest lot of irregular verbs I've come across yet. Still, I get along all right. Worst of it is, you know, that when I've got a sentence out all right with its verbs and things, I'm not in a fit state to catch ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... frequently placed slantwise across the roads, where sentries stood with fixed bayonets, and through which no one could pass unless the laisser passer was produced. Some of those barriers were quite tricky affairs to drive through in a big ambulance, and reminded me of a gymkhana! It was quite usual in those days to be stopped by a soldier waiting on the road, who, with a gallant bow and salute, asked your permission to "mount behind" and ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... smoked like a ham, fer all these tricky bordermen," roared Legget. Drawing his knife he hacked at the heavy buckskin hinges of the rude door. When it dropped free he measured it against the open space. Sheathing the blade, he grasped his rifle in his right hand and swung the door ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... Even so, I cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the average ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... were already living on borrowed time. Before the War, ten of eleven exploration ships sent into the galactic center had disappeared without a trace. Somewhere, buried deep in the billions of stars that formed the galactic hub, was a race that was as tough and tricky as we were—maybe even tougher. This was common knowledge, for the eleventh ship had returned with the news of the aliens, a story of hairbreadth escape from destruction, and a pattern of their culture which was enough like ours to frighten any thinking man. The worlds ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... foreign policy Cromwell was irresolute, vacillating and tricky. "A study of the foreign policy of the Protectorate," writes Mr. Gardiner, "reveals a distracting maze of fluctuations. Oliver is seen alternately courting France and Spain, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... be able to go, then?' Quentin asked. This accidental magic was, he perceived, a tricky thing, and ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... wench.' In 'crafty' and 'cunning' no crooked wisdom was implied, but only knowledge and skill; 'craft,' indeed, still retains very often its more honourable use, a man's 'craft' being his skill, and then the trade in which he is skilled. 'Artful' was skilful, and not tricky as now. [Footnote: Not otherwise 'leichtsinnig' in German meant cheerful once; it is frivolous now; while in French a 'rapporteur' is now a bringer back of malicious reports, the malicious having little by little found ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... you send the answering message at the enemy's head. If you have great luck a faint groan or a distant shout of pain may reward your efforts; but you can never be quite sure whether you have got home on your rival or not. Loophole shooting is very tricky, and the very best shots fire by the hour in vain. I have seen ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the gasoline motor is the most fascinating machine of all. It possesses the subtle attraction of caprice; it constantly offers something to overcome; as in golf, you start out each time to beat your own record. The machine is your tricky and resourceful opponent. When you think it conquered and well-broken to harness, submissive and resigned to your will, behold it is as obstinate as a mule,—balks, kicks, snorts, puffs, blows, or, what is worse, refuses to kick, snort, puff, and blow, but stands ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... "Die kuenstliche Beschraenkung der Kinderzahl" (The Artificial Limitation of Progeny)[235] claims that Socialism is playing a tricky manoeuvre by its opposition to Malthusianism: a rapid increase of population promotes mass proletarianization, and this, in turn, promotes discontent: if over-population is successfully checked, the spread of Socialism would be done for, and its Socialist State, together with all ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... you never ran before. Get the men here. Have them rush Wallace's cage here. Be careful until you get out. Those people have locked us in. I shouldn't dare open the door anyway, now, for he'd catch us before we could get out. I know the ways of these tricky cats." ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... rather than known,—that there is a queer strain of mysticism in Gorman. His arid common sense, his politics, his rhetoric, his tricky money-making, are the outside, visible things about him. Behind them, deep down, seldom seen, is a strange, emotional love for his country. When Ascher spoke as he did about the claim of patriotism Gorman understood. The innermost part of the man was reached. ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... eight miles north of here, and it would cost a hundred thousand dollars, if not more, to build a dam and a canal along the mountain side. No, sir; that appropriation was just some more of Menocal's tricky work! He jammed it through the land office thirty years ago and, they say, never did any more to comply with the law requiring delivery of the water on this ground than to have a man drive around pouring a bucketful out of a barrel ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... hour into a thrilling experience. He was a handsome man with gray hair, dark eyes, and a magnificent voice. He taught poetry almost entirely by reading it, only occasionally interpolating an explanatory remark, and he read beautifully. His reading was dramatic, almost tricky; but it made the poems live for his students, and ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... because he knows the joinings and the difficulties of them, and these nevertheless afford us some pleasure, because they test the sharpness of our wits, and engross, our attention; so also these questions, which seem subtle and tricky, prevent our intellects becoming careless and lazy, for they ought at one time to have a field given them to level, in order that they may wander about it, and at another to have some dark and rough passage thrown in ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Rambouillet's men to the stable where the deaf man's bay was standing, bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and bring the horse to the south gate; my intention being to mount one of my men on it, and furnish the woman with a less tricky steed. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of publicity he needed now that he was wire-pulling for an inspectorship. They had caught the man "with the goods"—that was very clear. He promised himself to attend to the rest. Conviction was what he was after. He'd see that no tricky lawyer got the best of him. Concealing, as well as he could, his satisfaction, he drew himself up and, with blustering show of authority, immediately took command of the situation. Turning to a police sergeant ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... than that other greater one; for on top of an open ridge, a short distance west of us, we saw a solitary horse, tethered, and feeding composedly, as if he had nothing to fear out here amongst the hills. Part of us keep our eyes upon him, lest his tricky owner should get the alarm and remove him; whilst others plunge into the coppice which fills the intervening hollow, and soon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... is it that all girls are so tricky?" Dan asked himself savagely, taking it for granted that all girls are "tricky" ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... is right, for even instances like these are not many, and the tricky neatness of Ovid is nowhere to be found in the ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... common impression that the Indian is naturally cruel and revengeful is entirely opposed to his philosophy and training. The revengeful tendency of the Indian was aroused by the white man. It is not the natural Indian who is mean and tricky; not Massasoit but King Philip; not Attackullakulla but Weatherford; not Wabashaw but Little Crow; not Jumping Buffalo but Sitting Bull! These men lifted their hands against the white man, while their fathers held theirs out to him ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... was movin' into action, they was needed very sore, To learn a little schoolin' to a native army corps, They 'ad nipped against an uphill, they was tuckin' down the brow, When a tricky, trundlin' roundshot give ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... in turn. "I'd much prefer going to some place where I was less sure of meeting you," I retorted; "and as for the cowboys, you'll have to be as tricky with them as you want to be with me before you'll get them to back you up in your ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... upon reaching Lochias, would certainly not have taken place on any more fortunate day, or, to be more exact, if he had been in a calmer frame of mind; he himself alone was in fault, he alone, and no spiteful accident, nor malicious and tricky Daimon. Hadrian, to be sure, attributed to these sprites all that he had done, and so considered it irremediable; an excellent way, no doubt, of exonerating oneself from a burdensome duty, or from repairing some injustice, but conscience is a register ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... must educate him. Remember his success means your success, his failure, your failure. If you were in charge of a highly complicated machine, you would not allow it to be ruined by careless misuse. You may have married a healthy animal, but animals are tricky and uncertain. He is still your lover and he will do anything reasonable for you, if you "go about it in the right spirit and in the right way." Be sure you "go about it in the right way." Be tactful, be patient, don't nag. Don't tell him of his faults, simply ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... something held Ward's finger from crooking on the trigger; the man had his back turned squarely toward the gun. Ward waited. The man did not move. He waited another minute, and then he opened his lips to shout. And when his lips parted for the call that would bring the fellow facing him, Ward's tricky brain snapped before his eyes the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... and caused a stampede among their inhabitants. A dozen portly matrons sat in the sand, rocking to and fro as the wave came up about them and receded; and children innumerable pranced around them, playing tag with the tricky surf that ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... made very tricky indeed, but when they are used by secret police...." Bors allowed himself to rage for a moment only, at the idea of that kind of terrorism practiced by a government on its supposed citizens. It would be intended to enforce ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... has performed this feat for about the tenth time, he concludes that it was madness for him, a mere raw amateur at the business, to think that he could manage a complicated, tricky bed of this sort, that must take even an experienced man all he knows to sleep in it; and