"On the sly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have at last settled down to look over those awful papers. It is well I am not with you. I fear we should fight every blessed minute over the destruction of Tom, Dick and Harry's epistles. Unless Mary, on the sly, sticks them in the stove when your back is turned, you will never diminish the pile during your mortal life. (Make the most of my hint, dear Mary.)" It is safe to say it was just as large at the end of the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... he whispered, as he quietly slipped the paper into Bud's hand. "Read it on the sly; and then give ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... been frolickin' and projectin' round together to keep 'em frum growin' up to do mean things. I use chawin' tobacco myself; but I've told 'em, I don't know how many times, that ef they chaw it'll stunt 'em in their growth. And I've got several of 'em that was smokin' cigarettes on the sly to promise me they'd quit. So I don't figger ez I've done them boys any real harm by goin' round with 'em. And I believe ef you was to ast 'em they'd all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... other things—doing, in fact, everything but idling. And, mind, no conversation is allowed among the men—not a word more than necessary for the performance of their several duties. If they chat at all when on deck, it is 'on the sly,' and out of sight and hearing of the vigilant officers, who have eyes like the lynx, and ears ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... "By Jove, Jim," he said, "that cage story is too thin. It worked all right up to ten o'clock, for Mackay and Fair both came down and spent a good quarter of an hour in the end of the drift and kept tapping around with their hammers. I was mean enough to watch them on the sly and saw them both taking samples. If you keep awake, you will see John Mackay down here again by six o'clock in the morning, and you may make up your mind not to see any more daylight for three days or a week to come; that is, if the drift keeps ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... more as she walked along that Godfrey could not possibly be such a cad as to throw over a poor girl who was crazy about him just before the wedding day, nor could he be meeting another girl on the sly at ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... this monopoly the major, who esteemed himself a great public benefactor, sought a cure for in selling for three shillings a pint, an article equal in quality to that for which the doctor and the parson demanded ten. But this, he said, very good naturedly, he was compelled to do on the sly, for though his customers were principally poor people, if it got noised abroad, nothing could save him from the fury of a mob of pious and very orderly people, who would get up town meetings and vote him down an intolerable nuisance. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... had my cry—if not out—so nearly to the end that I felt adequate to making my judge see reason,—if only he would not look at me as if he were ashamed of his daughter! Was it very wrong to take those things on the sly? Would I be punished for it? Had he told my mother yet? And did Mary 'Liza know about it? I could never, never tell her that I had worn the nasty bonnet and cloak as mourning to Musidora's funeral. I ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... that's nonsense," said Laurence. "What are the girls to do, if one fellow mayn't come on as soon as another fellow is down? But then, you see, a fellow never knows when he's down himself, and therefore he thinks that he's ill used. I'll tell you what now. I shouldn't wonder if we couldn't do it on the sly,—unless one of you is stupid enough to hit the other in an awkward place. If you are certain of your hand now, the right shoulder is the best spot." Phineas felt very certain that he would not hit Lord Chiltern in an awkward place, although he was by no means sure of his hand. Let ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... if he did. My rooms cost me so much that I never have a shilling to spare, and I do not go to Monte Carlo often, for these Rossiter-Brownes profess to be very religious people—Baptists, I believe—and hold gambling in great abhorrence, so, as I wish to stand well with them I have to play on the sly, or not at all. They have a house in New York and another in the country somewhere, and a cottage at the sea-side; and they have a maid and a courier, and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne talks as familiarly with both of them as she does with me, and I think feels more at ease ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... some offices, instead of the time being spent in reading newspapers and gossiping, it was devoted to devouring the synopsis and spelling out French novels, while many feigned business outside to consult their pocket-dictionaries on the sly. So no business was transacted, callers were told to come back the next day, but the public could not take offense, for they encountered some very polite and affable clerks, who received and dismissed them with grand salutations in the French style. The clerks were practising, brushing the dust off ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... I mean a town where at least one-third of the people are raw foreigners or rawly extracted natives. The old New England ideal characterises them all, up to a certain point, socially; it puts a decent outside on most of 'em; it makes 'em keep Sunday, and drink on the sly. We got in the Irish long ago, and now they're part of the conservative element. We got in the French Canadians, and some of them are our best mechanics and citizens. We're getting in the Italians, and as ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... intense surprise, he lingered on; he actually grew stronger. Although never seeming to gain an ounce in weight, he could eat a formidable breakfast and used to insist, to my horror and shame, in importing his own wine, which he accused my German maid Bertha of drinking on the sly. Callers cheered him up—Rolfe the Consul, Dr. Dohrn of the Aquarium, and old Marquis Valiante, that perfect botanist—all of them dead now! After a month and a half of painful experiences, we at last learnt to handle him. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... but Jackie Bow Wow made a nice home run, and Jimmie Wibblewobble almost did, only he got put out at the home plate, and then Johnnie Bushytail, he got put out, trying to steal to second base, which means getting there on the sly, you know; and then it came the turn of Buddy and his friends to bat the ball all over if ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... back of Ted were as smart as anything, too," observed Max. "Think of them finding that there was a whole lot of ginseng growing wild in the woods around Carson, and gathering it in on the sly." ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... in that light at all," persisted Dick, sturdily; "it was only a pea-nut or so, and we didn't do it 'on the sly,' as we would if we'd been 'stealing,' as you say. Why, the very word makes me mad all over"—doubling up his fists as he paced up and down before them, now and then giving himself a ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... observed tranquilly to himself. "I've cornered the fourth. It remains to be seen whether Weldon is cornered by the fifth, or only the third. Hasn't been to see him! Little beast! But I'll bet any amount of gold money that she has done endless messing for him on the sly." ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... the more insolent way in which they carried off whatever they could seize. When I opposed them, the club or tomahawk, the musket or kawas (i. e. killing-stone), being instantly raised, intimated that my life would be taken, if I resisted. Their skill in stealing on the sly was phenomenal! If an article fell, or was seen on the floor, a Tanna-man would neatly cover it with his foot, while looking you frankly in the face, and, having fixed it by his toes or by bending in his great toe like a thumb to hold it, would walk ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... to Captain Dinks' precautions, provisions and small water casks, or barricoes, had already been stowed in the bows and along the sternsheets of the long-boat; so, after chucking in one or two articles which they had brought up from below beforehand on the sly, amongst which was a good-sized barrel of rum, they proceeded to drop down into the boat one by one, Moody going first and the others following until the whole number, a round dozen in all, had got in—the two who had remained as sentries ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our own Miss, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... are plenty of holes and corners in the old house over the way. Run off with a wench! Holy brother Julian! Contemptuous brother Julian! Stand-by-thyself brother Julian! Run away with a wench at last! Well, there's a downfall! He'll be for marrying her on the sly, and away!—I know the old fox!—for her conscience-sake, probably not for his! Well, one comfort is, it's damnation and no reprieve. The ungrateful, atheistical heretic! As if the good old mother wasn't indulgent enough ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... steamer-chair. She, however, her head thrown back, with half-closed eyes, seemed fascinated by the glories in the west, and almost unconscious of his presence. As too much staring might cause annoyance, he did most of it on the sly. And the opportunity was good. As a mystery, she proved an absorbing study: an irresistible blending of contradictions, of sympathy and reserve, of sadness—and of wit—of a character and temperament not half-divulged. Whenever their eyes met, ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... defence, had he been brought to the gangway for inebriety. "I can stand well enough," continued the representative of Cassio. "Then, hang it! why don't you walk the plank at once, and prove yourself sober?" vociferated a long-tailed wag, determined not to slip this opportunity of having a shot on the sly at his first lieutenant, who had only a night or two before put his perpendicularity to a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... myself to 4 or 5 hours a day and 5 days in the week, but this time I've wrought from breakfast till 5.15 p.m. six days in the week; and once or twice I smouched a Sunday when the boss wasn't looking. Nothing is half so good as literature hooked on Sunday, on the sly. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cotton dresses, and the Mistress wore long dresses, with different colors for Sunday clothes, but us slaves didn't know much about Sunday in a religious way. The Master had a brother who used to preach to the Negroes on the sly. One time he was caught and the Master whipped ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... lady. She kept all Lillie's dresses and laces and wardrobe, and had something ready for her to put on when she changed her toilet every day. If this very fine lady wore her mistress's skirts and sashes, and laces and jewelry, on the sly, to evening parties among the upper servant circles of Springdale, who was to know it? Mrs. John Seymour knew nothing about where her things were, nor what was their condition, and never wanted to trouble ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as plucky as could be, Fighting the foe she thought I did not see, And using her heart-horticultural powers To turn that forest to a bed of flowers. You cannot check an unadmitted sigh, And so I had to soothe her on the sly, And secretly to help her draw her load; And soon it came to be an up-hill road. Hard work bears hard upon the average pulse, Even with satisfactory results; But when effects are scarce, the heavy strain Falls dead and solid on the heart and brain. And when we're bothered, it will oft ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... crime and bloodshed are read by everybody with great avidity,—and people will go miles to the site of grim tragedy. Court rooms are packed whenever a horrible murder is aired or a nauseating divorce scandal is tried. A chaste woman will read, on the sly and with inner rebellion, as many pornographic tales as she can get hold of, and the "carefully" brought up, i. e., those whose interest has been carefully directed, suddenly become interested in the forbidden; they seek to peek through ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... receiving a call to join the army as a recruit, his appetite, which had for some time been capricious, had completely disappeared. In spite of coaxing he resolutely refused all food, or took it only in the tiniest morsels, although at the same time it was thought that he sometimes took food "on the sly." A careful examination showed absolutely no sign of bodily disease. He was admitted to a ward for treatment by hypnotic suggestion, but before this could be begun he endeavoured to commit suicide by setting ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... of ours, Dr. Anstice, as I expect you know considerably better than I do. Have you never had an hysterical patient who declared she could not walk and after being carried about for months has been discovered dancing a fandango in her bedroom on the sly?" ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... enough; not in drinking of healths, which practice was then considered as closely akin to an unlawful thing, but in laughing and quaffing, and whispering of merry jests. For I have usually found that, be the Rule of Church and State ever so sour and stern, folks will laugh and quaff and jest on the sly, and be merry in the green tree, if they are forced to be sad ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... I always felt Foe could help. And yet he didn't help very much. He read a heap of poetry—on the sly, as it were; and one night I coaxed him off to a talk about Browning. His language on the way ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Harry, "is about one of the hired men we had last winter, whose name was Jacobs. He was a cunning fellow, with a hangdog look, and a great cleverness at stealing farm produce from father on the sly, and selling it. Father knew perfectly well what he was doing, and was wondering what would be the best way to deal with him, when one day something happened that brought matters ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... believe most of them had ever seen a comfortable room on wheels before. The other people in our car was all men, and looked as if they hadn't their families with them, and was glad to get a little comfort on the sly. When we got to Rowsley we saw Mr. Poplington on the platform, running about, collecting all his different bits of luggage, and counting them to see that they was all there, and then, as we had a window open and was looking out, ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... some occupation for him. He looked so bright that he was taken for an office-boy here and there; but he never stayed. The fact was, the only thing he could do well was to fling balls up in the air and catch them in turn, without letting them drop to the ground; and this he could only do best on the sly, behind somebody's back. Now this, though entertaining to those who saw it for a little while, did not help on his employers, who wondered why they did not get more work ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... sight of my rifle and found that the back sight had been raised clear up. Strange to say, I had not noticed it before. No doubt it was done by one of my little sisters or John S. They must have taken it down and been fooling with it, on the sly. Then I knew the reason of my bad luck. I think a more tired and discouraged hunter than I was, never crawled out of the woods. With my, hitherto, trusty companion I had met with a signal defeat. I had carried it hundreds of miles on my shoulder ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... no; you are poor, and may soon want the money; but if you can take me one conveniently on the sly, you know—I think you may, for, as it is a good book, I suppose there can be no harm ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... keep away from Bill Holmes." Luck was not one to mince his words when he had occasion to speak of disagreeable things. "It isn't right for you to let him make love to you on the sly. You know that. You know you must not leave camp with him after dark. You make me ashamed of you when you do those things. You keep away from Bill Holmes and stay in camp nights. If you're a bad girl, I'll have to send you back to the reservation—and I'll have to tell the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Captain Robertson had been giving him strong drink on the sly, moved thereto by sympathy with a fellow toper. Also he had shown him where, if he wanted it, he could get more, and Hans always wanted gin very badly indeed. To leave it within his reach was like leaving a handful ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... who did not bruise the delicate little flower was the fat servant woman, Adele. Adele would go up and warm her bed,—doing it on the sly after a certain evening when Sylvie had scolded her for giving that ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... unwell and then cursed the climate and my so-called misrepresentations; others would ignore all instructions as to the agricultural methods essential to success in this climate, and then denounce me on the sly because their crops ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... that it was better to obey. He went up on the sly in the course of the evening, however, but peeping in and seeing that he slept, came down again. He insisted upon sitting up with him though, to which, after repeated vows of prudence and caution, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... strangely unconquerable, and it rose again and again, vital and conflicting, to taunt him with its indestructibility. He certainly could not have told himself why he liked to meet this girl so often on the sly and why he liked to kiss her red lips and make her eyes shine into his. But the fact that he did like the meetings and did look forward to the kisses, was quite a dominant factor in his life. Still, these things were apart: ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... most of us, Laura, is that we become wise too late in life. Young people are often their own worst enemies, and if you wish to do them good, you must do it, as it were, on the sly. If one tries openly to reform and guide them—if I should say plainly, Such and such are your faults; such and such places and associations are full of danger—they would be angry or disgusted, or they would say I was blue and strait-laced, and had an old woman's notions ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... had always been allowed to drink when at home and now he frequently drank on the sly when down to Cedarville. On these excursions he was generally joined by a weak-minded boy named Hurdy, who was usually willing to do ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... see you on the sly, and we can go down in the fields and have fun, when your Auntie ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... parrot screamed, And "Pretty Poll," repeated I, The while I stole a merry glance Across the room all on the sly, Where some one plied her needle fast, Demurely by the window sitting; But I beheld upon her cheek A multitude ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... limited notions of honour young men are apt to entertain nowadays, and how intensely foolish a boarding-school miss can be on occasion. I don't want these young people to run off to Gretna-green some fine morning, or to steal a march upon me by getting married on the sly at some out-of-the-way church, after having invested their united fortunes in the purchase of a special license. In plain words, I distrust Miss Halliday's lover, and I distrust Miss Halliday's common sense; and I want to have a sensible, sharp-eyed person in the house always ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... blasted lubber, now that I COULD do it and cut right away, I must needs think that I'd like first to see Bill on the sly, without letting on to any one else, and tell him what I was going to do. I'd no fear that he'd object, or that he'd hesitate a minute to fall in with my plan of dropping my name and my game, and giving him full swing, while I stood out to sea and the South Pacific, and dropped out of his ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... first-class brigand in Paolo. I stimulated his brave fancy; and it was finally proposed that I should establish myself permanently with the manager of the estate, so that on Sundays we could have some brigand-sport together, on the sly. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... what she's talking about but he does, because he told Doc Philipps, when he went to see about his liver, that if he couldn't wear a soft collar or a soft hat like other men and keep a dog and smoke in the house, and eat strawberries or whistle or go to ball games on Sundays and prize fights on the sly, why, there was one thing he could do and would have and that was a drawer, a whole chiffonier drawer, all to himself. And that he bet there weren't many men in Green Valley that could say as much. Hen just swore that he intends to have something all his own and that nobody'll open ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... replied, pressing her hand on the sly; "I have been finding that out ever since I gave myself ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... that I thought it time to put my pipe in my pocket, for, you see, I had been havin' a puff on the sly as we was bearin' down; an' I put up my fore-finger to shove the baccy down, when one o' them stingin' little things comes along, whips my best cutty out o' my mouth, an' carries the finger along with it. Of coorse ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... dry, I guess," he said to the girl, who smiled sympathetically, somewhat ruefully. When she had gone he began to talk to Janet about the folly, in general, of prohibition, the fuse oil distributed on the sly. "I'll bet I could go out and find half a dozen rum shops within a mile of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Frank does these days. You know they've had to keep a man on duty every night around that workshop, because of Percy. He ain't to be trusted, and would just as soon put a match to the place as eat his dinner—if he thought he could do it on the sly." ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... questioning aren't the worst. It's the family themselves. Between Hattie's pulling one way and Jane the other, I feel like a bone between two quarrelsome puppies. Hattie is already house-hunting, on the sly, and she's bought Bessie an expensive watch and a string of gold beads. Jane, on the other hand, insists that Mr. Fulton will come back and claim the money, so she's running her house now on the principle that she's LOST a hundred thousand dollars, and so must economize ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... he ought to be drawing a regular salary because of that paper he's got hidden away, and which is worth so much to Amasa Culpepper, as well as to you. To keep him quiet it may be, the old man is paying him a few dollars every week on the sly, even though he refuses to come down with a ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... to every one except my dear little wife, whom they seemed to take pleasure in keeping away from me. Once, however, on ascending the steps, I had squeezed her hand on the sly. Even then this rash act had cost me a look, half sharp and half sour, from my mother-in-law, which had recalled me to a true sense of the situation. If, Monsieur, you happen to have gone through a similar day of violent effusion and general expansion, you will agree with me that during no ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the proofs in his shirt-sleeves, swigging his stout, smoking on the sly, working with all the genius of an inspired mechanic one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the next, spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of work, as if his very life depended on the smoothing of an edge of paper, putting off the next ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... playing hookey, or stealing watermelon, it was more fun if it was done on the sly. The boy who comes home feeling deliciously wicked and delightfully sinful after staying away from school all day can have his whole day ruined by being told that it was a holiday and that the school had been closed. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and I dinna deny but when I saw him wi' his head bowed-like in prayer during the singing I says to rnysel', 'Thou art the man.' Ay, but Betsy wraxed up her head, and he wasna praying. He was combing his hair wi' his fingers on the sly." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... rehearsals Dick was always firm, and seeing that it could not be shirked, the chorus pulled themselves together, and the act was run through somehow. Then a few more invitations were whispered in the corners on the sly, and the party in couples and groups repaired to the Lennoxes' lodgings. Mortimer, Beaumont, Dick, and Kate walked together, talking of the night's show. Dubois crushed his bishop's hat over his eyes, straddled his ostler-like legs, and discussed Wagner's position in ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... get out for a fortune. They want me to go in with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the sly" [voice down to an impressive whisper, now,] "and buy up a hundred and thirteen wild cat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri—notes ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... times she's angry, and won't say a word, and that's what I'm afraid of. I took her a shawl one day, the like of which she might never have seen, although she did live in luxury and she gave it away to her maid, Katia. Sometimes when I can keep away no longer, I steal past the house on the sly, and once I watched at the gate till dawn—I thought something was going on—and she saw me from the window. She asked me what I should do if I found she had deceived me. I said, 'You know ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with Dave Roush are you? Not meetin' up with him on the sly?" he demanded, his deep-set eyes full of menace under ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... the poet soared, And Sorrow fled when thou wentst by, And, when we said "Here's looking toward" . . . It seemed a better world, say I, With greener grass and bluer sky . . . The writ is on the Tavern Door, And who would tipple on the sly? . . . 'Tis not ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... Saturday. On the Sunday, going to church, the captain suggested that Alaric might, at any rate, just call upon Sir Jib on the sly. 'It would be a great thing for you,' said Uncle Bat. 'I'll write a note to-night, and you can take it with you. Sir Jib is a rising man, and you'll regret it for ever if you miss the opportunity.' Now Sir Jib Boom was between seventy ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... adj.. januis clausis [Lat.], with closed doors, a huis clos [Fr.]; hugger mugger, a la derobee [Fr.]; under the cloak of, under the rose, under the table; sub rosa [Lat.], en tapinois [Fr.], in the background, aside, on the sly, with bated breath, sotto voce [Lat.], in a whisper, without beat of drum, a la sourdine^. behind the veil; beyond mortal ken, beyond the grave, beyond the veil; hid from mortal vision; into the eternal secret, into the realms supersensible^, into the supreme mystery. in confidence, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... black, but the breast and neck were really a very rich brown, with the rest of the body like jet and as lustrous as satin. They were not general favorites with the other birds on account of some dishonorable tricks which they did on the sly. For instance, they never troubled themselves to make nests, but watched their chance to sneak in and lay their eggs, only one in a place, in the nests of other birds. For some reason their eggs always hatch a little sooner than the eggs rightfully belonging ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... would not do this without informing her aunt that it was about to be done. On this occasion, even though her aunt should tell her to remain in the house, she would go forth. But her aunt should not throw it in her teeth that she had acted on the sly. One day, one cold November morning, when the hour of their early dinner was approaching, she went up-stairs from the kitchen for her hat and cloak, and then, equipped for her walk, presented herself ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... any money to spend," Dicky explained. "That's the way her mother punishes her. But sometimes she earns it on the sly taking care of babies. She loves babies and babies always love her. Delia'll go to her from my mother any time and as for Betsy Hale—Rosie's the only one who can do ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... was wed, hard an' fast; an' the women o' Tinkle Tickle laughed on the sly at pretty Polly Twitter ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... tell me that Charlotte is sick, but I don't really see why you should take so much trouble—I really don't. It doesn't matter to me whether Charlotte is sick or whether she isn't. YOU know that perfectly well, Mr. Patterson, if anybody does. When Charlotte went and got married, on the sly, to that ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was dif to scientific and chrisehin preceps; so I told him to go to the Deevil: 'I will,' sis he, and went t' a docker. The two assassins have poisoned the poor beastie between 'em; and thin, been the greatest miser in the world, except one, he will have roasted his victim, and ate her on the sly, imprignated with strychnine. 'I'll steal a march on t'other miser,' sis he; and that's you: t' his brain flew the strychnine: his brain sint it to his spinal marrow: and we found my lorrd bent like a bow, and his jaw locked, and nearer knowin the great secret than any man in England ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... evaded where they are not broken literally; and this law of forbidding clergymen to marry was evaded in many ways. Clergymen took to themselves wives, and had families. Again and again their consciences justified them in their course, whatever the Canon Law might forbid or denounce. They married on the sly—if that may be called marriage which neither the Church nor the State recognized as a binding contract, and which was ratified by no formality or ceremony civil or religious: but public opinion was lenient; and where a clergyman was living otherwise ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... to hear sounds as if some one were turning that rusty crank on the sly. This occurred only on particularly cold nights, and I conceived the uncomfortable idea that it was the thin family ghosts, from the neglected graveyard in the cornfield, keeping themselves warm by running each other through the mangle. There was a haunted air about ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Senka. But here, now, I'll say that of all the men the most decent is a thief or a murderer. He doesn't hide the fact that he loves a girlie, and, if need be, will commit a crime for her—a theft or a murder. But these—the rest of them! All lying, falsehood, petty cunning, depravity on the sly. The nasty beast has three families, a wife and five children. A governess and two children abroad. The eldest daughter from the first marriage, and a child by her. And this everybody, everybody in town ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Gilmore; "he's going to be on the look-out, for Distie's sure to want to serve him out on the sly if ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... their shouts and whacks, mingled with the patter of hoofs on the street. It was so dramatic that even the women came to their doors to witness the pageant. We tried not to laugh, and so did the delicately mannered spectators, but I suspect that a good deal of laughing was done on the sly, in spite of the canons ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... when the Doctor's cross. Well, as soon as he squeals out, all the hedgehogs who hear him come running to see what's the matter, and you get as many as you like, and put 'em in a hutch, but you mustn't keep live things here, only on the sly. I had so many, the Doctor put a stop to all the boys keeping things, rabbits, and white mice, and all. That's why ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... friendly, as Nic soon found; but he attributed it to the stern orders they had received; but now and then one or another made a little advance, by offering, on the sly, fish or flesh in the shape of bird or 'possum which he had caught or trapped during the moonlight nights. For Saunders seemed to pay no heed to the black slaves slipping away of a night on ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... going to ask you to take it back to your mistress; and then no doubt you'll be reading it on the sly. Here, I must sit down: suppose you let me perch myself on the top bar of the gate. Also, it would be kind of you to put up an ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... else, and then shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of our element under the inquiring but superior glances that fell to our lot. It was all very well for us to make our little observations and smile at each other on the sly: we had the consciousness all the while of not belonging to the first society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as intruders in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... you do—remain in Cincinnati and meet that vulgar carpenter on the sly, I suppose," ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... anything I've done, my girl, nor need you be. I'll tell him my real name is Dick Demorest, as I ought to have told you before, and that I want to marry you, fairly and squarely, and let him make the conditions. I'm not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you on the sly. Come, dear, let us ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... FOUR LITTLE BLOSSOMS THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS The story starts at Thanksgiving. They went skating and coasting, and they built a wonderful snowman, and one day Bobby and his chums visited a carpenter shop on the sly, and that night the shop burnt down, and there was ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... the plague ever said it was? but what can you expect from red republicans? Well, snooping means taking things on the sly after a good rumage; and stool-pidgeoning means plundering under cover of law; for instance, if a judge takes a bribe, or a fellow is seized by a constable, and the stolen property found on him is given up, the merciful officer seizes the goods and lets him run, and that is all that ever is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... doubling and tacking, let history, if she can or dare, say. The queen dead; who so eager to return as my lord duke? Who shouts God save the king! so lustily as the great conqueror of Blenheim and Malplaquet? (By the way, he will send over some more money for the Pretender yet, on the sly.) Who lays his hand on his blue ribbon, and lifts his eyes more gracefully to heaven than this hero? He makes a quasi-triumphal entrance into London, by Temple Bar, in his enormous gilt coach—and the enormous ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the gravel-pit an' get a barrerful o' gravel. He wheeled it up to the side door, an' put a plank over the steps, an' wheeled it right in. An' then he dumped it in the middle o' his clean floor. That was the last o' her tryin' to do for him on the sly. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... I am. I know I'm fagged to death. She gives Mrs. Wilkins pounds on the sly, which the old lady's been transforming into gin, and then when I explain the circumstances and implore her to leave well alone, she talks my head off with a torrent of incoherent statements, which have nothing whatever to do ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... mother is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early home and get a little refreshment on the sly, even though a new-comer may ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... that made me break away from her in the beginning. She'd had more love affairs than one; her late father's masquerading as a doctor for another. They had only used that as a cloak. They had run a gambling-house on the sly—he as the card-sharper, she as the decoy. They had drained one poor fellow dry, and she had thrown him over after leading him on to think that she cared for him and was going to marry him. He blew out his brains in front of her, poor ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... trout went in search of better feeding grounds, and again the gravelly shallow seemed deserted. But it was only seeming. There were no eggs in sight—the frogs, the rats, the ducks, and the yearlings had taken care of that, and I am very much afraid that our friend may have eaten a few himself, on the sly, when his wife wasn't looking—but hidden away among the pebbles there were thousands, and the old, old miracle was being re-enacted, and multitudes of little live creatures were getting ready for the time when something should tell them to tear their shells ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... "Well, I s'pose he intended for me to get 'em on the sly without mentionin' it to you, an' put in what he sent, but I sort of guessed you might like to fall in with his idee by hangin' 'em up yourself, here by the chimbley, where the children all used to do it. Here's the nails, same ...
— On Christmas Day in the Morning • Grace S. Richmond
... cried, as he stood upright again, and shook his fist in Tom's face. "I guess theft's jest the ticket, ye thunderin' liar! Ye've been shamming Abraham in yer watch, an' sneaked down thaar to hev a pipe on the sly, when ye should hev bin mindin' yer dooty, thet's what's the matter, sirree; but, I'll make ye pay for it, ye skulkin' rascallion. I'll stop ye a month's wages fur the damage done to the ship—if not by the fire, by the water we've hove in to put it out, an' ye ken tote it up, ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... foregoing you will see that I am capable of sharing your literary glory on the sly, and without compunction. Indeed, the false role created in me a perverse mood. And I entered into a literary discussion with M—— that outraged his pedantic soul. It was my way of perjuring his judgment, in return for his unwitting approval of my reviews. Besides, the assumption of infallibility ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... clergymen and women take in private, and by advice, I do not know why one should not make them palatable and heat them with his own poker. Cold whiskey out of a bottle, taken as a prescription six times a day on the sly, is n't my idea of virtue any more than the social ancestral glass, sizzling wickedly with the hot iron. Names are so confusing in this world; but things are apt to remain pretty much the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ojos cegarritas (blindly) A horcajadas (astride) A hurtadillas (on the sly) A sabiendas (knowingly) De puntillas (on tiptoe) A tientas (groping) De bobilis bobilis (without toil) De bruces (on all fours) En ayunas (fasting) En volandas (in ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... same," one of them informed her; "so you are too! Everybody's looking." And they crowded round to examine the objects in her hand—a dirty earth-stained trowel and a fern. They knew she collected ferns on the sly, but never before had they seen her bring home such a prize. Usually she found only crumpled things like old bits of wrinkled brown paper which she called "specimens." This one was marvellously beautiful. It had a dainty, slender ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... it him, and what he takes it in. He don't know he's taking it, that's for certain. It must be on the sly, or I should have seen it, and the glass and spoon. That's it. He puts it in his coffee; I'll be bound to say that's it—in his coffee. I'll ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... well as the men. Her royal highness the Duchess of Cumberland not long ago set up card playing and gaming in her drawing-rooms. Her sister, Lady Elizabeth Lutterell, is one of the best gamesters in London. It is whispered, though, that she cheats on the sly. Lady Essex gives grand card parties, where there is high gaming. One lady, whom I know, lost three thousand guineas at loo. It is whispered that two ladies, not long since, had high words at one of Lady Essex's parties; ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... fool enough to let them see the hamper. All they saw was the two bags of corn as I rode out of the gate with. I had filled the hamper on the sly, and hid it in the bushes by the road, until I went by ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... felt a certain boyish admiration for the tall, lithe girl who bore such a record for bravery, though not for the world would they have admitted the fact, even to each other; and they could not resist plaguing her on the sly whenever a chance presented itself. But to tease her openly was out of the question; so Gloriana received a double share of tormenting, which she bore with such uncomplaining fortitude that the ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... brain? You'd be accused of brainwashing, of making monsters, of depriving children of their heritage of happiness—and in the same ungodly howl there would be voices as loudly damning you for not tossing your process into their laps. And there would be a number trying to get to you on the sly so that they could get a head ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... What became of them I could not tell, but the last I saw, was the infuriated crowd driving them into the Khan of Muhayeddin near by, where one knows not what may have happened to them. I hope they did not steal the pork and eat it "on the sly," as the Bedawin did at Mt. Sinai, who threw away the hams the travellers were carrying for provisions, and declared that their camels should not be defiled with the unclean beast! The travellers were very indignant at such a loss, but thought it was too bad to injure the feelings of the devout ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... Father this morning. He came to my room, and—and it was very near being serious. Someone had told him I was doing things on the sly which he had better look into; and of course he asked questions and—and I answered them. He wasn't pleased—in fact he was very displeased,—I don't think we can blame him for that—but we had no open break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that, and ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... spurning entire concealment, according to the motto of his life. "You see, sir," he said, as he rose to depart, "what I have told you is very important, and in the strictest confidence, of course, because I never do anything on the sly." ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... people the Otways knew took great glory and comfort in these rumours, but Mrs. Otway heard the news with very mixed feelings. It seemed to her scarcely fair that a Russian army should come, as it were, on the sly, to attack the Germans in France—and she did not like to feel that England would for ever and for aye have to be grateful to Russia for having sent an army to ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... The two children I refer to were about nine years old. They seemed to think a very great deal of each other, but were very shy in the presence of others. He often sent the little girl presents of flowers and candy on the sly. They continued to love each other for three or four years, until they finally ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... who was conjecturing at the motive of this order from the Court of France. "No doubt we are suspected. I never had a hope that we should not be. The Court of France, you see, can do no less than forbid us, but I should not be surprised if it winks at us on the sly. We will give them a month. Colonel Lally is a friend of mine and a friend of the King. We will get an abatement of that order, so that not one of you shall ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... never had a dear gazelle To love me with its soft, dark eye, But came a loafing ne'er-do-well And stole her from me on the sly!'" ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... recollect him, Mellot? the attorney's son from Brompton, who sold out;—we shaved his mustachios, put a bear in his bed, and sent him home to his ma—And he said that Major Campbell might be very pious, and all that: but he'd warrant—they were the fellow's own words,—that he took his lark on the sly, like other men— the snob! so I told him, I was no better than the rest, and no more I am; but if any man dared to say that the Major was not as honest as his own sister, I was his man at fifteen paces. And so I ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... fire from the watchers in the underground world, who possess enormous quantities of it. It frightened him a little when he heard that there was so much fire in the world under us, but he was not apt to be afraid very long and so as he went on searching, and on the sly listening to the talks of windegoos and others, he found that the fire for which he had been so long searching was in the possession of a fierce old medicine warrior who guarded it with the greatest care. Those ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... distance, Jack used to ride up to Southwick's place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and on other days, and hang his horse up outside, or turn it in the paddock, and argue with old Southwick, and agree with the old woman, and court Clara on the sly. And he got her. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson |
