"Go back on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Europe stop at Boma, the capital of the Congo, which is five hours steaming down river from Matadi. We remained here for a day and a half because the Minister of the Colonies was to go back on "The Anversville." I was glad of the opportunity for it enabled me to see this town, which is the mainspring of the colonial administration. The palace of the Governor-General stands on a commanding hill ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... the white tie about my neck, fastened it with a pin, and earnestly prayed that it might remain in decent position until the dinner was over. Nevertheless, I trembled all through the dinner for fear that my tie might go back on me. ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... follow her. Evidently she wants to speak to you alone, Keep her engaged while Venning and I go back on her trail." ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... tell him I'll come, after Congress adjourns. I should like to give him a little lift. He lacks enterprise—now, about that Columbus River. He doesn't see his chances. But he's a good fellow, and you can tell him that Sellers won't go back on him." ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... much speech, went over to his safe, took out the signed pardon from the president, and handed it to Wilson. The latter trembled and broke into tears as he took the paper. "If you ever need my life," said he, "count on me. And I'll never go back on this!" as he touched the executive pardon. He went back to Texas, and is living there to-day, a good citizen. It would be wrong to mention names in an ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... understand that," she agreed almost mechanically. "I don't mean to go back on my principles. But what John needs is a good, sound education from the beginning. Don't you ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... you take your head off, and if in reality it can do as you say, rise into space and return and be as before, I shall be willing to burn the List of Promotions to Immortals and return with you to Chao Ko." Shen Kung-pao said: "You will not go back on your word?" Tzu-ya said: "When your elder brother has spoken his word is as unchangeable as Mount T'ai, How can there be any ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... it, lad," he said kindly. "I can't go back on my duty, and it's plain duty to arrest him. To-day is Sunday; there are two salmon in his boat which he caught to-day. What ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... go back on the Hatteras, Mr. Framtree," he said. "The Henlopen won't sail for a week. We won't lose sight of each other, so there is time. As for our talk, we ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... go back on the farm where I belong," he muttered. "I'm not smart enough to get along in a city ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... "We got talking about a matter just before I left, and he walked down to the boat with me; and then he said if I didn't mind he guessed he'd come along down and go back on the return boat. Of course I couldn't let him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the hall. One of the voices was Azuba's; she was informing Mr. Hapgood that if that soup didn't go back on the stove pretty soon it might just as well be on ice. The words were distinctly audible, and Serena colored. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... goes back on you. Of course it goes back, but you know what I mean. Sometimes if you're on a hike and telling time by the sun it'll go under a cloud. Or sometimes if you're lost and following the stars, it'll cloud up and you can't see them any more. And crinkums, a trail will go back on you sometimes. But the tide is sure. It's got to come up, and so I knew it was coming up to rescue me and I knew I was all right as soon as I saw ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the sending of the Belgians to Germany but it was hard now to go back on what they had done. I have some hope that a retreat may be arranged—possibly by sending the Belgians back gradually and ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Adirondack guides? Books? Well: that was one of life's little stupidities. She couldn't buy them, and no one knew what to send her. Besides, books deferred the day when her mind should, ever so little, go back on her. She didn't encourage gifts of literature. She was no philosopher; and an abstraction was of no use to her unless she could turn it to a larger concreteness, somehow enhancing, let us say, a sunset from the Acropolis. I never loved Kathleen Somers, as men love women, but many a time ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... promised to marry you as soon as ever I'm twenty-one, and I can't keep on being worried. I've worries enough. It isn't likely I'd throw you over, let alone my word, when I've spent all this money. Besides, I'm an Englishman, and I never go back on my word. Jacky, do be reasonable. Of course I'll marry you. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... Van Rensselaer reproachfully, "I am surprised. I didn't think you would go back on the sentiments you so warmly espoused a few moments ago. Let us avoid so agitating a topic. Personally," continued he, slowly and dreamily, as if going into a trance, "I have no objection to the game. I have played it myself, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... glue controversy not meaning anything to me in particular, and meaning a whole heap to him and his family. Well, he was wrong about that two ways. The first one was, it did mean a good deal to me to have him go back on me after so many years. I don't need to say any more about it, except just to tell you it meant quite a little more to me than you'd think, maybe. The other way he was wrong is, that how much a thing means to one man and how little it means to ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... late in the morning that the letter was completed. Then Dave claimed his promise. He was to see the wheel go round, and the sacks go up into the granary above the millstones. It was a pledge even an old lady of eighty could not go back on. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... it playing put on the lid of her.... You don't say nothing, Cap'n?... Well, here it is: I want money and I want rum. You don't know what it is to want rum, you don't: it gets to that p'int that you would kill a 'ole ship's company for just one guttle of it. What? Admiral Guinea, my old Commander, go back on poor old Pew? and him high and dry? (Not you! When we had words over the negro lass at Lagos, what did you do? fair dealings was your word: fair as between man and man; and we had it out with p'int and edge on Lagos sands. And you're not going back on your word to me, now I'm old and blind! No, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said the Queen with a glance of secret intelligence at the embarrassed Baron, who looked another way, "the circumstances were exceptional. And a King can't go back on his word! Besides, this ex-gardener may be not such a common person as he seems—may he ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... go back on it. I was only stating the case of selfish policy, for the sake of argument. It's like this. The more useful you teach her to be, the more we're going to miss her ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... makes him turn tail; then, following in pursuit, unsaddles him, but has his own horse shot down under him. Biraghi disentangles himself, kills his antagonist, and jumps upon the latter's horse. This, however, is thrown down also in a moment by a cannon ball, so that the gallant captain has to go back on foot, bleeding, and almost unable to walk. Talking of heroism, of inimitable endurance, and strength of soul, what do you think of a man who has his arm entirely carried away by a grenade, and yet keeps on his horse, firm as a rock, and still directs his battery until hemorrhage—and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "No—unless you go back on me. If you do, I 'll tell him and show him the paper; and what 's more, I 'll show it all around ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... come round with me to my hut, I'll tell the old woman what's up, and then we'll strike for the river. You won't go back on me?" ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... To have his jewel go back on him at such a crisis was excessively annoying. "One of those gold after-dinner coffee- cups—one of the little ones, with the flowery raised figures," ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... conviction. Watching that empty valley of the lake, he felt, was a waste of time. To be doing nothing, when Helen was being hurried to be knew not what fate, was torture to him. It would, he thought, be better to go back on their trail, and endeavour to pick up that of the kidnappers, since that way they would at least be sure that they were on the right lines. So strongly did this idea appeal to him, that he turned ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... five children of my brother. He and his wife, my father and mother, were all done for in the bad time at Kishinef. It's up to me all right to take care of the kids, and I'd no more go back on them than I would on my own." Or, again: "Yes, I have seven children of my own. My husband died when Tim was born. The other three children belong to my sister, who died the year after my husband. I get on pretty well. I scrub in a factory every night from ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... to do what you ask me. But you have asked me very kindly—you have really been awfully good to me, in taking so much trouble. I know I'm a stupid fool—they always told me so at home. But I don't want to do anything mean, or to go back on a woman who once did me a good turn; with whom also once—for I may as well be quite honest about it—I thought I was in love. However, I see there is something in what you say, and I will wait a week before marrying Miss ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... he not give me the money! Do you suppose he means to go back on his word? Has he said anything ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... he snapped. "I would think when our name is threatened with a disgrace like this you would be as anxious to defend it as I am. How is it you go back on me in a moment like this? You're not the woman ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... desire to be looked upon in the light of a client. The Government has made a solemn covenant with the Negro to vest him with the right of franchise if he would throw his weight in the balance in favor of the Union and bare his breast to the storm of bullets; and I am convinced that it would not go back on itself. There are thirty-two million whites to four million blacks in the country, and there need be no fear of Negro domination. The State laws do not protect the Negro in his rights, as they forbade their entrance into the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Philip, too young to appreciate the subtle shades of feelings or looks. "You can't back out of it now. Gee, what's bitin' you? It ain't four o'clock yet, and it ain't right, neither, to go back on a promise. Anyhow, if we don't go on and count up to thirty you got to put the worm in her bonnet—you said you would—girls are no good, ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... the attorney is trying to get a little ahead so he can go on a vacation. There are rare instances of record when an attorney had taken some action in three or four months. But here, in the Tearproof Paper Case, I had actually gone for an interview on the very first day. I couldn't possibly go back on the following Monday; my pride would not allow me. I ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... meaner than dirt!" burst forth Dirk, fiercely. "To go back on her like that, after she had saved us from a row with the police, ain't what I believe in. Why couldn't he have picked up the rag, seeing she wanted him to? That's what I say. I'd a done it myself if she ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... from Baltimore. I refuse to draw on my banker in the regular way. This money, being evil, must come from an evil source. My dealers will send it from the 'place.' Now, again, you understand that I can put you in the penitentiary if you go back on your word. You did take the boy's money out of the dressing-tent. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... doing a funny piano act. I can play pretty well, even if I am blind," he said, turning toward Mr. Brown, for he seemed to know just where the children's father sat. "And as I don't like to sit around doing nothing I've decided to go back on ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... supper, it'll be all right. I have observed that the principal factors of success at amateur dramatics are an expert manipulation of the curtain, and a first-class feed to put the audience in a good-humor afterwards. Even if Martenelli does go back on us, you'll have me with ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... know it would nearly break father's heart for us to go back on our own church,—but don't you think if folks become truly convinced that Christian Science is the true and good religion, they ought to stand by it and suffer,—just like the martyrs of old?" suggested Lark,—and the suggestion brought the doubt-clouds ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... could not combat. But love was working a change in me. Since I have known Captain Holliday—but that's all over. I was mad to think I could be happy with such memories in my life. I shall never marry now—or touch jewels again—my own or another's. Father, father, you won't go back on your girl! I couldn't see Caroline suffer for what I have done. You will pardon ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... friend! I've got a written order—a written order—from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now. I've got the bonds and I'm going ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... do with her, and their meeting might have been one of the purest chance; but that she was associated in some way with the baroness was evident enough from her presence in that lady's carriage. It is a bitter thing to have to go back on the past in this way, but I cannot tell my story without it. If there are worthless women in the world, there are some who are very nearly angels, and I feel as if I were almost dishonoring the sex in telling the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... a bold fellow," said the white man again, "and shalt have the girl, for thou art worthy of her. And she shall keep the money for her dowry. I am no man to go back on my word, even though I lose so fair a bride. As for Pule-o-Vaitafe, I care not a blade of grass, and for Tamavili even less. And see, take this rifle, and if Tamavili cometh too close to thee, how can I help thee ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... as you like, I helped you. And I'm not a bit sorry for it. Though he is no friend of mine, you have been, from that day on; and if you ever give me a chance I'll prove it. The worst thing you did was to go back on ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... this letter would be just meat to them. I'll fix you all right, though. My name's Cummings, Jim Cummings, and I'll write a letter to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat that will clear you Honest to God, I will. You've been pretty generous to-night; given me lots of swag, and I'll never go back on you. ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... the situation over for all of ten minutes, but without satisfaction. All were indignant over the way the storekeeper had treated them, and Tom wanted to go back on the sly and play a trick on him, but ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... If women threw men down that easy you all would go to the bowwows too fast for us to bake dog-biscuit. Now, I've settled Buck McKee's hash by putting Slim Hoover wise to that tongue-slittin'. Oh, I'll bring Bud around, all right, all right, even if men that ought to be his friends go back on him." ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... here any longer, Macklin," he said disgustedly. "I shall have to go back on my tracks once more. Never do I take an amateur into my business plans again. But it looks as if he has paid for his indiscretion. ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... if we don't be—the most we can be, if we don't be more than life has been, we go back on all that life ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... to drive straight to 33-1/2, Prince Street. They will find the girl in the back yard—quick, before the Black-Handers have a chance to go back on their word." ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... and mutual support. If the arrangement is complicated and lengthy, we must not wait for it; we must meet and discuss our common affairs. Ministers from the Dominions have already sat with the British Cabinet. We can never go back on that; it is a landmark in our history. Our Ministers must travel; if their supporters are impatient of their absence on the affairs of the Empire, they must find some less parochial set of supporters. We have begun in the right ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... till after the National. He's not everybody's 'orse, Four-Pound ain't. If they was to make a change now, he might go back on himself." ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... at all events, that none inhabit the passage. I am now well acquainted with the way; and if we pass the Indian encampment during the hours of darkness, we shall run no risk of being discovered. Should you decline coming on in the way I mention, the captain advises that you should go back on the log, and try to find the entrance of a much wider and deeper channel, which he is sure exists some way to the northward; and it is by this channel that the captain hopes to carry his vessel, when built, into the waters ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... can go back on my place that want to go back and stay. You will have to learn to look after your own selves now but I will advise you and help you best I can. You will have to work hard as us have done b'fore. But I will pay you.' My folks was ready to 'board the wagons back to Jones' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... grain-room. There's to be seven of 'em a-waitin' down by the big hollow, and when they git you betwixt them an' the sky at moonrise they're all promised to shoot at once, so that nary man dast to go back on the others when ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... nonsense," said Lena, and this time her laugh was not so pleasant; and Dick glanced across at Madeline with a kind of resentment. "It isn't like Madeline to go back on a fellow that way," he said to himself. "Of course she's had all kinds of advantages over this poor little thing; but it's small of her not to forget them. I trusted her to make things sweet; and for the first time she has disappointed ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... from the beginning," she said, "with something fixed and definite that they can't go back on." And by signing the prospectus, Horatio Bysshe Waddington, he identified it beyond all ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... enough for the Prince to lie about and eat and drink and be sung to by pretty women, but we sailors have work to do. This business of staying only three days in each port disgusts me. No sooner do we get ashore than we have to go back on board again. I saw a girl yesterday, a beauty, and not afraid of a man. There must be many like that here, but what good does it do me? I spent all my money on her, and now I can't even get ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... that I've taken the money and that he's used it, and he oughtn't to go back on the bargain I made for him? So that he'll be bound by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exclaimed our hero. "I wouldn't go back on my word for a hundred times the price I am to get. I am not in this business so much for the money, as I am for ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... to sail the next day, and if I didn't do the job for him he didn't know who would, and he said that he was sorry to see that I was goin' back on him after the recommend I'd had, and I said that I wouldn't go back on him if it wasn't for my conscience. I was ready to do any common piece of business, but this stealin' away little gals from lovin' mothers was a leetle too much for me. 'Well,' says he, 'there ain't no time to be lost, and how much more will satisfy your conscience?' When I said ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... plenty? Who's allus got a wallet that's as full of sordid gain As his heart is full of kindness and his head is full of brain? Whose bowels of compassion will in-va-ri-a-bly move Their owner to those courtesies which plainly, surely prove That he's the kind of person that never does go back On a fellow that's in ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... have seen Moss then. He was simply overcome—called me a wizard, a magician, and heaven alone knows what, and fairly stood on his head with delight when we opened the bag, and hundreds of gold coins and precious stones rolled out on the floor. He wanted to go back on his word then, and only give me a handful; but I was too smart for him, and swore I would tell his wife about the girl unless he gave me half. When we were leaving the cellar, of course, he wanted me to go first, so that he could follow with the pickaxe, but here again I was too sharp ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... him to lose himself in the crowd, Glen realized better how it was that Nixon and some of the others who had been given liberty in town had never violated their trust. It seemed abominably mean and small to go back on a man like this. He actually began to have his own doubts. But it was very hard for Glen Mason to give up anything on which ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... cowardly. But Hyde was no coward; so then, it was not long ere he put all fears and doubts behind him and set his musings to the assertion: "I said to my heart, last night, that I would meet Cornelia at Richmond Hill this morning. I will not go back on my word. Such fluctuability is only fit ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... denied. The Frenchmen—shooting, stabbing, yelling—were driven behind their entrenchments. There the fire of the houses commanding the breach came to their help, and they made a gallant stand. "None would go back on either side, and yet the British could not get forward, and men and officers falling in heaps choked up the passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape from two guns flanking the top of ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... kinder cal'lated you'd weaken when the time come. Ain't goin' ter think better of it, huh?" The old man, smiling through a cloud of tobacco smoke, contemplated Tom with shrewd, twinkling, expectant eyes. "Fun's jest about startin' naow, Tommy. 'Member what I told yer baot them critters. Daont yer go back on account of no gal." ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Indians would come down into York State or New England, burn a town, tomahawk quite a number of people, then go back on snow-shoes, having entered the town on rubbers, like a ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Virginia, "what can I say about the tent? Pa won't go back on that—not if his life had been ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... we are very indifferent shopkeepers. We lack several of the needful qualities: we lack foresight, the sense of order and organised industry, and the strength of mind to resist the temptations following upon a great coup. A nation of shopkeepers would not go back on the shop so completely as we do. No nation that is essentially snobbish can be accurately summed up as a nation of shopkeepers. The French for all their distracting gifts of art and mockery are better shopkeepers than we, largely because they are more sensibly contented. They take ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the nursery row. If you want a small tree, it's all right. And then again, it's your help situation. If you have got to set them out, they handle the grafts like brush, and I don't like that. Hickory is not hard to graft in the field. I think if you set 10 you get 9 to grow. For scions I go back on two-year wood and oftentimes on three-year wood where there are buds. I don't have trouble at all. With pecans, you have a little more difficulty, because the wood is more pithy inside ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... said Hand, a little savagely. "Didn't we make a plain bargain in regard to this? You had all the money you asked for, didn't you? You said you could give me twenty-six aldermen who would vote as we agreed. You're not going to go back on your ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Twenty years old. Single. Had no trade. Came from South America by working on a boat. Left it two months ago in New York, and had done nothing since. In the Industrial Home three weeks. Never worked in the country. Expected to go back on the boat shortly. Looked like a runaway boy and was ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... was her independent pride. Cling to that, and however the world might rock and toss around her she could not be wrecked. Imagine, then, what she must have suffered during the weeks that followed her surrender to Lawrence. Not that for a moment she intended to go back on her surrender, which was, indeed, the proudest moment of her whole life. She never looked back for one second after that embrace, she never doubted herself or him or the supreme importance of love itself; but the rest of her—her tenderness, her fidelity, her loyalty, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... Pour out some more! Now, Tommy lad, it's up to you! Swallow it like a dear fellow! Yes, you can if you try. Give your mind to it! Pull up, boy, pull up! play the damn game! Don't go back on me! Ah, you didn't know I was here, did you? Thought you'd slope while my back was turned. You weren't quick enough, my lad. You've ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... become one of His friends. It was rather difficult to believe, in the light of day, with the coarse laughter and wild voices of the robbers ringing out on the morning air, and yet Guthlac knew it was true, and knew that he had made a great promise. He was too brave a man to go back on a promise, however hard to keep, so he stood up with a strong purpose ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... acquaintance it would be ridiculous to acknowledge that he had known the truck driver all along. Of course he could not do that. Whatever he might have said or done at the time, it was entirely too late to go back on his conduct now. One event had followed on the heels of another until to slip out a single stone of the structure he had built up would topple over the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... go back on nothing Mr. Thurston said," was the quiet answer; but when Tom from Mattawa left Savine, whose nerveless fingers spilled half the contents of the silver cup he strove to fill, gasping beside the stove in Thurston's quarters, he gravely ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... we'd better go back on our own trail now," said Henry. "The war party has passed on, and is still looking for ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... don't think so. Do you think He knows about me already and that is why He left me last evening when He saw that I blushed and trembled like a fool under His eyes? You know I can't bribe ALL the newspapers, and I can't go back on anybody who was good to Gunny at Redhorse—not if I'm pitched out of society into the sea. So the skeleton sometimes rattles behind the door. I never cared much before, as you know, but now—NOW it ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... — you bet! I'm only too anxious to get back with Orry and see more of you two girls. I say, Senator," to the father now looking approvingly on, "this lost pilot is one of our best. He's a turnip — a real joker! We can't go back on him." ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... me! Well, I'm through with this foolishness. If you'll go back on your word like this you'll 'bawl me out' before the priest, so I'll forget my promise, too, and you'll be glad of the chance to ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... From the doorway, she looked back—"I just knew you wouldn't go back on me, Hilary! ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... protest cut him short. "Kilbuck knows we haven't enough grub for the winter! He wouldn't leave us here to starve, especially two women and a child, after he has put us here himself! He's promised to bring us provisions! Given us his word! To go back on it would be a violation of the law of the cache! Why, the man has my schooner, and he hasn't paid for her yet! No, no, Kayak. Kilbuck will come. . . . By ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... That's just like father. But still, I promised. And what would the girls say if I should go back on them? They have trusted me, always. If I fail them, will they ever trust anybody else? If you love me, Jerry, please go, and stay away." But her arm tightened about his neck. "I'll wait here until you ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... you wouldn't go back on a feller, Nance. That's why I come straight to you. It was my game to have you hide me for a day or two, till you could make a strike somewhere and we'd light out together. How're ye fixed? Pretty smart, eh? You look it, my girl, you look—My ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... admitted defiantly. "And if my eyes go back on me, I guess 'twill be St. Isidore, or St. Somebody. You see I need my eyes pretty bad just ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a fine fix you'd get me into," growled the dentist. "I've signed the paper with the owner; that's business, you know, that's business, you know; and now you go back on me. Suppose we'd taken the house, we'd 'a' shared the rent, wouldn't we, just ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... house manager, while Mr. Myerfelt, the president of the Orpheum Company, was abroad. George's instructions were to admit no one back on the stage without a written order from Mr. Morrisey. A month or so afterwards Mr. Myerfelt returned and started to go back on the stage. ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... Nan!" broke in her husband, "don't be crossing bridges. Pete'll take the horse back. I've done the fellow lots of favours, and he won't go back on me. ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... said to himself, sadly, as he thought of the years which must elapse before he could venture to take a wife. 'Oh, if I were sure she cared for me a little, as I do for her, I would ask her now and have it settled; for Jerrie is not a girl to go back on her promise, and the years would seem so short, and the work so easy, with Jerrie at the end of it all,' he continued, and then he wondered how he could find out the nature of Jerrie's feeling for him without ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... you had to go back on me like this!" upbraided Billy, eyeing the dismal mass with ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... and Red, he lugged me to the next water-tank. He was pourin' water on me when the Limited come along and stopped, and she throwed the rose to us. Red told me about it after. You wouldn't go back on a pal like that, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... to go back on your own sex," retorted Eve, banging the door after her as she quitted the room, Rover, an ugly-looking mastiff, closely following ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... boy! You have put a new backbone in me. It's hard not to have a white man to talk to, to plan with. Ahmed expects that we shall be ready for the return in the morning. He, however, intends to go back on a racing camel, to go straight to my bungalow, if it isn't destroyed by this time. Perhaps Winnie has not arrived there ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... he said. "He knew that you would fear to come, therefore he bade me say that you were to mind that once he had you, and set you free, and that he does not go back on his doings, save he must. He has no enmity for the friends of the slain king, but a great hatred for him ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... breath, Mister Van Zyl,' the man says. 'I know this breed. The South's full of 'em.' Then he whirls round on me and says, 'Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King's neither here nor there, but what you've done,' he says, 'is to go back on the White Man in six places at once—two hemispheres and four continents—America, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don't open your head,' he says. 'You know well if you'd been caught at this game in our country you'd have ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... one deepest pure-bred instinct. He recoiled inevitably from having his feelings dictated to him by the mass feeling. His feelings were his own, his understanding was his own, and he would never go back on either, willingly. Shall a man become inferior to his own true knowledge and self, just because the mob expects it ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... admitted frankly. "Oh, yes. But I've no illusions," he said. "I don't go back on the things I said. Nature as she dopes out life couldn't hand me a hundredth part of the happiness I get that way. But when I'm through, like that lumber-jack who's struck off the pay roll, how's it ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... that Li Koo had somehow been clever. Impossible, however, to go back on him, having eaten his cakes. Besides, they were perfect cakes, blown together apparently out of flowers and honey and cream,—cakes which, combined with Mrs. Bilton's hair, would make the fortune of The ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... preaches all about that Man on the Cross, an' if you don't need Him before you get through this little campaign of life I'll miss my guess. Mebbe we haven't been all we might have been, but we ain't agoin' to let you ner no one else go back on that there Cross!" ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... passing under his eyes. God had been manifesting His tenderest and most characteristic attributes by the beauty of the Master's life, but Philip had failed to discern them; till now the Master bids him go back on the photographs of those years, as fixed in his memory, to see in a thousand tiny illustrations how truly the Father dwelt in Him, and lived through His ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... Wall! I guess Hank don't go back on the old coach like that. Why, a little grease and a few bolts will put that rig in tip-top order." And he never made the slightest excuse for the troubles he had ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... underpinning was firm enough, but all the same, every man jack of us wished he hadn't come. Night, black and dreary, settled over the waters, and still no help. Finally, at eight o'clock, the water had receded so that the tops of the rails could be seen, and two of us volunteered to go back on foot to the yard office for help. That was just three miles away, but nothing venture, nothing have, so we dropped off the hind end of the tender and started on our tramp back over the water-covered ties. We had one lantern, and after we ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... present he was occupied with the idea of the horses. He felt that they would not be apt to go back on the trail unless it was to look for water, and water they might find at the bottom of the ravine though the underbrush was too dense for him to see it. He could follow their trail very easily in the sandy path but he walked a quarter ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... understand," replied Joe. "What I meant was that there isn't money enough in your whole crowd to make me go back on my word and ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... "Your father wrote to me saying that he will be arriving on Earth on 24th August. I take it your letter says the same. I came on a dispatch boat; you can go back on it." ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... home after a day and a night spent out of the house, she began to grow a little uneasy in face of this firmness, to which she was not accustomed. She was then charming for two or three days. But her lover did not go back on what he had said, and contented himself with asking ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... good Master Holdenough, do not let us go back on that question," said the Mayor. "Guy of Warwick, or Bevis of Hampton, might do something with this generation; but truly, they are too many and too strong ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... sir, and saw him quiver. 'Then I must apologize to Stidger,' I said, 'for supposing him capable of changing his name.' He came to me an hour after, all in a tremble. 'For God's sake, Star,' he said,—always called me Star,—'don't go back on me, but you know family affairs—another woman, beautiful creature,' etc., etc.,—yes, sir, perfectly common, but a blank mistake. When a man once funks his own name he'll turn tail on anything. Sorry for this man, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "and let us talk. Have another cushion—so—and if you're good I'll give you tea presently. And understand, you needn't be careful of yourself. I'll play perfectly fair with you. I've been thinking it all out during this time you didn't come; and I never go back on my word once given. So, look here, you needn't account for yourself in any way. I don't even want to know your name—specially I don't want to know that. It might localise you, and I don't want to have you localised. Directly a person is localised it takes away their restfulness to one. One begins ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Johnny shivered a little. The man was an old regular, a veteran of many battles not given in histories. Was he one of those who took this motto: "Anything's all right that you can get away with?" Johnny wondered. It might be, just might be, that Johnny would go back on this same train to Vladivostok; and that, Johnny had ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... said, "we'll carry this thing through in open court. Maybe his nerve will go back on him then. McNamara has him hypnotized, but he won't dare refuse to obey the orders of ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... here'll show you what you got to do. And you'll stand right under all the time—and you'll stand there every time we work on the trestle. I'm going to make it worth your skin to stop this thing. And if after to-day I find a rope cut or a bolt missing I'll smash you to pulp. And Big Jim Torrance don't go back on his word. . . . What's more, you and the other dogs won't be paid for the time it ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... and, whether I've talent or not, I'd rather snuff out, when my time comes, neglected and a pauper than go back on it. [Walking away and pacing the room.] Oh, but I'm not discouraged, my dear Robbie—not a scrap! I'm not discouraged, though you do regard me as ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... wonder why these cannibal savages did not go back on their bargain and refuse to give her up, even after I had vanquished their chief in fair fight; but the honourable course they adopted is attributable solely to their own innate sense of fair-play, and their admiration for superior ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... cannot be the truth, but, as Confucius has said, "say you are not but make a point to do it," and that, knowing that he would not condemn you, you have taken the risk. If so, then what do you take the President for? To go back on one's words is an act despised by a vagabond. To suggest such an act as being capable of the President is an insult, the hideousness of which cannot be equalled by the number of hairs on one's head. Any one guilty of such an insult ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... a baby, but I can't see the hurt of its own people kissing it. We used to take it behind the door and kiss it good, and it's living yet. Ain't, Eph, it's a wonder we ever growed up, the way we were bounced and rocked and joggled and kissed! I say it ain't right to go back on cradles; they belong to babies. But look, Eph, there she's buying them old copper sheep bells! Wonder ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... constantly harassed by that people. The genius of campaigning by destroying trains was Major Lot Smith. One evening, at the head of forty men, after riding all night, he came in sight of a westward-bound government train. On coming up to it he ordered the drivers to turn round and go back on their trail. They obeyed promptly, but as soon as Smith was out of sight, they wheeled around and travelled west again. During the day a party of Mormon troops passed them, and taking all of the freight out of the wagons, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... said to me, very sharply, 'You have been unfaithful to all the traditions of your ancestors—but it is done. Remember that you have enlisted voluntarily in the Republican army; serve it frankly and loyally, for your decision is made, you cannot now go back on it.' Then seeing the tears running down my cheeks (he too was moved), and taking my hand with the only one he had left, he drew me to him and pressed me on his heart. Then giving me seventy louis ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... told her I must go back on the trail. "See, now, what this dog has done for us," I said. "The scratches on the ground of his little travois poles will make a trail easy to be followed. I must take him with me and run back the trail. For you, stay here by the water and no matter what your fears, do not ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... said Dr. O'Grady, "to go back on the whole theory of necessary expenses? Would you refuse to allow the unfortunate secretary of a charitable society to refund himself for the postage stamps he uses in sending ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... the money, he will not have the face to return. My only fear is that you will go back on your promise, if he does bring the ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... need of becoming pessimistic. Above all we should not go back on the history of our Country. We have grown great by assimilation. Let us have a dignified confidence in the power of our institutions and of our Christianity to continue the process which has developed the strength of the Republic. If we are true to our principles ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... of this tale it would doubtless be my pleasant duty to record the fact that he lifted the glass from the table, poured the contents into the bowl, and said that he could not go back on his principles. ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... . . it's too late . . . we are to be married on Thursday; everything is fixed up. I—oh, for God's sake, Cynthia, don't go on talking about it. You drove me to do what I have done. It's too late—I can't go back on ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... There was nothing else to do. We can pay every dollar we owe, but it leaves me stranded. Madeleine is the worst part of it. I did not think she'd go back on me. They are furious at her house. I stopped there, but she wouldn't see me—nobody would. She's wrong, and when she gets the truth she'll think differently, but it's pretty hard while ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to Walker, "I'll call a meeting to-night and put the case as you have said, and ask them to go back. But mind, you've not to go back on your promise. You'll have to start Andrew and Geordie within twa days, or the men will no' continue to work. Mind, I'm taking a lot on myself to do this, and you'll have to carry out your part and ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... he said, gently. Then he added, proudly: "The Norths never go back on their spoken or written word. It is in the blood to be true and you have ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... no way of making Janie go back on her decision once her mind was made up. "If there's a war, you orter be fightin'," she added. "There's prospecks . . ." Her weak voice was almost inaudible, and the nurse was coming down the ward ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... our own boat's crew," replied Jack, "I fancy the best thing we can do is to go back on board, since we can't do anything here. One of us will keep watch, and the rest of us can get some ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... of us—but they played up the hatred of England which they have bred in us; and they stampeded many of our people on the love of the Fatherland. Our ranks broke; our leaders were put in jail and some were shot; it's hard to go back on your ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... right. They say he's immensely wealthy. He can retire now and enjoy his money. If the public did not go back on him he'd be a dead man in five or six years. He does the work of twenty men. I pity the others, the poor devils who are waiting on fortune ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... time for news regarding the whereabouts of Peter Janssen Pullaine, and if you had not so successfully hidden your real name under that of your professional one, no doubt some of your colleagues would have put you in the way of finding it out long ago. The baron did not go back on his word and did not act ungratefully. His will, dated twenty-nine years ago, was never altered in a single particular. I rather suspect that that letter and that gift of money which came to you in the name of his steward, and was supposed to close the affair ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... I always did love goes back on me, Marion. Do you think she will go back on me?" and he caught both of ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... Will the shade go back on the dial plate? Will thy sun stand still on his way? Both hasten on; and thy spirit's fate Rests on the point of life's little date:— Then ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... visitor, 'I'm reformed, and I've made up my mind to serve my great Redeemer as long as he lets me live. I'll never go back on Him, true as you live. I'm just a goin' to let the world know that I'm a second Apostle Paul—there ain't a goin' to be anybody beat me in this line of business, sure's my name is ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... happier and Christians no wiser," she said sceptically. "The great populations will sweep on, as little affected by the Jews as this crowd by you and me. The world will not go back on itself—rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit. We are such a handful of outsiders. Judaism—old or new—is ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... low price on the coal, and there's no margin for anybody; and if Duffy should kick about the quality of the coal,—and you can't please these fellows if they want to be ugly,—Crane & Co. will be in a hole, and lose money on the contract. I hate to go back on Tom Grogan, but there's no help for it. The ten cents a ton I'd save if she hauls the coal instead of McGaw would be eaten up in Duffy's short weights and rejections. I sent Sergeant Duffy's letter to her, so she can tell how the land ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "You can't go back on the paper at this late day. And you can't give him a Christmas and every other of our children not have any just because we're their parents and still living. There ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... it, and say you don't think so. Do you suppose He knows about me already, and that that is why He left me last evening when He saw that I blushed and trembled like a fool under His eyes? You know I can't bribe all the newspapers, and I can't go back on anybody who was civil to Gunny at Redhorse—not if I'm pitched out of society into the sea. So the skeleton sometimes rattles behind the door. I never cared much before, as you know, but now—now it is not the same. Jack Raynor I am sure of—he will not tell Him. He seems, indeed, to hold ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... spoons, I guess. These will never do for highfliers like us." Or, "Drop in at Swillem's and send home a few dozen champagne; I can't stummick such common drink as coffee for breakfast." Or, "I must fix up and make some calls on Algonkin Av'noo. Sence we've jined the Upper Ten, we mustn't go back on Society." But this brute thunder had little effect on Mrs. Matchin. She knew the storm was over when her good-natured lord tried ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... stand it; I can't stand these dreams, and that face of his looking at me all the time. So I'm going to give myself up, have it over with, and do my penalty. Maybe I can sleep then. If my lungs hold out, all right; if they don't—well, I'll sleep anyhow. You see, I can't make a living, for I can't go back on the stage. Why, I can't leave this ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... in a single night, and forever afterwards be slow. Such a thing is dreadful to contemplate, but it has been. Many a vain woman has seen the folly of her ways at a glance, and at once gone back on them. This is not dreadful to contemplate, since to go back on folly is to go onward in wisdom. The female sex is not often guilty of this eccentricity, but instances have been known. It is that which fills the proud bosom of man with hope and consolation, and makes him feel really ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various |