gets out and camps on ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... lower than fourteen or to raise wages to what was necessary for a man to have if he and his family were to live, not in decency and comfort, but in something less than squalor. She did not put the question because she wished to spare her father—to spare herself the shame of hearing his tricky answer—to spare herself the discomfort of squarely facing a ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... of the forest, as a protection against the spread of fire. Then there would be timber to scale and a hundred other things to be looked after. To safeguard the state's interests would require both experience and determination should the timber operators wish to be tricky. Mr. Marlin intended that Charley, as a reward for the fine spirit he was showing, should handle the lumber operation in his own district entirely alone, just as a full-fledged ranger would do. It was ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... interpreter at the fort, I secured a crew to man it. But oh, what worry and annoyance it was! These Great Slave Lake Indians are like a lot of spoiled and petulant children, with the added weakness of adult criminals; they are inconsistent, shiftless, and tricky. Pike, Whitney, Buffalo Jones, and others united many years ago in denouncing them as the most worthless and contemptible of the human race, and since then they have considerably deteriorated. There are exceptions, however, as will be ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... episcopal duties which wearied him to disgust. Every day he had to listen to parties in dispute and give judgment. Following recent Imperial legislation, the bishop became judge in civil cases—a tiresome and endless work in a country where tricky quibbling raged with obstinate fury. The litigants pursued Augustin, overran his house, like those fellahs in dirty burnous who block our law-courts with their rags. In the secretarium of the basilica, or under the portico of the court leading to the ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... prove unavailing. Ask concerning a man, "Is he active and capable?" Yes. "Industrious, temperate, and regular in his habits?" O Yes. "Is he honest? is he trustworthy?" Why, as to that, I am sorry to say that he is not to be trusted; he wants watching; he is a little tricky, and will take an undue advantage, ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... is a new English face designed by Mr. C. R. Ashbee for a prayerbook for the King. Interesting as it is, it seems in many ways too extreme and eccentric to be wholly satisfactory: the very metal of type would seem to postulate a less "tricky" treatment. ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... it is ever politic for a playwright to keep a secret from his audience is discussed elsewhere. What I have here in mind is not an ordinary secret, but a more or less tricky effect ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... think that I was stupid enough not to take her address, but probably she would have lied about it. Those creatures are always tricky," snarled the superintendent. ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... vibration, like the air trembling to vast organ pipes in diapasons too profound to reach the ear as sound: one felt, not heard, thunder in the ground under one's feet. The succession of diplomatic Notes came to an end after the torpedoing of the Sussex; and at last the tricky ruling Germans in Berlin gave their word to murder no more, and people said, "This means peace for America, and all is well for us," but everybody knew in his heart that nothing was well for us, that there was ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... saint, and believes it. She made me believe it for a little while,—her beautiful, impossible dream-philosophy of the river. The river,—hell!—the river is as treacherous and cruel and false and tricky and crooked as life itself! And I am as warped and twisted in mind and soul as you are in body, Judy, dear. Neither of us can help it. We were made that way by the river. To hell with the whole impossible mess of things!" With a gesture of violent rage, he turned toward the river, ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... also indicate in many cases such attributes as [hua] hua "tricky," [heng] hen, "aggressive," [meng] meng "fierce," ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... "A boorjoo, a tricky young man, in league with the priests," he said, and again his stamp came down upon the paper, and again the paper went across the table into the portfolio ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... gloomily. "They say that Terry's been practicing with a pair of French pistols during the past two months and hopes to use them at the meeting. Old 'Natchez,' the gunsmith, tells me one's a tricky weapon ... discharges now and then before the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... The facts of our history, ideal and social, will be grand and of new import; it is perfectly natural to the American to mould in clay and carve in stone. The permanence of material and solid, relief in the forms correspond to the positiveness of his nature better than the mere ephemeral and even tricky methods of the painter,—to his need of motion and action, better than the chambered scribbling of the poet. He will thus record his best experiences, and these records will adorn the noble structures that must naturally arise for the public uses of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... sprang forward and embraced his prospective host, and five minutes later was speeding to his ship, the bearer of glad news. For, behold, where he thought to meet an enemy, devious and tricky, he had encountered instead, a ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... responsible,—the details are somewhat cumbrous. Now in one of these charges some of us captured a number of the opposing force, among them a young lieutenant. Why this particular capture should have impressed me so I cannot tell, but memory is a tricky thing. A large red fox scared up from his lair by the fight at Castleman's Ferry stood for a moment looking at me; and I shall never forget the stare of that red fox. At one of our fights near Kernstown a spent bullet struck a horse ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... arm of coincidence almost too far, but they did not say so; in fact, they both thought it wiser to abstain from any comment at all. The next hole was some three hundred and fifty yards, with several extremely tricky hazards, but, contrary to all reasonable expectations, both King Sidney and the Marshal distinguished themselves ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... ten minutes the Grand Duke Vodkakoff had been engaged, subject to his approval, at a weekly four hundred and fifty by the Stone-Rafferty circuit. And in a quarter of an hour Solly Quhayne, having pushed his way through a mixed crowd of Tricky Serios and Versatile Comedians and Patterers who had been waiting to see him for the last hour and a half, was bowling off in a taximeter-cab to the Russian lines ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... ready, his teeth clenched, his hands bare for contest. Even although he surprised his antagonist, it was going to be a fight for life; he knew "Black Bart," broad-shouldered, quick as a cat, accustomed to every form of physical exercise, desperate and tricky, using either knife or gun recklessly. Yet it was now or never for all of them, and the plainsman felt no mercy, experienced no reluctance. He reached the table, and straightened up, silent, expectant. For an instant there was no further sound; no evidence of movement in the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... of the moment did make some demands upon her attention. It had a disconcerting way of changing from sharps to flats; trouble being caused by the singer failing to change also. Cecilia took her through it patiently, going over and over again the tricky passages, and devoutly wishing that Providence in supplying her stepmother with boundless energy, a tireless voice and an enormous stock of songs, had also equipped her with an ear for music. At length the ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... her cherished and determined ambition to ride Dale's mustang, and she was furious. The mustang did not appear to be vicious or mean. But he was spirited, tricky, mischievous, and he had thrown her six times. The scene of Bo's defeat was at the edge of the park, where thick moss and grass afforded soft places for her to fall. It also afforded poor foothold for the gray mustang, obviously placing him at a disadvantage. Dale ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... for good. I know you haven't liked a great deal you have had to do. I know that you much prefer to sit before your study fire and read than sit in saloons. I know that you would rather keep away from tricky people than to ask or take their help. But you have sacrificed your own feelings and principles because you felt that they were not to be considered if you could help others. And, because people have laughed at you or misunderstood, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... how a deliberating assembly ought to conduct its debates, and the disclosures and revelations of official secrecy and confidence have been monstrous. Thiers has all along been playing a false, shuffling, tricky part, and at last he got so entangled in the meshes of his own policy, and so confused by the consequences of his double dealing, that he evidently did not know what to do; and the King had no difficulty in getting him out of a Government that ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... other two powers. The English minister, Lord Castlereagh, finally persuaded the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians, to allow the French diplomat, Talleyrand, to take part in their final meetings. Now Talleyrand was probably the most slippery and tricky diplomat of all Europe. He had grown to power during the troublous days of the latter part of the French Revolution, and had guessed which party would remain in power so skillfully that he always appeared as the strong friend of the winning ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... He switched the teleceiver screen on to the more powerful magnascope and studied the surface of the small celestial body. He saw a deep valley with a flat hard surface set between two tall cliffs. It would be a tricky spot for a landing, but it looked like the best place available. Tom snapped open ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... and when he faltered that she could not possibly care for him, she reassured him so vaguely as to fill him with wild gusts of hope and herself with a sense of pledges. He told her one day between two sets of tennis—which he played with a certain tricky skill—that he felt that the very highest happiness he could ever attain would be to die at her feet. Presently her pity and her sense of responsibility had become so large and deep that the dream hero with the blue eyes was largely ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... landed in another time-track. One that is parallel to—but just a slight bit different from the one you formerly knew. To you, we seem to be the same officers as in that world; but of course, we're not. It isn't the same universe. Hyperspace is tricky stuff, as our men are finding out. You've just got bounced around by one of the ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... Cow had always heard that the Fox family was terribly sly and tricky. Still, Tommy was most polite. Really, she ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "A bit tricky but not too difficult," he replied. "It's mostly a job of adapting the sonarphone arrangement from ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... skill in his hands. He righted the rocket, balanced it. Began the tricky task of landing. It took all of his talent, all of his training. Ponderously, the ship settled into the iron sand; slowly, the ...
— The Hills of Home • Alfred Coppel
... long desks ranged along the walls, With books and inkstands crowned; Here on this side the large girls sat, And there the tricky boys on that— See! how they ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... believe in them. Do you remember how you divorced your wife? It's nearly twenty years ago, and I dare say you have forgotten it all; but I remember it as though I'd divorced you yesterday. Good Lord, what a lot of worry I had over it! I was a sharp fellow, tricky and cunning, a desperate character. . . . Sometimes I was burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially if the fee were a good one, as, for instance, in your case. What did you pay me then? Five or six thousand! That was worth taking trouble for, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... petticoats round about. It was not unnatural, then, that my father, with his peculiar turn of mind, should set me down as being partially insane. I had also manufactured several very highly-colored verses in praise of Cape Cod; and these my publisher, who was by no means a tricky man, said had made a great stir in the literary world. And his assertion I found confirmed by the critics, who, with one accord, and without being paid, declared these verses proof that the author ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... trust the Algerian girls," observed Captain Barbassou sententiously! "They're as tricky ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Paris placed your country in no tricky attitude of endeavoring either to evade or repudiate just obligations. They recognized the duty of reimbursement for debts legitimately incurred for pacific improvements or otherwise, for the real benefit of the transferred territory. Not ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... on this principle. Whatever resemblance Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any idea of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his moral qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... I love it, Ronnie," she said, "and there are no difficult intervals to play with your eyes shut. I thought it was rather clever of me to think of it. I shall soon be able to play more tricky things. It will cure me of looking at the notes when I can ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... all the two-year-olds" in that first lesson, spent all evening handling them, and the Quarters looked on as he tested their tempers, for although most proved willing, yet a few were tricky or obstinate. All evening he sat, poring over the tiny Primer, amid a buzzing swarm of mosquitoes, with the doggedness all gone from his face, and in its place the light of a fair fight, and, to no one's ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... and essayed extenuation. "It was—er—unworthy of me, of course; foolish—pig-headed—tricky, I suppose. I got mad. I'd nothing to sell, and the declaration is a farce when they examine after it. So I left them to find what they chose. I'm terribly sorry, for you seem to hate it so. But it's an idiotic ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... back the next day, as most desert dwellers did. He hurried through with his business, filled up with gas and oil, loaded on an extra can of each, strapped his box of dynamite upon the seat beside him where he could keep an eye on it—just as if that would do any good if the tricky stuff meant to blow up!—and started back at three in the afternoon. He would be half the night getting to camp, even though he was Casey Ryan and drove a mean Ford. But he would be there, ready to start work at sunrise. A man who is going to marry a widow with two children had best hurry up ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... brothers. They are too tricky. But how about Hal Crane? He is always interested in our troop doings, and besides he's a good scout himself. I think I ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... been tricky again. Once out of sight of the guard, he made not for the Space Symphony, but for the Long Ranger, bound ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... did. You know how she acted; she had made up her mind she wouldn't go. Only she was tricky about it. She knew I had my eye on her, so she got this priest to ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... number of prizes were offered by individual members. The contention was that the light tackle specified was too light. This is absolutely a mistake. I have proved that the regulation Tuna Club nine-thread line and six-ounce tip are strong enough, if great care and skill be employed, to take the tricky, hard-jawed, ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... dead, he had left two sons behind him, every whit as cunning and tricky as their father. The elder of the two was a fine handsome creature, who had a pleasant manner and made many friends. The animal he saw most of was a hyena; and one day, when they were taking a walk together, they picked up a beautiful green cloak, which ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... I changed my dripping garments for dry ones, but waited long for the broken-down motor to lift me again finally to pure air. In the days that followed I was advanced to the rank of car-boss in this same level, and found enough to do and more in keeping the tricky car-men moving. A favorite ruse was to tip over a car on its way to the chute and to grunt and groan over it for a half-hour pretending to lift it back on the rails; or to tuck away far back in some abandoned ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... he seems to regard the pictures which deviate from the great general principle of colorists rather as "tours de force" than as sources of pleasure; and I do not think there is any instance of his having worked out one of these tricky pictures with thorough affection, except only in the case of the "Marriage of Cana." By tricky pictures, I mean those which display light entering in different directions, and attract the eye to the effects rather ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... few sleeps—they tell him—he will reach the Sweet Water Sea. The news is welcome; for the voyageurs are down to short rations, and launch eagerly westward on the stream draining Nipissing Lake—French River. This is a tricky little stream in whose sands lie buried the bodies of countless French voyageurs. It is more dangerous going with rapids than against them; for the hastening current is sometimes an undertow, which sweeps the canoes into the rapids ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... beyond the Khatkan to the barren ground where leopard and rock ape had ceased to be. "This magic is a tricky thing, sir. It builds and feeds upon a man's own imagination and inner fears. Lumbrilo, having triggered ours, need not strive at all, but let us ourselves raise that ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... slightly. The eyes were turned away, but the Secretary knew they were blue and that there was something in the face which appealed to strong men for protection. He shook his head slowly. The tricky little god was making sport of him, James Sefton, the invincible, and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Eucharist," and a misguided personage named Orsel, splashed out the gaudy decorations of the "Chapel of the Virgin." The whole edifice glares at the spectator like a badly-managed limelight, and the tricky, glittering, tawdry effect blisters one's very soul. But here may be seen many little select groups out of the hell of Paris,—fresh from the burning as it were, and smelling of the brimstone,—demons who enjoy their demonism,—satyrs, concerning whom, one feels that their polished boots are cleverly ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Ralph," said the new chauffeur, quietly, "you and Bones come along after, and leave my gun and the ducks at my house. I'll be home long before you get there, I reckon, unless this old machine takes a notion to be tricky again and ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... moment that your suspicions are aroused, you ought to be like a man mounted on a tricky horse, who always watches the ears of the beast, in fear of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... (p. 307) "is peculiar only to some workmen, and not to all the nations of these islands, and the same thing happens also in our own country among cobblers, tailors, and other deceitful and tricky workmen." ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... through the tall cover grass, and Travis tensed. Mba'a—coyote? Or were these companions of his actually ga-n, spirits who could choose their shape at will and had, oddly, this time assumed the bodies of man's tricky enemy? Were they ndendai—enemies—or dalaanbiyat'i, allies? In this mad ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... up eggs for breakfast, but here are other things," he mutters as he rummages in his market-basket. "That memory of mine is pretty tricky; sometimes I can't remember things any better than I can find them when they are right under my nose. I've just found a line from Emerson that I've been hunting for two days—'The worm striving to be man.' I looked my Emerson through and through, and no worm; then I found ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... bureau issues the most alarming reports as to the frightfulness of the defences here I was agreeably surprised at the ease with which we passed. Von Weissman, to whom I had hinted that we might find the passage tricky, rather laughed at my suggestion, and described to me his method, which, at all events, has ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... am I? But I prefer the bright morning; moonlight's a tricky, elusive thing, apt to dazzle and mislead one. However, does Mrs. Chudleigh intend to remain long? She looks ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... means, even when he is joking, and it generally means that the people he is talking to ought to howl aloud for their sins. But the average representative of them undoubtedly treats the Shavian meaning as tricky and complex, when it is really direct and offensive. He always accuses Shaw of pulling his leg, at the exact moment when Shaw is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... speaker—"so don't ye go settin' store by it. Lord, Lord! to think o' Farmer Jocelyn bein' gone! Seems as if a right 'and 'ad bin cut off! Onny yesterday I met 'im drivin' along the road at a tearin' pace, with Ned Landon sittin' beside 'im—an' drivin' fine too, for the mare's a tricky one with a mouth as 'ard as iron—but 'e held 'er firm—that 'e did!—no weakness about 'im—an' 'e was talkin' away to Landon while 'e drove, 'ardly lookin' right or left, 'e was that sure of hisself. An' now 'e's cold as stone—who ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the heads of railroads met to agree on rates which by discriminating against one locality in favour of another crushed out competition, raised the cost to the consumer, and put millions in the pockets of the Trust. Here were planned tricky financial operations, with deliberate intent to mislead and deceive the investing public, operations which would send stocks soaring one day, only a week later to put Wall Street on the verge of panic. Half ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... who had been taken prisoners swore that no fleet could ever get through the Traverse, a tricky bit of water thirty miles below Quebec. But, in the course of the summer, the British sailing masters, who had never been there before, themselves took two hundred and seventy-seven vessels right through it with greater ease in squadrons than any French-Canadian ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the coming performance and mentally rehearsing her part. It was not really difficult, but it was tricky, for unless she sprang through the paper-covered hoops at just the right moment, it would be an awkward blunder. However, after many rehearsals, she felt pretty sure of herself, and looked forward with pleasure to ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... the aunts you're looking for, Bob," he said briefly, when he was in possession of the facts. "Couldn't be many families of that name around here, not unless they were related. Do you know, there's a lot of that tricky business afoot right here in Flame City? People have lost their heads over oil, and the sight of a handful of bills drives them crazy. The Watterby farm is one of the few places that hasn't been rushed by oil prospectors. That's one ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... water into streams of wealth—fleecy cotton, luscious fruit and melons, food and clothes. And what nice people lived out here. The Chinamen who worked in the field, quaint and friendly and faithful. Even the Mexicans with their less industrious and more tricky habits were warm hearted and courteous. That serenading Madrigal was very interesting—and handsome. He had fire in him; perhaps dangerous fire, but what a contrast to the vapid white-collared clerks or professors in the prim little eastern town ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... trivial questions, gentlemen, all those tricky questions!" cried Mitya enthusiastically. "Or there's simply no knowing where we shall get to! ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened circumstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's character ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... visit to Lord and Lady Salisbury, at Hatfield. Bishop Wilberforce was there and had opportunity to observe his old and honored friend in the first flush of his new dignity. Here are his comments: "Gladstone, as ever, great, earnest, and honest; as unlike the tricky Disraeli as possible." To Dr. Trench the Bishop wrote: "The nation has decided against our establishment, and we bow to its decision, and on what tenure and conditions it is to be held, remains confessedly open." ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... he punched it out. One of those tricky special Company combinations. Kurt Borch appeared in ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... fish: quotations very high; business nil, or next door to it. Our bay however, by a fortunate freak of the weather, has been amply calm for our little undecked drifters, though squalls off land have made sailing tricky in the extreme. We have seen the snow on the distant hills but none has fallen here. We have had the ground-swell, rolling in from outside, but of ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... of being ashamed of his ailments he tries to describe as many as he can think of. His specific complaint may be a touch of sciatica, but he takes pleasure in recalling a bad habit of breathing through the mouth in moments of excitement, and a tricky memory which often leads him to carry about his wife's letters an entire week before mailing them. The need for a certain amount of self-castigation is implanted in all of us, and it is satisfied in the form of confession. Many people do it as part of their religious beliefs. Others belabour ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... Bois-Guilbert, "I will speak as freely as ever did doting penitent to his ghostly father, when placed in the tricky confessional.—Rebecca, if I appear not in these lists I lose fame and rank—lose that which is the breath of my nostrils, the esteem, I mean, in which I am held by my brethren, and the hopes I have of succeeding to that mighty authority, which is now wielded by the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... "that you know too much." "No, no! I don't know half enough; I know only what Miss Camilla and—and—Gholson could tell me," was my tricky reply, and I tried to look straight into her eyes, but they took that faint introspective contraction of which I have spoken, and gazed through me like sunlight through glass. Then again she bent her glance ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable |
