"Perfunctorily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... behind the piano. He had perhaps been on his way to a chair when suddenly caught and immobilized by one of those hazards which do notoriously occur—the victim never remembers how—in drawing-rooms. Hands in pockets, he looked aimlessly about, smiling perfunctorily, and wondering where he should settle or whether he should remain where he was. In the deep embrasure of the large east bow-window Lois was lounging. She beckoned to him, not with her hand but with a brief, bright smile—she smiled rarely—and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... like to go out?" asked the man himself perfunctorily, as from the depths of a settled despair. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... dear Smart," he said, extending his gloved hand, which I took perforce. "Sub rosa, you might say," he went on with a wry smile. "A stupid, unchivalric empire has designs upon me, perfunctorily perhaps, but it's just as well not to stir up the monkeys, as you Americans would ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... servile partisan opinions. Still, he began to find in a considerable number of these papers, even those emanating from remote county seats, a certain raciness and independence. This newspaper reading, which Dan had begun perfunctorily, soon interested him. It was thus, he saw, that Bassett kept in touch with state affairs. Sporadic temperance movements, squabbles over local improvements, rows in school boards, and like matters were not beneath Bassett's notice. He discussed ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... with the avowed object of destroying the Russian Fleet, which had characteristically annihilated the Turkish Fleet in the harbour of Sinope. We did not do much in the Black Sea beyond running the Tiger on shore, where her crew were captured by the Muscovites. We bombarded Odessa perfunctorily, and precisely in that portion of the city where our shot and shell could do the least harm. We did not destroy the Russian Fleet, for the sufficing reason that the Russian Commander-in-Chief sank all his three-deckers full fathom five ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... So Mike laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five pounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode off ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face. He was so pleased with the idea that he smiled, keeping perfunctorily his eyes ahead; and when he happened to glance back he saw the white streak of the wake drawn as straight by the ship's keel upon the sea as the black line drawn by the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... asked perfunctorily, and he gave me a queer look out of the corners of those wicked eyes, repeating in an ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... he searched his pockets perfunctorily—"I haven't my pipe with me." His cigarette case met his searching fingers, but somehow ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... critics in their ignorance were inclined to impute false motives to him; but in time, the cloud of suspicion rolled away and his action in that crisis was not laid up against him. The election of Cleveland relieved him of seeming perfunctorily to uphold Blaine. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... by the tower in a moment, answering the director's signal perfunctorily. Southward now, on the 110th East Meridian, without deviating from the ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... perfunctorily. "A fountain pen, did you say? For the exams. I suppose your mother has sent it. There are two letters for Aveline and one for Morvyth. You may take them to them, and tell Daphne I ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Not to meddle with politics, because it is vulgar. To vote perfunctorily. To 'let George do it' when there are reforms to be brought about. To keep your hat on when the flag goes by because otherwise you will attract attention. To find fault without being able to offer remedies. To keep in debt because life here ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platform stood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous, least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too, I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party's virtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the hour" and ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... of the night that Gaston left her, passed and the dull monotony of the daily tasks performed perfunctorily with no charm of another's approbation and sharing, lost the power of holding ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... 'The public schoolboy at nineteen is unable to read a simple Latin or Greek book with ease, or to express a simple series of thoughts without atrocious blunders: he has learnt from his classics neither accuracy nor love of beauty and truth'—it is obvious that, for the average boy, the system of perfunctorily prepared set-books and dashed-off unseens is a failure. The experience of every teacher who is also an examiner, and who has had to deal with public schoolboys, will confirm this; but during twenty-five ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... you this morning?" Rachael asked perfunctorily, with her quick glance moving from the books on the table to the wood fire burning lazily behind brass firedogs. Everything was in perfect order, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of them—stalked into the room, each one being formally, but perfunctorily announced by the butler, and each one flushing painfully in return for the attention. There was Delia, the cook, and Christine, her assistant; Swanson, the furnace man; Lockhart, the chauffeur, and Boyles, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... of men had to do upon the knoll ten miles from the Bar L-M was done perfunctorily and in gloom. Little by little, man by man, they drew away from Hume, leaving him standing alone. They looked at his horse, by long odds the finest animal they had seen this day, and from Endymion they looked to his master. Now and then a quick glance went ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... hand to be a lawyer, and the one on his left an officer of court, perhaps a prosecuting attorney. Presently this fellow pounded upon the table and stood up as if to address a court-room. Certainly he silenced that hallful of people. Then he perfunctorily and briefly stated that certain women had been arrested upon suspicion of being sealed wives of Mormon polygamists, and were to be herewith tried by a judge of the United States Court. Shefford felt how the impressive words affected that silent hall ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... knees before this holy man. He gave her his blessing perfunctorily, and muttered some words of the exorcism ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... elbowed each other on entering or leaving, and exchanged friendly polite greetings; the women quizzing the new hats, little hoods of plush or large Rembranesque hats in which the delicate Parisian faces were lost as under the roof of a cabriolet. The liveried lackeys perfunctorily glanced at the cards of admission that the holders hardly took the trouble to present. One was seated at a table mechanically handing out catalogues. Through the open door of the Club's Theatre could be seen gold frames suspended from the walls, terra ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... heartily, and Joyce joined in with a merry peal. Even Lucy and Nate helped the chorus, though somewhat perfunctorily, not knowing just what they ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a step and bowed perfunctorily and rather disdainfully to that very disdainful but now dumbfounded officer. Pitt, who watched the scene from the quarter-deck rail, tells us that his lordship was as grave as a parson at a hanging. But I suspect this ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... to disregard constitutional provisions is also manifest in the vast amount of special legislation enacted despite constitutional prohibitions of such legislation. There are also numerous instances where legislatures while perfunctorily heeding the letter of the constitution consciously violate its spirit and evade its requirements. In many states there is a constitutional provision that no legislative act shall become effective until after a specified time has elapsed from its enactment ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... but in another, colder tone. The rest of the story he told perfunctorily, omitting all mention of the fight on the flagstaff tower and telling no more than was needful of the last adventure of the rapids. Either he or Dick had changed. Having begun, he persevered, but now without hope to make ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... series of the 'Months'—which he had planned among these hills, and had carried out perfunctorily and vulgarly, in the city, far from the freshness and infinity of Nature. All the faults of his designs appeared to him, and the poverty of their execution. But he was only exultant, not depressed. Now ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for the matutinal cafe-au-lait cast searching glances as they passed, to see if among the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And at one alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... greeted perfunctorily. "Pretty good talk, wasn't it?" Without waiting for a reply he went on, "Suppose you're not hankering for a drive back to town to-night? I'll see that"—a swift nod toward the departing group—"he gets back home, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Hand them over. [She puts them into his hands]. If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweler, I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat. [He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets, unconsciously decorating himself with the protruding ends ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... idol of flesh and blood. The previous incumbent of that office had been an old man, impotent and senseless of late years through age and disease. The chieftains and braves had consulted in council before him, and perfunctorily submitted their decisions, like offerings, to his unresponsive shrine. In the same way, all material events—expeditions, trophies, industries—were supposed to pass before the dull, impassive eyes of the ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... long-past fashion, lands alone. It is he whom ballads call the Flying Dutchman. Seven years have passed since he last touched land. His opportunity has returned, to reach out for salvation. He comes ashore wearily, perfunctorily, without hope, or doubt but that the ocean will soon be receiving him back for continued desperate wanderings. "Your cruelty, proud ocean," he apostrophises it, "is variable, but my torment eternal! The salvation which I seek on land, never shall I find it. To you, floods of the boundless ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... The orchestra had perfunctorily ground out the overture to "Der Freischuetz," the baritone had stentorianly emitted "Dio Possente," the soprano was working her way through the closing measures of the mad scene from "Lucia," and Diotti was number four on the program. The conductor stood beside his ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... behalf of these, with my usual piece of smuggled lead pencil, I soon began to indite and submit to the officers of the institution, letters in which I described the cruel practices which came under my notice. My reports were perfunctorily accepted and at once forgotten or ignored. Yet these letters, so far as they related to overt acts witnessed, were lucid and should have been convincing. Furthermore, my allegations were frequently corroborated by bruises ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... met on this little elevation, she bowed to him and sometimes ventured a remark or two. He did not seem over-anxious to talk but he met her troubled face with calm and unvarying, though somewhat absent-minded courtesy. He replied to her questions perfunctorily, told her whom he served, betraying, however, in turn, no inquisitiveness concerning her. For him she was just some one who came and went, and incidentally interfered with ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... forgot your rheumatism," Bud apologized perfunctorily, his face going red at the epithet. Marian, coming toward him with a plate of biscuits, looked him full in the eyes and turned her glance to her husband's back while her lips curled in the bitterest, the most scornful smile Bud had ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... in his pocket. A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... as that of any Caesar. King Alexander, without experience or character, weak, frivolous and plastic, obediently signed every decree presented to him. When recourse to the Legislature was thought necessary, the Chamber perfunctorily passed every Bill submitted to it. The newspapers were tolerated as long as they refrained from ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... you know," he answered quietly, and hitched nearer to her along the bench to make room for a new-comer who was thrusting in beside him. He turned perfunctorily to see who it might be. It ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... reasons that I have already given that I am not managing to express my personal feeling about Roosevelt. Yet he is the last man of whom I want to write perfunctorily or even ceremoniously. Therefore, for the time I shall bring my recollections of him to a close by merely noting ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... merely saluted, perfunctorily, and took seats at the table nearest the door on their left, diagonally the whole space of the room from us. Agathemer and I returned their salute as precisely as we could imitate it, thankful that they had saluted, so as to let us see what the couriers' salute was, for we had ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... said one passenger. She held up her dollar bill, indignantly, to dismiss him. He lifted his hat, perfunctorily, and swept a bow. ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... of uncertainties, one definite fact remained—a train was to leave in half an hour, which we must take. So we hurried back to the boat, made our declaration, had our boxes examined perfunctorily and passed, bought our tickets, saw our baggage transferred, tipped a dozen people, more or less, and finally were shut into a compartment two minutes before ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... lodging at a wayside tavern by a song, or a tune on his fiddle. Thus he had drifted musically for years through the Canadian backwoods, until homeless old age had overtaken him. Four years before he had spent a summer at Big Malcolm's, helping perfunctorily in the harvest fields, working little and singing much, and when the first hard frost had set the forest aflame he had gathered his poor, scant bundle of clothes into his carpet-bag preparatory to taking the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... difference. He had become strangely hard. Once when a poor woman came, and begged him, out of charity, to save the life of her only child, he bluntly refused. And when I implored him myself to help her, he did his work perfunctorily. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... sat tense and silent. Why not? There was nothing to do. Jepson ran the mine and everything about it, and Rimrock attended to the rest. All she had to do was to keep track of the records and act as secretary to the Board of Directors. They never met now, except perfunctorily, to give Rimrock more money to spend. He came in as she sat there, dashing past her for some papers, and was dashing out when she spoke ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Because they were your goods, and the men of the Mounted have yet to suspect you. The inspection was perfunctorily made. And as for the manifest—I did not say it was your whiskey. I said, 'whiskey from your storehouse.' It was Lapierre's whiskey. And he succeeded in running it in by the boldest, and at the same time the cleverest and ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening. It must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away. You may count him dead already, Sir John." He paused. "A merciful, painless end," he added, and sighed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave, for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life. "Of the other four," he continued, "Blair is dead; the ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... pathetically at a loss to know how the deuce one contrived that sort of thing. It was a woman's job. Mrs Olliver, now, could have fixed it all up in a twinkling; while he—poor clumsy fool!—could only sit there smoking and racking his brain, while his eyes perfunctorily scanned the columns ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Haydn's immense work that the present generation knows are two or three symphonies, rarely and perfunctorily performed. This is the same as saying that we do not know him at all. No musician was ever more prolific or showed a greater wealth of imagination. When we examine this mine of jewels, we are astonished to find at every step a gem which we would have attributed ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... notice a stained-glass window in a church while a funeral was in progress. It was the side-light of grace on affliction involuntarily comprehended, from long training, by the exterior faculties. Carroll even said, half perfunctorily: ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... strongly built, with slightly grey hair. For some unknown reason I imagined him to be a Major in a cavalry regiment, no doubt attached to the Staff, and when, after rubbing his eyes, he at length opened the window, I apologized perfunctorily for having disturbed him, adding that I was acting on Captain Laycock's suggestion in coming there. In my heart I hoped he would leave me to the undisturbed perusal of the literature which I saw ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... it. Every step of that road sown with ploughshares and live coals He was to tread, with bleeding, blistered, slow, unshrinking feet. And He trod it. He accomplished it; hurrying over none of the sorrow, perfunctorily doing none of the tasks. And after the weary moments had ticked themselves away, and the six hours of agony, when the minutes were as drops of blood falling slowly to the ground, were passed, He inverted the cup, and it was empty, and He said 'It is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... occasion Cleopatra followed in her wake, and pretending to be in search of a book, lingered in her mother's company longer than was her wont after the morning meal. Book after book was taken down from the shelves, perfunctorily examined and returned to its place. Once or twice the girl looked towards her mother, possibly in the hope that the elder woman would provide the opening to the subject that was uppermost in both their minds. At last ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... roofs of Paris rose, back of that line which this imperious mind had decreed should not be passed by the dwellings of Paris, which must not come too near this temple of luxury, nor disturb the king while he enjoyed himself—back of the perfunctorily loyal guards of the Household, there reached the ragged, shapeless masses of the people of Paris and of France, waiting, smiling, as some animal licking its chops in expectation of some satisfying thing. They were waiting for news of the death of this shrunken man, this creature once so full of ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Burton, possessed "in a high degree that art of telling a tale which is far more captivating than culture or scholarship." Sir R. Burton (see Vol. XIX) summed up what may be definitely believed of the Nights in the following conclusion: The framework of the book is purely Persian perfunctorily Arabised, the archetype being the Hazar Afsanah. The oldest tales may date from the reign of Al-Mansur, in the eighth century; others belong to the tenth century; and the latest may be ascribed to the sixteenth. The work assumed its ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... from your room is to go over the hole by the window?" she asked perfunctorily, being half-way through the hall ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... he kindly corrected, and seating himself at his desk he examined the minor transfers perfunctorily and ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... good ship Nonsuch and all who are to sail in her!" And she said it not perfunctorily, but from her heart; for the lives and fortunes of the two who were nearest and dearest to her in the whole world were irrevocably ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... paper at the sheriff. He took it perfunctorily. "That's all right, old woman, but it hasn't got anything to do with my business here. I'm after your stuff on a warrant." He gave back the paper and started for the stairs ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... point will need no further hint. If he continues as he has begun, he will be surprised to find how soon he will be able to instruct, on one subject at least, the college graduate, unless that graduate has happily continued as a fad what he once perfunctorily acquired. ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... the Roma Municipal League had just finished dictating his morning's letters and was leaning back in his half-turned swivel chair. At another desk his secretary worked perfunctorily, awaiting ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, he delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... right, following a beckoning fan, and Flora, dallying with her anticipation, reasoned that now they must circle the room before they should face him—the interesting apparition. It was a pilgrimage of which he on the other side was performing his half. Perfunctorily talking from group to group, conscious now and again of the lagging Clara or Harry, she could nevertheless keep a sly eye on the stranger's equal progress. The flash of jet, and the voluble, substantial shoulders ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... committee is arriving." He pointed. Half a dozen tall, short-necked Yill were entering through a side door. The leading Yill hesitated as another stepped in his path. He raised a fist, and the other moved aside, touching the top of his head perfunctorily with both hands. The group started across the room toward the Terrestrials. Retief watched as a slender alien came forward and spoke passable ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... Schiller, he was treated by Schlegel with urbane condescension as a gifted playwright who had tried to imitate Shakspere and met with but limited success. The early plays were dismissed with a mere cry of pain, and the later ones were discussed very briefly and perfunctorily with respect ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of No. 10, Middleton street, in the white sunlight between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce squatted beneath the horse's nose and fed it perfunctorily with hay from a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting out the garden, where heavy scents stood in the sun and mynas chattered on the drive. The air ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to her feet. "I ain't going to have tales flying all over the desert about the ructions stirred up the night I danced for the benefit of the flood sufferers. Shake hands, you two," imperiously. "Go on, do what I tell you. That's right," as the two men perfunctorily shook hands. "Bob don't mean a thing, Mr. Hanson. It's just his temper, and there ain't going to be any wine, because I'm going home, but—" and here she smiled into his eyes—"you can walk a piece of the way with me, if you want to. Come on, mother ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Creek, Provo, and Springville he went; through Spanish Fork, Payson, Salt Creek, and Fillmore. He stopped to preach at each place, but he did it perfunctorily, and with shame for himself in his secret heart. Some impalpable essence of spirituality was gone from himself and from the people. He felt himself wickedly agreeing with a pessimistic elder at Fillmore, who remarked: "I tell you what, Brother Rae, it seems like when the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... drawing more closely the bonds that bound them together, it really seemed to relax such as did exist. She became colder, withdrew more into herself, shrank from his clumsy amiabilities, and kept the door of her heart resolutely shut against all intrusion. She went through her household duties perfunctorily, as might a slave for a ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... murmured perfunctorily, rising to shake hands with Miss Letchworth, whom she had always disliked as being one of those people who are jocund in the morning. Then, as Yelverton proceeded to provide food for the unfortunate jocund one (who was really as inclined to matutinal depression as any of her betters, but considered ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... not been asleep. Prone on his back, hat pulled over his upper face, he had been lying motionless there, for the best part of an hour. Now, stretching, he got to his feet in leisurely fashion, brushed perfunctorily at his rumpled clothes, and turned his steps toward the double line of plumy Australian pines which bordered the lane between hotel grounds ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... by his fire, dozing gently. He did not notice her at all. He roused himself for the doctor's perfunctorily cheerful farewell. It was then that he noted Felicia's coat ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... Clyde agreed perfunctorily. But, looking into the steady, fearless eyes of the pictured girl, she felt a vague, incomprehensible hostility. Kitty Wade glanced at her quickly, detecting the strained note. Clyde felt the glance, and inwardly resented it. Kitty ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... be touched by the Spirit of the Master, and through him touch them. This work cannot be done perfunctorily or professionally. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... perfunctorily, "Do you?" And we remained gazing at each other. The uniform paleness of her complexion was not that of an anaemic girl. It had a transparent vitality and at that particular moment the faintest possible rosy tinge, the merest suspicion ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... had introduced her as Julia, carelessly, as though of course Archie knew the rest of it. The whole business was as utterly unreal as anything could be. The Governor asked perfunctorily about her drive into town, and whether it had been hot in the country. Dinner was announced immediately and they sat down at a round table whose centerpiece of sweet peas brought a coolness ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Singh kisses the footprints of Jirad Sahib, and entreats that she and her son may sit down under his shadow," he said perfunctorily, evidently repeating what had been taught him. "Jirad Sahib knows that I am Rajah now? He will make them give me a real ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... said perfunctorily. She was trying to hear what her cousin was saying to Filippo, and wishing she could amuse him as well. They passed through the wide hall of the hotel and went up in the lift. The Marvels' private sitting-room was on the second floor. They were much too rich to condescend to the ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... from its promised point to what seemed to him to be a whole geographical meridian—went slowly. To relieve it, he took a book from the table, and in a desultory manner turned the leaves. While thus perfunctorily engaged, he heard the clicking of an opening door, and then the sound of voices: of Madame Jolicoeur's voice, and of a man's voice—which latter, coming nearer, he recognized beyond all doubting as the voice of the Major Gontard. Of other ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... this moment, said something to the uniformed policeman who sat near the center of the room. The other glanced perfunctorily in De Launay's direction and nodded, and the man stepped out ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... said the visitor perfunctorily. The child began to squall, and kicked her father in the stomach. Stephen regarded her quietly. "You tried to hurt me," he said. "Hurting doesn't count. Trying to hurt counts. Go and clean your tongue yourself. Get off my knee." Tears of another sort came into her eyes, but she obeyed ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... is used sporadically and perfunctorily on the far upper Agsan, but I have never seen it anywhere else among Manbos.[29] It is used for shooting small birds, chickens, and mice. It is made of an internode of a variety of bamboo[30] about 1.2 meters long ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... responsibilities—neglect the duty of putting their whole soul into the immediate and concrete business which furnishes them with a living; and the rest, the immense majority, perform their task perfunctorily, merely for the sake of nominally complying with their duty—para cumplir, a terribly immoral phrase—in order to get themselves out of a difficulty, to get the job done, to qualify for their wages without earning them, whether these ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... say, the only minds Monsieur de Grandville reached with this argument were those of the public prosecutor and the judges. The jury listened perfunctorily; the audience, usually so favorable to prisoners, were convinced of their guilt. In a court of justice the sentiments of the crowd do unquestionably weigh upon the judges and the jury, and vice versa. Seeing this condition of the minds about him, which could be felt if not defined, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... beating in his effort to hear the voices of the birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next, and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... from Suez to El-'Akabah, probably one of the oldest in this world, has been traversed perfunctorily by Burckhardt and by Beke. It still wants a detailed survey, and even hieroglyphic inscriptions may be expected. Beke's map marks Hawwit ("ruins") near one of his nighting-places, but apparently ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... grew less fiery, and their affections less fixed. Archer got a bit bored. He was decent about it, though, and when Arabella cuddled beside him he would more or less perfunctorily embrace her. But when ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... Mr. Prohack perfunctorily denied this, but it was true. His relief that the wedding lay behind instead of in front of him was immense, and his spirits rose even higher than they had been when he first woke up. He loathed all ceremonies, and the prospect of ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... In the course of the day, however, his corns had been trodden on so many times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on this the second night after his arrival. He knelt next Charlotte and said the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily that she should know for certain that he was doing it maliciously, but so perfunctorily as to make her uncertain whether he might be malicious or not, and when he had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler |
