"Work off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride for penance; and incidentally"—an irrepressible little smile crept round the corners of the Bishop's mouth, and twinkled in his eyes—"incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise. Ah me!" said the Bishop, "that is ever the Divine method. Punishments should be remedial, as well as deterrent. There is much stiffness of mind ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... defender of the national honor" one day, and "a brutal and licentious soldiery" the next, you naturally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off on him; and nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not always know what ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... a rage, you are beside yourself, and are glad to meet a friend, that you may work off ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... full Possession of the Field of Battle;—where, 'tis certain, he will keep every Body a League off, and may pop by himself till he is weary: Besides, as Trim seems bent upon purging himself, and may have Abundance of foul Humours to work off, I think he cannot ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... there wasn't much left to tell her about the Castle or the Castle Rock. When I began to work off my erudition by mentioning the name of Edwin, for whom Edinburgh was named, and who made it a royal borough in ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... kinder climbin' up for some days. Well, you go an' sleep it off. Do you good. I'll have my pipe, an' then I'll mog round an' see 'f I can't work off a few bottles on the ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... inevitable, and when a nation has no surrounding nations to fight, it will, as we have just proved, fight itself. When it can have no foreign war, it will get up a domestic war; for the human animal, like all animals, must work off in some way its fighting humor, and the only sure way of maintaining peace is always to be prepared for war. A regular standing army of forty thousand men would have prevented the Mexican war, and an army of fifty thousand ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... both of us something in our old selves which we must work off. You will work off your something by repose, and I must work off mine, if I can, by moving about. So I am on my travels. May we both have new selves better than the old selves, when we again shake hands! For your part try your best, dear ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all you know. Better wait till the money's in your hand before you run into extravagance piling up debts for us to work off later. I guess it's a true saying that if you put a beggar on horseback, he'll ride to ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... haste since he was unable to repay this courtesy with the most trifling purchase; such slight matters annoyed Kirkwood intensely. Perhaps it was well for him that he had the long walk to help him work off the fit of nervous exasperation into which he was plunged every time his thoughts harked back to that jovial black-guard, Stryker.... He was quite calm when, after a brisk walk of some fifteen minutes, he ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... "I wish you to be reminded that I gave you eight shares to work off when you joined me. I fear you allow your national love of money to lure you ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... on needle, pull up a loop through 1st and 3d stitches of preceding row, take up the yarn, and draw through the 3 loops on the needle at once, chain 1 to close the cluster, * draw up a loop in same place with last and another in 3d stitch, work off ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... cow. Not that she'd be likely to trade to any great extent. What say? She'd buy as much as that last woman did? That's so, hossy; you're right there. But we ain't complainin', you and me, I want you to understand. We've done real well this trip, and before we get our little oats to-night we'll work off every stick in the whole concern, you see if we don't, and have money to put in the bank, io, money to put in the bank. Gitty up, you hossy!" He flourished his whip round the brown horse's head ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Walpurga sat side by side plying their oars in perfect time. It did them both good to have some employment which would enable them to work off ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... tell you something, Dick," the secretary answered, firmly. "Don't you work off all your dyspeptic ideas in this neighborhood. My Senator is a great man. They can't appreciate him up here because he's honest—crystal clear. I used to think I knew what a decent citizen, a real man, ought to be, but he's taught me some new ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... altogether. We no want too much rain now. After Christmas plenty." Tom asserts that the deeper the pool in which the "mil-gar" is submerged the heavier and more continuous the downpour; but as heavy rain is not liked, only vindictive boys who have some spite to work off indulge in such wanton interference with the ordinary course of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... that, perhaps, with your kind assistance, we might work off some of the blocks that have been left on our hands under the unfortunate circumstances I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... my operatives happened to have a relative in Antomir, a women's tailor who wished to emigrate to America, I would advance him the passage money, with the understanding that he was to work off ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Hannah was of the opinion that the boy had been converted at Mr. Scott's series of special meetings at Christmas time, but Jake, having been a boy himself, shook his head, and said it was likely just a spell he had taken with the cold weather, and it would work off when the summer came, like Joey's whooping-cough. But, strange to say, Tim went no more abroad with Davy Munn on lawless expeditions. Sawed-Off Wilmott and the young Lochinvar from Glenoro came regularly, on alternate evenings, to see Ella Anne Long, and ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... could see the people wanted to sing or cry, or dance, or something, to work off their emotions; so I signalled to Bessie Cowan, who is one of our best singers, to start a hymn that the children sing every morning. They knew it well, and the people had learned it from them. I never heard ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... his side, her charge in her arms—he did it with tremulous fingers, and when, having laid one article after another in a snowy drift upon the bed, he drew back to look at them, he found it necessary after a few moments' inspection to turn about and pace the floor, not uneasily, but to work off steam as it were, while Mornin uttered her ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had mustered Hartley out that they'd returned another citizen to civilian life. But they hadn't more'n half finished the job. Hartley wouldn't have it that way. He'd stored up a lot of military enthusiasm that he hadn't been able to work off on draftees and departin' heroes. In fact, he was just bustin' with it. You could see that by the way he walked, even when he wasn't sportin' the old O. D. once more on some excuse or other. He'd come swingin' into the general offices snappy, ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... he said, "that you had all better go back to the fair-ground, while I look into things. There's an item or two on the program Mr. Carson wants to work off ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... of Mozart's life, is the strange story of the anonymous commission he received to write a Requiem Mass. We are sure now that it was Count Walsegg who wished to palm off the composition as one of his own. To Mozart, however, there was something uncanny in the whole matter, and he could not work off the suspicious dread that the death-music he was writing was an omen of his own end. Shortly before his father had died, Mozart had written him a letter begging him to be reconciled to death when it should come, and speaking ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... good behavior are apt to get restless and nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick Venner had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed life with. When the savage passion of his young blood came over him, he would fetch out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these amiable beasts are wont to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his back, vault into it, and, after getting away from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... have to do to cure a case of ulcerated stomach is to withhold the foods which create fermentation. Then the liver will be allowed time to work off the poisons which are clogging its substance and when this has come about the stomach will slowly return ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... agree—is to make sure that the wives and children of our reservists want neither food nor money to pay their rent. . . . They tell me that in a few weeks the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association will be ready to take much of this work off our hands, though acting through local distributors. Indeed, the Vicar—indeed, my husband has already received a letter from the District Secretary of the Association asking him to undertake this work. In time, too, no doubt—as Government ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... acts, and if he too proudly accepted death that he might not submit to be pardoned for a pardonable fault, traits of similar imprudence and similar pride are not wanting in Caesar's history also. We may regret that this exuberant nature was not permitted to work off its follies and to preserve itself for the following generation so miserably poor in talents, and so rapidly falling a prey to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... up here before you've gone very far," he predicted. "Just the same, you might have come by the office and asked permission before you began to work off your digging fit ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... exceptional woman," returned Winfield, promptly, "and I'd advise you to sit for your photograph. The papers would like it—'Picture of the Only Woman Who Doesn't Want Anything'—why, that would work off an extra in ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... Martha had another job, though I suppose it's better than teaching school." The daughter sighed. "Honest, father, sometimes when I've been on my feet all day, and the children have been mean, and the janitor sticks his head in and grins, so I'll know the superintendent is in the building and get the work off the board that the rules don't allow me to put on, or one of the other girls sends a note up to watch for my spelling for he's cranky on spelling to-day, I just think, 'Lordee, if I had a job in some one's kitchen, I'd be too happy to breathe.' ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... really it is. Please don't ask me again. Anyhow, I know it is father who wants me to stay, not you. I presume he's on the duty tack. I think what he has to say will keep till to- morrow night. If he must work off some of his sentiments on gambling, let him place his efforts where they are needed—let him tackle Jule Hammond, but ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... my advice and do what I said at first. Let somebody take the place and work off the debt—in a way, you understand. You can look about for a music class, and Lizzie here can get a position in the public schools. Of course you know you are welcome at my house as ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... Mark had to work off his anxiety by an inspection of the scene of the disaster and a circumstantial explanation of the details to the young Delmars, who crowded round him and Mr. Godfrey, half awed, half delighted, and indeed the youngest—a considerable tomboy—had nearly given the latter the ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said Dunster. "It must have been a rag! Couldn't we work off some other rag on somebody before I go? I shall be stopping here till Monday in the village. Well hit, sir—Adair's bowling is perfectly simple if you go ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... the packing-house quicker than we could tuck them away in tin. Jim Durham tried to "stimulate the consumption," as he put it, by getting out a nice little booklet called, "A Hundred Dainty Dishes from a Can," and telling how to work off corned beef on the family in various disguises; but, after he had schemed out ten different combinations, the other ninety turned out to be corned-beef hash. So that was ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... the fact that he was never a small boy and thus had no chance to work the deviltry out of his system. You yourselves have been abundantly blessed in this regard. I think I may say that here, in our Normal Academy, you have had an almost ideal playground to work off those boyish high spirits, to perpetrate those mischievous pranks that the world expects of its young. Remember that you are now going out into the mature work of life, where you will encounter ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... handsome and gay that wherever he went laughter went with him. He too was a discoverer, but his discovery was of Paris and the Latin Quarter. It had filled a year between Chicago, where he had been Oscar Wilde's discovery, and Rome, and he had had time to work off his first fantastic exuberance as discoverer before I met him. "Donoghue is all right," they would say of him at the Nazionale; "he has got past the brass buttons and pink swallow tail stage, even if he does cling to low collars and ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... even dare to look at him; she could not bear that he should see her do so; it was enough to know that he was free—that he was there—that it was over. She did not want to see how it had changed him; and, half to set him at ease, half to work off her own excitement, she talked to her father, and told him of the little events of his absence till the meal was over; and, at half-past one, good nights were exchanged with Leonard, and the Doctor ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... training me in courage ever since he was born; apparently the prize-ring or the circus would have been his natural field of operations; so I have chained him down to the law and given him an aeroplane so he can work off his extra steam away from ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... much," said Diana, "but Meryl has enough for two, I'm sure; and for the rest, I never grumble, and I'm only peevish with very young men. That, of course, I might work off on the niggers." ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the Kittiwake would be felicity to Lance, who had fraternised with the boys, and went off with them to see the vessel. He returned brimful of delight and fatigue, only just in time to tumble into bed as fast as possible, and Felix was thus able to get his work off his mind by midnight. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... same bargain. The girl's fingers trembled as she handed him the flower. Albert felt a choking feeling in his throat. The crowd pressed round. A German offered ten thousand francs for a flower which the young girl had put to her lips. At last Albert could work off some of his emotion. ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... defy any one to know them! And what about tin? Price going up daily. When we do get started we shall have to work off our contracts at the top of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... said, when breakfast was over. 'I am going to do the work, washing and all. I must do something to work off my superfluous health, and strength, and muscle. Look at that arm, will you?' and she threw out her bare arm, which for whiteness and roundness and symmetry of proportion, might have been coveted by the most fashionable lady in the land. 'Go back to your rocking-chair and rest ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... one again more often than he'd care to admit. In a short while, hours perhaps, he'd be gone—and he'd never see Dorothy again. Somehow the thought was not as comforting as he had expected, and he tried to work off a lingering doubt that ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... share her enthusiasm, an attention which they scarcely appreciated when they discovered that she had roused them three hours too soon. Long before the usual bell rang everybody was up and dressed, which did not bring breakfast any the quicker, though it allowed the girls time to work off some of their spirits by a run round the garden. Punctually at a quarter to nine o'clock a row of omnibuses arrived to convey the seventy-three pupils and their ten teachers to the station. Each girl carried her bathing costume ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Kittie, glad of something to work off her feverish impatience. "You fix the basket, while I run up stairs and get ready; it will only take me ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... her father died, and her mother had to manage the farm, and she to help her. The mortgage they had to work off was a stump; but faith and Luclarion's dairy did it. It was a stump when Marcus wanted to go to college, and they undertook that, after the mortgage. It was a stump when Adam Burge wanted her to marry him, and go and live in the long red cottage at Side Hill, and she ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... likely to work off some of its effects, and thus would rob the cow-pox of its efficacy on the system. I do not like to interfere with vaccination in any way whatever (except, at the proper time, to take a little matter from the arm), but to allow ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... recess was only over the week-end and lessons began again on Monday. Only those girls who lived very near to Briarwood made a real vacation of the first winter holiday. A good many used the time to make up lessons and work off "conditions." ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... one doesn't ask permission to go too often, and if one has no conditions to work off. Now, you see why Mistress Beatrice is obliged to languish at home while the man who invited her will no doubt have to invite some other girl, who is lucky ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... starve." And this haggard patience was saving the manufacturer himself from ruin, who had been engaged in over-manufacturing, till his warehouses groaned with an enormous stock which the cotton blockade enabled him to work off. Great fortunes have been made in this way, while the operative slowly went to rags, road-mending, and the poor-rates. In London, hard upon midnight, I have often been attracted by the sound of street-music to a little group, in the centre of which stood half a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... of the war some South Carolina planters tried to solve this problem by introducing into the contracts provisions leaving only a small share of the crops to the freedmen, subject to all sorts of constructive charges, and then binding them to work off the indebtedness they might incur. It being to a great extent in the power of the employer to keep the laborer in debt to him, the employer might thus obtain a permanent hold upon the person of the laborer. It was something like the system of peonage existing in Mexico. ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... great mistake, for which we were thankful. As already mentioned, it was anticipated that they would send submarines to work off the United States coast immediately after the declaration of war by that country. Indeed we were expecting to hear of the presence of submarines in the West Atlantic throughout the whole of 1917. They did not appear there until May, 1918. The moral effect of such action in 1917 would ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... the Tredegar Fire Brigade strike is settled. Patrons are asked to bear with the Brigade, who have promised to work off arrears of fires in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... Saturday night John Watson announced to his family that old Sam Motherwell wanted Pearlie to go out and work off ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... Cox's Ballads and Books in a new edition of Robert Laneham's Letter on the Entertainment at Kenilworth in 1575. The veteran Ballad illustrator, Mr. William Chappell, undertook to edit the "Roxburghe Ballads," and produced nine parts, when the Rev. J.W. Ebsworth took the work off his hands. Mr. Ebsworth had previously reproduced the "Bagford Ballads," and he is now the editor-in-chief of the Society. The following is a short list of the publications of the Society: Nos. 1, 2, 3, 10, "Ballads from Manuscripts"; Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 18, ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... was this work off her hands than another engaged her. With a purpose prompted may-be by her angel, certainly by no human word, and unshared by any human intelligence, Elizabeth began to make a sketch of the island ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Now don't figure to yourself a romantic Hotspur of a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's gate was shut on him. At nineteen Hugh Guinness drank and fought and gambled, as other ill-managed boys do to work off the rank fever of blood. Unfortunately—" he stopped, and then added in a lower voice, quickly, "he made a mistake while the fever was on him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... construction, and work admirably. Cail & Co., of Paris, are the makers; their charge is 3,000 francs for each machine (L120 stg.). They require about one and a half horse power each. As they are wrought in France, one machine is about equal to work off a ton and a half of sugar daily, working all the 24 hours. Mr. Cail recommends a separate engine for those machines; so that they can be used at any time, independent of the other machinery. The charge put into a machine is about 80 kilogrammes, from ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... like all negroes they are up to anything if not watched and attended to. I expect the kindest treatment of them from you, for this has always been a principal thing with me. I never suffer them to work off the place, or exchange work with any plantation....It has always been my plan to give out allowance to my negroes on Sunday in preference to any other day, because this has much influence in keeping them at home ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... stand being beaten like that, for no reason whatever except that his father might work off his ill humor! The idea of his having to take a beating, he who carried a knife in his belt, and was not afraid of anyone on the island. Paternity and filial respect seemed to the Little Chaplain at the moment the inventions of cowards, created only to crush ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... heroic defender of the national honour" one day, and "a brutal and licentious soldiery" the next, you naturally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off on him, and nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not always know what ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... it to be no accident. A burr does not easily work off the end of an axle. He had greased the old wagon just before he started for the store, and he knew he had ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... good service for the Master, John; perhaps He thinks you should rest now," answered his wife. "You've got plenty able helpers to take the heavy work off your hands." ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... far as it goes. She doesn't begin to pay me as she would have to pay another girl in my position—if I have any there. I haven't said anything about it to her, because I wanted to work off my indebtedness to her on account of what she spent on me in bringing me up—she never let me forget that in those first seven years! I want to give more than I've had," she said proudly, "and sometime I shall tell ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... be." Mr. Smith, on his feet, was trying to work off his agitation by tramping up and down the ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... dozen copies had been run off that looked right to him. With these he left the office, the drayman and business department struggled along with the printing of the paper. The circulation was nine hundred and it generally took the day and far into the night to work off the edition. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... has had no more connection with St Paul than St Peter. The probability is that he's a crackpot; and if he isn't, he has some little game on foot—in close association with the hunt of the oof-bird!—which he tried to work off on me, but couldn't. As for—for Marjorie—my Marjorie!—only she isn't mine, confound it!—if I had had my senses about me, I should have broken his head in several places for daring to allow her name to pass his ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... decided, the house from which they came declared in the Government Gazette as a licensed house of prostitution. The keepers of licensed brothels, slave-dealers, procurers and such characters hung around the court room to help these women pay their fines, and so get them under bonds to work off these fines by prostitution. Sometimes the women sold their children instead of themselves. If boys, for "adoption," as it is called; a form of slavery which is permitted in Hong Kong. If girls, into domestic ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... scarce, he moved around the Lake to "Draper's Landing." Running the bow of the canoe upon the wharf log, which was nearly on a level with the water, left her, without tying, to look for some angle worms. It being rough on the Lake at the time, the rolling of the waves caused the boat to work off, and before he could return she had drifted well out on the broad waters of the Lake. We were too small to realize our situation. Not knowing how to paddle, we were left to the mercy of the waves. On the return of my father, seeing the great peril I was in, ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... choir has been destroyed in order to be rebuilt by more graceful designers and more skilful hands. The old city is full of craftsmen, assembled to complete the church. Some have come as a religious duty, to work off their tale of sins by bodily labour. Some are animated by a love of art—simple men, who might have rivalled with the Greeks in ages of more cultivation. Others, again, are well-known carvers, brought for hire from distant towns and countries beyond the sea. But to-day, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of cases, studiously concealed from the people. And this is how the government behaves now, except in the case of the German Mennonites, living in the province of Kherson, whose plea against military service is considered well grounded. They are made to work off their term of service in ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... something, whether it be a political party, a church, a fraternal order or one of the idiotic movements that incessantly ravage the land, because joining gives him a feeling of security, because it makes him a part of something larger and safer than he is himself, because it gives him a chance to work off steam without running any risk. The whole thinking of the country thus runs down the channel of mob emotion; there is no actual conflict of ideas, but only a succession of crazes. It is inconvenient to stand aloof from these crazes, and it is dangerous to oppose them. ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... the individual in the state,—there existed men of ardent minds, and an intense desire of knowledge. In the mighty and solemn kingdoms in which they dwelt, there were no turbulent and earthly channels to work off the fever of their minds. Set in the antique mould of casts through which no intellect could pierce, no valour could force its way, the thirst for wisdom alone reigned in the hearts of those who received its study as a heritage from sire to son. Hence, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... our lower rooms," she said. "If you have time do help me. Heavens! I wish I could work off some of that old furniture on you. I like the Italian pieces well enough, but there are too many of them. That rather low Florentine cabinet in the back parlor would just fit in ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... and batting practice, there was some running around the bases. But Manager Watson knew better than to keep the boys at it too long, and soon called the work off ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... seldom missed at least an evening's salutation with him. That not a shovel of earth had yet been dug on the line of the Colonel's Railroad, and that the whole enterprise was one of those schemes well nigh impossible to finance, made no difference to Fitz. He never lost an opportunity to work off the securities whenever there was the slightest opening. The bonds, of course, had not been issued; they had never been printed, in fact. These details would come later,—whenever the capitalist or syndicate should begin to look into ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to it," Miss Hinkle assured her. "And you'll learn to show off the dresses and cloaks to the best advantage." She laughed her insinuating little laugh again, amused, cynical, reckless. "You know, the buyers are men. Gee, what awful jay things we work off on them, sometimes! They can't see the dress for the figure. And you've got such a refined figure, Miss Sackville—the kind I'd be crazy about if I was a man. But I must say——" here she eyed herself in the glass complacently—"most men prefer ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... he comprehended Mather's drift, ably seconded him. He had his own grudges against his neighbors to work off, and nothing could be easier. All that was needed was for one of the children, or any one else, to affirm that they were afflicted, and perhaps to foam at the mouth, or be contorted as in a fit, and to accuse whatever person they chose ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Thar's one of' em with a knife, an' the first kidnapper that crosses that sill, man or woman—fur we'll trust no more women, Samson—gits the knife to the hilt! The blessed light that shone onto Calvary an' Bunker Hill is a gleamin' on the blade. Work off your irons, if you kin; I'll git you rafters outen this roof to jab with if you can't do no better. Are you ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... natural, Mr. Vetsburg, I should want to work off my hands my daughter should escape that? Nothing, Mr. Vetsburg, gives me so much pleasure she should go with all those rich girls who like her well enough poor to be friends with her. Always when you take her down ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... had been alone, how she would have flown at Glass-Eye, to work off her superabundant joy! It would have been a merciless fight, with slaps in the Mexican style! But a lady receiving her friends must set a good example. She contented herself with hustling Glass-Eye ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... casual discovery and courtship of a girl like that celestial convertite; and her sorrow when she finds that she is only a substitute; and her victory by persuading her lover to paint her as the Magdalen and so work off the witchery.[213] Of course some one may shrug shoulders and murmur, "Always the berquinade?" But I do not think La Morte ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... will ever write M.D. after her name, and I devoutly hope she won't kill too many people in trying for it; but the study will be good for her. She has played long enough, and a little steady grind will help her to work off some of her extra ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... light cruiser and this time finished her with a torpedo. Finding he had two torpedoes left Commander Tovey then made for the German battle line with the last ounce of steam the Onslow's engines could work off. He fired them both, and probably hit the dreadnought that was seen to reel out of line about three minutes later. The Defender, though herself half wrecked by several hits, then limped up and took the Onslow in tow ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... Our mission is to work off that fogbound and desolate coast, and attack the constant stream of traffic between England and Archangel. There are two other boats besides ourselves on the job, but we shall all be working ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... it your interest?-To get the work off our hands. We could settle with a dozen men nearly in the same time that we can with two or three; and if they would all come and get settled with in one or two days, that would be so much less ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... large buttons, toggles or lampwick braces, they reached as high as the lower part of the chest. Below, they had lamp-wick lashings which were securely bound round the uppers of boots or finnesko. In walking, the trousers would often work off the leather boots, especially if they were cut to a tailor's length, and snow would then pour up the leg and down into the boots in a remarkably short time. To counteract this, Ninnis initiated the very satisfactory plan of sewing a short length of canvas on to the boots to increase the length ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... knew the man would return to his tale, and probably all the sooner for being left to work off his transient ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... doors, and chafed at their enforced confinement to the house. They hung about in disconsolate little groups, and grumbled. Miss Beasley, who was generally well aware of the mental atmosphere of the Grange, registered the barometer at stormy, and decided that prompt measures were necessary. To work off the steam of the school, she suggested a good old-fashioned game of hide-and-seek, and gave permission for it to be played on those upper landings which were generally forbidden ground. Twenty-six delighted girls ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... him in a state of such torpid despondency that any summons to action, even the most painful, was a blessing. He had felt that the only chance of combating his sorrow, and preventing its obtaining full mastery over all his faculties, was to work off the sense of depression by hard study,—to battle against it with the arms of some engrossing occupation; but how could he spur himself up to study without an object?—and he was as far as ever from obtaining his father's consent to fitting himself for the bar, or for any other ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... morning when Tristram took him for a canter round the Park. He was glad of it: he required something to work off steam upon. He was in a mood of restless excitement. During the three weeks of Zara's absence he had allowed himself to dream into a state of romantic love for her. He had glossed over in his mind her distant coldness, her frigid adherence to the bare proposition, so that to ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... not. She must get in and let him take her to the station. There he could work off his wrath only by buying her ticket and seeing to her luggage; while his charge to the negro porter to look to her comfort was of such a nature that during the whole of the journey she was pelted with magazine literature and ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... the papers to their proper places, picked up Patricia's bank, which he still had with him, turned out the light, and then tramped down the long flights of stairs to work off his excitement. He was disappointed not to have succeeded in this first attempt to prove his suspicions, but he found some consolation in the certainty which came to him, even in the face of this defeat, that he was ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... that concerned him? Bill had to work off his overjoy at this by an exuberant flourish. He whisked about Belle,—outer edge backward. She stopped to admire. He finished by describing on the virgin ice, before her, the letters B.P., in his neatest style of podography,—easy letters ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... from you. Presently the gold, if there was any in the dirt, appears in 'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser the gold is, the sooner it appears. A practised digger can work off the last speck of gravel, without losing a 'colour', by just working the water round and off in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, recover ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... distance than of those at the front. Men who have been fighting most of the time for three or four years generally become pretty cool, while those in the rear seem to become hotter and hotter as the end approaches, and even for some time after it is reached. They must in some way work off the surplus passion which the soldier has already exhausted in battle. Whatever may be true as to Sherman's methods before Lee surrendered, the destruction inflicted on the South after that time was solely the work of passion, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... affair, and I mentioned it simply as part of Mrs. Pocock's advantage." No, no; though there was a queer present temptation in it, and his suspense was so real that to fidget was a relief, he wouldn't talk to her about Mrs. Newsome, wouldn't work off on her the anxiety produced in him by Sarah's calculated omissions of reference. The effect she produced of representing her mother had been produced—and that was just the immense, the uncanny part of it—without her having ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... during the last three weeks of March; though her sturdy constitution triumphed then, and she sat up the first day of April, a little pale and wasted, but, as she expressed it, "feeling just as stout as ever, but glad to have mammy there awhile yet to take the heft of the work off ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... the Yankees done kill him," exclaimed Morris, opening and shutting the carriage door with a bang, as if he hoped in that way to work off some of ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... Bruce had been able by ground-sluicing to work off a considerable area of top soil and now that the machinery was declared to be ready for a steady run he could set the scrapers at once in the red gravel ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... shoe. Strange that a man's life may hinge on such a slight detail, but this fact enabled him to work off his right shoe and his sock. He extended his bare foot, and with his toes searched the pocket of the emissary for the key to the door. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... fortnight's motor-boat trip up the Danube with Elsie Hazzard and her stupid husband, the doctor. I compromised with myself by deciding to give them a week of my dreamy company, and then dash off to England where I could work off the story in a sequestered village I had had in mind ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... say," grunted Kettle under his breath, "but you're a heap too uncertificated for my taste. Why, you don't even offer a book of forged logs to try and work off your humbug with some look of truth. No, I know the kind of pilot you are. You'd pile up the steamboat on the first convenient reef, and then be one of the first to come and loot her."—He turned to Murray: ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... method could have been taken to work off his almost hysterical excitement, and presently he paused, panting and heated, chuckling after an abashed fashion as he encountered the eyes of ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr. |
