"Slack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a revolutionary consequence. The Conquest found England Catholic, vaguely feudal, and, though in rather an isolated way, thoroughly European. The Normans organised that feudality, extirpated whatever was unorthodox, or slack in the machinery of the religious system, and let in the full light of European civilisation through a wide-open door, which had hitherto ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... filled the engineer with a fear that he had not anticipated. Not for an instant did the brute give slack to his tongue as they raced through the night, and Howland knew now that the storm and the darkness were of little avail in his race for life. There was but one chance, and he determined to take it. Gradually he slackened ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... herself no coarse excess, either of manner or speech. The fierce, defiant look left her face, and when she sat, of an evening, with her pipe in the chimney-corner, both mother and son found her very entertaining company. In Sam she inspired at once admiration and despair. She could take him by the slack of the waist-band and lift him at arm's-length, and he felt that he should never be "a full hand," if he were obliged to equal ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... without a certain wry humor, upon the strength and the protracted potency of Manti's whiskey, for not once during his home-coming had Levins shown the slightest sign of returning consciousness. He was as slack as a meal sack now, as Trevison lifted him from the pony's back and let him slip gently to the ground at his feet. A few minutes later, Trevison was standing in the doorway of the cabin, his burden over his shoulder, the weak glare ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Toledo on the Maumee river, and pass through the southern counties of Michigan into Indiana, and terminate at Michigan city. A third project is, to open a water communication from the navigable waters of Grand river, to Huron river, and, by locks and slack water navigation, enter lake Erie. A canal from the mouth of Maumee Bay to lake Michigan, has also been spoken of as a feasible project;—or one from the mouth of the river Raisin to the St. Joseph, would open a similar communication. It has also been suggested to improve ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... victory was only possible when by constant trials the chance came of each being given good or fair handhold at once. Then came a shriek of wind and a blown-out lull and a wrinkle lapsed into a fold. We shouted "Now!" left hold of the jack-stay, and with feet outstretched grabbed slack canvas and hung on as another squall came singing like shrapnel across the peaks of the leaping sea. "Hold on now, hold on!" so sang all of us, and we cursed each other furiously. "Oh, oh, you miserable devil, hang on or it's lost ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... you could make love over garden walls, you must have had a pretty slack time, even in Alexandretta," ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... at the ruins of Fort Selkirk, the Yukon was found to be 565 yards wide; about two-thirds being ten feet deep, with a current of about four and three-quarter miles per hour; the remaining third was more than half taken up by a bar, and the current between it and the south shore was very slack. ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... while they were ruled by despots were not better in war that any of those who dwelt about them, whereas after they had got rid of despots they became far the first. This proves that when they were kept down they were wilfully slack, because they were working for a master, whereas when they had been set free each one was eager to achieve ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... to you and kept himself looking right up to the mark. His salary wasn't very big, but he had such a persuasive way that he seemed to get a dollar and a half's worth of value out of every dollar that he earned. Never crowded the fashions and never gave 'em any slack. If sashes were the thing with summer shirts, why Charlie had a sash, you bet, and when tight trousers were the nobby trick in pants, Charlie wore his double reefed. Take him fore and aft, Charlie looked all right and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... unionists who, when work is slack and members are unemployed, will advocate shorter hours at the same rate of pay so as to make room ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... so little in my way lately, George," the hunchback continued, looking sharply sideways up at his companion. "Sly business has been slack, my dear, eh?" ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... be necessary then to give from one to two gallons each time according to the heat of the bed, and temperature of the weather. If the season is fine and the heat good they will require water every other day, but if the weather is dull, and the heat slack, be very cautious in applying the water lest they should get the canker, which is a dangerous disorder, and very difficult to be removed. The best thing in such a case is to give a strong heat, and be very moderate in ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins
... poor Susan could not master the word, and was obliged to have recourse to the musk-scented billet) britschka—ay, that's it!—or a droschky; I wonder what sort of things they are—and that he only visits us en passant in a tour, for which, town being so empty, and business slack, his employer has given him leave, and in which he is to be accompanied by his friend Monsieur Victor—Victor—I can't make out his other name—an eminent perfumer who lives next door. To think of bringing a Frenchman here, remembering how my father hates ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... be eleven o'clock. Tide was full at twelve. I was a pretty good candidate for the crazy house by this time. I'd listened till my ear-drums felt slack, like they needed reefing. And then at last I heard her ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... consented, and as soon as it was perfectly dark, Charlie issued out at the watergate, took off his coat, waistcoat, and boots, and entered the stream. The current was slack, but he had no difficulty in keeping himself afloat until he saw, close ahead of him, the lights ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... comings. I believe him to be faithful, though overapt to mischief. But in these days one cares not to risk one's neck unless on a surety. The first thing will be, then, to procure for thee a suit of clothes, suitable to thy new position. Under the plea that at present work is but slack—for indeed the troubles of the times have well-nigh ruined the trade in such goods as mine, throwing it all into the hands of the smiths—I shall be able to grant thee some license, and to allow thee to go about and see the city and acquaint thyself ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... was in the month of November, when the river was low and the current slack, albeit it raced by at five or six ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... cried the captain. "Haul in your slack as she comes," he called to Huish. "Haul in your slack, put your back into it; keep your feet out of the coils." A sudden blow sent Huish flat along the deck, and the captain was in his place. "Pick yourself up and keep the wheel hard over!" he roared. "You ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man. The latter's eyes were half-closed and his pose was slack, as if he were languidly enjoying the warmth, but Jim thought he had been listening. Then he wondered why the other's short description had given him so distinct a picture; he could see the rugged blue hills in the background and the river winding among the sands. After all, his father had not ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... honeyed persuasions of no avail, Bough said no more. He would pay off the niggers and dismiss them, or get rid of them without paying; there were ways and means. He sent up country, and the team came down, six thin, overworked creatures, with new scars upon their slack and baggy hides, and hollow flanks, and ribs that showed painfully. Smoots Beste was about to grumble, but he changed his mind, and took the letter, buttoning it up in the flapped pocket of his tan-cord jacket, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... so passes; then the tumult on the bar ceases, the incoming seas rise clear and sandless, and the fierce race of the current slows down to a gentle drift; it is slack water, and the fish begin to move. One after another the foremost masses sweep round the horn of the reef and head for the smooth water inside. On the starboard hand a line of yellow sandbank is drying in the sun, and the ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... of their spiritual bellies, but I make a stand for simple American manhood. I will meet no man on this soil who expects from me a greater deference than I could properly accord to the President of my own country. My allegiance to republican institutions is slack through lack of faith in them as a practical system of governing men as men are. All the same, I will call no man "Your Majesty," nor "Your Lordship." For me to meet in my own country a king or a nobleman would ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... confronting the Government. Most of the navigable rivers of this country are comparatively long and shallow. In order that they may be made fully useful for navigation there has come into vogue a method of improvement known as canalization, or the slack-water method, which consists in building a series of dams and locks, each of which will create a long pool of deep navigable water. At each of these dams there is usually created also water power of commercial value. If the water power thus created can be made available for the further ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... how a letter had come from Cousin Helen; how Daisy White had four kittens as white as herself; how Dorry had finished his water-wheel,—a wheel which turned in the bath-tub, and was "really ingenious," papa said; and Phil had "swapped" one of his bantam chicks for on of Eugene Slack's Bramapootras. It was not till they were all seated round the tea-table that anybody demanded an account of the visit. Elsie felt this a relief, and was just thinking how delicious every thing was, from the sliced peaches to the clinking ice ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... that nothing might be lost: and then, at every pause in the harangue, he gurgled-out his pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for the machinery of laughter took some time to get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else his twanging nasal, Bravo! Das glaub' ich; in either case, by way of heartiest approval. In short, if Teufelsdroeckh was Dalai-Lama, of which, except perhaps in his self-seclusion, and god-like indifference, there was no symptom, then might Heuschrecke ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... my power. For a minute or more we stood motionless, gazing into each other's faces. Then I saw a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, and I knew that he was beaten. Slowly his grip relaxed, and his hand grew limp and slack while my own tightened ever upon it, until he was forced in a surly, muttering voice to request that I ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shoulder; incline the head slightly forward and a little to the right, cheek against the stock, left eye closed, right eye looking through the notch of the rear sight so as to perceive the object aimed at, second joint of forefinger resting lightly against the front of the trigger and taking up the slack; top of front sight is carefully raised into, and held in, ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... think you have sense enough to discover the line; keep it always in your eye, and learn to walk upon it; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poise you, till you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk well upon that line, than upon the slack-rope; and, therefore, a good performer ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... safe that must have been built before Rhine Institute discovered the key to man's latent abilities. Inside of this tin can was a collection of photographs that must have brought Rambaugh a nice sum in the months when the murder business went slack. I couldn't quite dig them clear because I didn't know any of the people involved, and I didn't try too hard because there were some letters and notes that might lead me into the answer to why Rambaugh was ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... been a simple maid, all might have been right." But these were after-reflections when it was too late. I do not wonder at my poor father's senses being dazzled, for, as he said to me, "You see, Jack, after being used to see nothing but Point women, all so slack in stays and their rigging out of order, to fall aboard of a craft like your mother, so trim and neat, ropes all taut, stays well set up, white hammock-cloths spread every day in the week, and when under way, with a shawl streaming out like a silk ensign, and such a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on—slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached descending towards ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... known hardship, his face was smooth, and when unoccupied he had a good-humored and somewhat languid air. He was tall and rather thin, but athletic toil had toughened and strengthened him, and he had frank gray eyes that generally smiled. A glove that looked significantly slack covered his left hand, which had been maimed by a circular saw when he worked in ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... conditions, the change may always be brought about artificially. If floating plants are established on the shore they make ascending hairy stems, and if the terrestrial shoots are submerged, their buds grow into long and slack, aquatic stems. Even in such experiments, intermediates are rare, both types agreeing completely with the corresponding models in ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... found, at the very outset, in getting men to ship for service on the regular cruisers. Privateers were being fitted out in every port; and on them the life was easy, discipline slack, danger to life small, and the prospects for financial reward far greater than on the United States men-of-war. Accordingly, the seafaring men as a rule preferred to ship on the privateers. At no time in the history of the United States ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Irving was brought in his fourth year, and his memories of Cornwall remained vivid to his dying day. "I recall Halsetown," he said, "as a village nestling between sloping hills, bare and desolate, disfigured by great heaps of slack from the mines, and with the Knill monument standing prominent as a landmark to the east. It was a wild and weird place, fascinating in its own peculiar beauty, and taking a more definite shape in my youthful ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... consisting of peeled apples, pears, plums, and blackberries, in equal proportion; six pounds of raw sugar, at 4-1/2d. per pound; one quart of water. Bake three hours in a slack or slow oven. First, prepare the fruit, and put it in mixed layers of plums, pears, berries, apples, alternating each other, in stone jars. Next, put the six pounds of sugar in a clean saucepan, with the quart of water, and stir it with a spoon on the fire till it comes to a gentle boil; ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... small country towns where everybody knows everybody, he was made a common sport and jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. Now that he was grown to the ripeness of manhood he was still looked upon as being—to use a quaint expression—"slack," or "not jest right." He was heavy, awkward, ungainly and loose-jointed, and enormously, prodigiously strong. He had a lumpish, thick-featured face, with lips heavy and loosely hanging, that gave him an ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... of that sort were in all her loving letters. Often and often when I have been slack in fucking a woman, and my prick not answering when called on, I had only to conjure up some of these scenes with my mother when my cock would spring to the stand instantly, to the immense satisfaction of my momentary fouteuse, and it is so ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... fast with plenty of slack to the rope in case the tide should rise high, he got out and then he and Percival ascended the first slope, ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... the truth, mate,' said Bill to Bunyip Bluegum. 'There ain't no pirates nowadays at sea, except western ocean First Mates, and many's the bootin' I've had for not takin' in the slack of the topsail halyards fast enough to suit their fancy. It's a hard life, the sea, and Sam here'll bear me out when I say that bein' hit on the head with a belayin' pin while tryin' to pick up the weather earing is an experience that no man wants ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... earth; we have been weak when all Thy power was at our command; we have spoken Thy word as if it were an experiment and a peradventure whether it had might; we have let go Thy hand and lost Thy garment's hem from our slack grasp; we have been prayerless and self-indulgent. Therefore Thou hast put us to shame before our foes, and 'our enemies laugh among themselves. Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth; stir up Thy strength and come and save us!' Then will the last words ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... up a paper, opened it, and began searching the columns. He had not far to look. It was a slack season for the newspapers, and his little trouble, which might have received a paragraph in a busy week, was set forth fully in three-quarters ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... foresaid persons ... we say all and every one of such shall be reputed by us enemies to God and the covenanted work of reformation, and punished as such, according to our power and the degree of their offence.... Let not any think that (our God assisting us) we will be so slack-handed in time coming to put matters in execution as heretofore we have been, seeing we are bound faithfully and valiantly to maintain our covenants ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... water split with a roar and out shot a huge, gleaming, white-and-purple fish. He blurred in my sight. Down he went with a crash. I wound the reel like a madman, but I never even half got up the slack line. The swordfish had run straight toward the boat. He leaped again, in a place I did not expect, and going down, instantly came up in another direction. His speed, his savageness, stunned me. I could not judge of his strength, for ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; his mouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed to move about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; a cap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever, merely an old ragged coat ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... "infinitely worse than the Chilian ships did when we first got out there. There are two or three by the flag-ship that look in a fair state of order, but the rest might be a fleet of big colliers, with their yards up and down anyhow, their rigging all slack, and ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... mouth, and the point and beard out at his tail; and then tie the hook and his tail about, very neatly, with a white thread, which will make it the apter to turn quick in the water; that done, pull back that part of your line which was slack when you did put your hook into the minnow the second time; I say, pull that part of your line back, so that it shall fasten the head, so that the body of the minnow shall be almost straight on your hook: this done, try how it will ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... chaps onct or twict a week and go flyin' out and whoopin' around me stock, and scarin' 'em to death, pertendin' I'm mighty interested in ridin' range. If you got a lady's goat, you want to keep it. 'Course, later on, I can kind o' slack up. Then I'm goin' to learn her to read American, and she can read that piece in the paper about me. I reckon that'll kind of cinch up the idea that her husband sure is the real thing. But I got to have them cows till she can learn ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... sometimes longer. When we take goods from the knitters, we generally, in order to prevent any mistake, give them a receipt for them in that form; and having other work to do when we are very busy, they take that in their pocket and go away, and then they look in again when we have a slack moment and get the value of it, sometimes on the very same day. I don't know how often it is on the same day, but it ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... wrote in poetic vein, "This is a strange country, belonging to a people whose lands the rivers have spoiled." Very practically, however, he wrote of good lands and slack water supply, "though the river shows it would be a mighty rushing torrent when the rains commence in summer, with the appearance of being 25 miles broad, and the Indians told us that if we are indeed to live where we are encamped, we had better fix some scaffolding ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... find out which was best. Caesar or Pompey by the test. In those past combats "rich and rare" Luke Cuzner always had his share. For Luke in days of auld lang syne Did most pugnaciously incline, Never to challenge slack or slow, And never stain'd by "coward's blow." The Joyces too, Mick, John and Walter, In battle's path did seldom falter, But "Jimmy," in those days of grace Held a peacemaker's blessed place, Nor has he wander'd far astray From the same calm and ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... that work was unusually slack in his own yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is ended we can do nothing," said his father. "Meantime, Cicely child, we shall be here at hand, and be sure that I will not be slack to aid thee in what may be thy duty as a daughter. So rest thee in that, my wench, and pray that we may be led to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Germany; but he touched them with a wand which brought them all under a light where the modern eye cares most to see them, and here he gave a lesson to the culture of Germany,— so wide, so impartial, that it is apt to become slack and powerless, and to lose itself in its materials for want of a strong central idea round which to group all its other ideas. So the mystic and romantic school of Germany lost itself in the Middle Ages, was overpowered by their influence, came to ruin by its vain dreams of renewing them. ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... repulsive in its disorder. The one lighted burner of the gaselier, turned too high, hissed up into a long tongue of flame. The fire smoked feebly under a newly administered shovelful of 'slack', and a heap of ashes and cinders littered the grate. A pair of walking boots, caked in dry mud, lay on the hearth-rug just where they had been thrown off. On the mantelpiece, amidst a dozen other articles which had no business ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... though a prudent man. A working man himself, he was in thorough sympathy with his workmen, and in the slack season, instead of discharging his men and thus entailing want upon them, he built vessels on speculation, merely that he might keep the men busy and their families from suffering. Providentially these speculations were always successful, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... border, which seems placed there on purpose to make them conspicuous; and this was a great puzzle to naturalists, because the long coarse gray or greenish hair was evidently like tree-moss and therefore protective. But an old writer, Baron von Slack, in his Voyage to Surinam (1810), had already explained the matter. He says: "The colour and even the shape of the hair are much like withered moss, and serve to hide the animal in the trees, but particularly when it has that orange-coloured spot between the shoulders ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... an hour at the bottom of a flight of steps, watching the continuous stream of descending passengers, mostly women, and generally young. Some among the less young were swollen, heavy, and awkward; most were slack, drooping, limp, bony, or bent; a few were lithe and lissom; one or two had the emotional vivacity and muscular tone of abounding vitality. Not one plainly indicated that, stripped of her clothing, she ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... that erst at church or fair, So smooth and silky, shew'd his morning's care, Which all uncouth in matted locks combin'd, Now, ends erect, defies the ruffling wind; His neck-band loose, and hosen rumpled low, A careful lad, nor slack at labour shew. Nor scraping chickens chirping 'mongst the straw, Nor croaking rook o'er-head, nor chatt'ring daw; Loud-breathing cow amongst the rampy weeds, Nor grunting sow that in the furrow feeds; Nor sudden breeze that shakes the quaking ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... all directions, dropping a number of their small bamboo powder flasks on the way. Some fierce alarms were given of an attack by water, and I went up the river to ascertain really whether there was any mischief to be expected; but there was no appearance of any adversary. A slack fire from the hill proclaimed that our work was going on there; and toward ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... procured the old man some excellent customers. Among his acquaintance, for he had few friends, was Tom Wallis, a fat, facetious man, about forty, with whom he was always lunching and cracking his jokes. One day, when the stocks were "shut" and business was slack, they started together on a sporting excursion towards the romantic region of Hornsey-wood, on which occasion I had the honour of carrying a well-filled basket of provisions, and the inward satisfaction of making a ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... passing of her vision Dinah never fully knew, so slack had become her grip upon material things. Her spirit seemed to be wandering aimlessly about the mountain-side while her body lay in icy chains within that miserable shelter. Of Isabel's presence she was no longer even dimly ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... seven is time enough for me to rise. Two hours aint such a bad lot of sleep for a woman of my years. Let's see, I'm sixty-eight. In one sense sixty-eight is old, in another sense it's young. You slack down at sixty-eight; you don't have such a draw on your system, the fire inside you don't seem to require such poking up and feeding. When you get real old, seventy-eight or eighty, then you want a deal of cosseting; but sixty-eight is young in one sense ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... To this weed are not prone; Would you know what 'tis makes them so slack—O? 'Twas because it inclined To be honest the mind, And therefore ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Faithfulness requires that she do always such service as a mother, that Jesus shall say of her home-making, "She hath done what she could." To do less than her best is to fail in fidelity. Suppose that her hand should slack, that she should grow negligent, would she not clearly be robbing God? For even God cannot make a beautiful home for her children ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... reaches over with his knife, an' begins slashin'. But he can only reach bear's rump, an' dawgs bein' ruined fast, one-two-three time. Rocky gets desperate. He don't like to lose his dawgs. He jumps on top log, grabs bear by the slack of the rump, an' heaves over back'ard right over top of that log. Down they go, kit an' kaboodle, twenty feet, bear, dawgs, an' Rocky, slidin', cussin', an' scratchin', ker-plump into ten feet of water ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... There should be string enough in the ball to reach all the way round the circle. The ball diminishes as it is passed along. When the ball reaches the last one in the circle he starts rewinding the string upon the ball, passes it back to the next one, who winds on the slack, and so the ball is passed, each one winding until the ball returns to the captain. Each team will try to get the ball properly wound back into the captain's hands first. No one can leave his regular position in ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... Club races were run on November 6, 1793, we find the members dining at Wise's inn, "the dinner to be on the table at three o'clock."[102] For the better entertainment of the guests, "Mr. Card performed wonderful feats at the Tavern every evening during the races. Feats in cards, slack-wire, celebrated equilibrist, ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... "Hard a lee!" and jammed the tiller over; Schuyler, on the after overhang, scrambled fast to take in the slack of the sheet. Kathryn Blair bent, to avoid ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... generally the last of March; it lasts, with various modifications and interruptions, until the actual spawning season in November; the time of running and the proportionate amount of each of the subordinate runs, varying with each different river. In general, the runs are slack in the summer and increase with the first high water of autumn. By the last of August only straggling blue-backs can be found in the lower course of any stream, but both in the Columbia and the Sacramento the quinnat runs in considerable numbers till October at least. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... commercial academies of England. There is the same bad tone, want of sufficient numbers of boys of equal standing in the school-work, and other disadvantages, which make the very name of a private school malodorous. The boys are rough and unmannerly, the discipline slack, the teaching staff inferior in ability and social position. The public schools of Australia may not be all that could be wished, but [Greek characters] that a boy of mine should ever go to a colonial private school, unless it were a preparatory ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... deliberation, observing closely, yet half-lazily—for his brain was slack and needed rest—the different types about him, musing on the possibilities of their lives, smiling at the gambols of the intent girls, and the impudent frolics of the little boys who seemed the very spawn of sand and sea and sun, till he had nearly passed the harbor, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... I know," she continued, noticing the expression on her companion's face. "There's as much objection to the plan as there is slack managin' in this hotel, and that's some consider'ble. Fust off, it'll cost money. Well; I've saved a little money and those cranberry bog shares Mrs. Pearson left me will sell for two thousand at least. That would be enough, maybe, if I ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... liable for service in time of war; and the whole island could be drawn upon for any great emergency at Louisbourg. Between thirteen and fourteen hundred men were got under arms for the siege of 1745. Those who lived in Louisbourg had the advantage of a little slack discipline and a little slack drill. Those in the country had some practice in the handling of firearms. But, taken all round, it would be an exaggeration to call them ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... these black rivers." This is not altogether true. The Amazon throughout is healthy, being swept by the trade-winds. The branches, which are not so constantly refreshed by the ocean breezes, are occasionally malarious; the "white-water" tributaries, except when they have a slack current in the dry season, have the best reputation, while intermittent fevers are nearly confined to the dark-colored streams. Much of the sickness on these tropical waters, however, is due to exposure and want of proper food rather than to the climate. The river system of South America ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... sugar, glucose and cream over a slack fire until the sugar is melted; move the saucepan to a hotter part of the range and continue stirring until the mixture boils, then let boil, stirring every three or four minutes very gently, until the thermometer registers 236 deg. F., or, till a soft ball can be ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa
... have been well for Tom if he had paid the money at once, but he went on dallying and compromising with the lawyer, till he became terribly involved in his web. To increase his difficulties work became slack; so at last he packed his things upon his carts, and with his family, consisting of his wife and three daughters, fled into Montgomeryshire. The lawyer, however, soon got information of his whereabouts, and threatened to arrest him. Tom, after ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... with serious respect the overtures which came to him, after 1856, from eminent historians. When they were old men, he and Ranke, whom, in hot youth, there was much to part, lived on terms of mutual goodwill. Doellinger had pronounced the theology of the Deutsche Reformation slack and trivial, and Ranke at one moment was offended by what he took for an attack on the popes, his patrimony. In 1865, after a visit to Munich, he allowed that in religion there was no dispute between them, that he had no fault ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... little craft long, running before the wind with a slack sheet, to reach the Horse Shingle shoal, beyond the outlying fort, and near the Warner light-ship, where lay the fishing-ground, or "bank," which the Captain had described as being especially ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... which in that torrid climate quickly acquires a bouquet which can be detected a mile to leeward, the crocodile is certain sooner or later to thrust its long snout out of the water and snap at the odoriferous bundle dangling so temptingly overhead, the slack line offering no resistance until the bait has been swallowed and the brute starts to make off. Then the man-eater gets the surprise of its long and checkered life, for the planted end of the rattan holds sufficiently to snap the threads which bind the pointed ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... who was a sublime old blockhead, suggested to Pope that 'correctness' was the only tight-rope upon which a fresh literary performer in England could henceforth dance with any advantage of novelty; all other tight-ropes and slack-ropes of every description having been preoccupied by elder funambulists. Both Walsh and Pope forgot ever once to ask themselves what it was that they meant by 'correctness;' an idea that, in its application to France, Akenside afterwards sternly ridiculed. Neither of the two literati ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... say you're an accident. Prove it. Show that you're a regular head-on collision when anything gets in your way. They're going to say that you've got a pull. Prove it—by taking up all the slack that they give you. Back away from controversy, but stand up stubborn as a mule to the fellow who's hunting trouble. I believe in ruling by love, all right, but it's been my experience that there are a lot of people in the world whom you've got to make understand ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... "Put the helm down, slack off the sheet!" cried the captain; and, as the Sea Rover rounded-to, with the floating object under her lee, it could be seen that it was the boat which David and Jonathan had perceived passing them, bottom upwards, just before they were struck ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... brisk decision. "Take Dunk down to the ranch till the sheriff gets here—if it's straight goods about Dunk sending for him. If he didn't, we can take Dunk in to-morrow, ourselves." He turned and fixed a cold, commanding eye upon the slack-jawed herders. "Come along, you two, and get these ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... was an old warrior, six or seven years old. His claws were an inch and a quarter long, and curved like simitars. His forefeet and his left hindfoot were free, and as Kazan advanced, he drew back, so that the trap-chain was slack under his body. Here Kazan could not follow his old tactics of circling about his trapped foe, until it had become tangled in the chain, or had so shortened and twisted it that there was no chance for a leap. He had to attack face to face, and suddenly he lunged in. They met shoulder to shoulder. ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... along the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in—not properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... motion caught When flesh, blood, bone and skin were wrought Into swift lovely liveliness. Oh, but beauty less and less Than beauty grows. The cheeks fall in, Colour dies from the smooth skin, And muscles slack and bones are brittle; Veins and arteries little by little Delay the tides of the blood: That is a ditch that was a flood. Then all but dry bones disappears, White bones that lie a hundred years Cheated of resurrection.... Where is that beauty gone? Escaped even while ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... o' the water and board a lugger— not at the best of times, when you've only yourself to look after; and the Maid in Two Minds had no accommodation-ladder hung out . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I scrambled on to the mizen-boom ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cried the Texan; "How are we goin' to hole up—four of us an' five horses, on a pint of water an' three cans of tomatoes? When that storm hits it's goin' to be hot. We've just naturally got to make that water-hole! Come on, ride like the devil before she hits, because we're goin' to slack up considerable, directly." ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... villain in the story—for even Major Basil, the husband of the lady who next, and really, comforted the unfortunate Edward—even Major Basil was not a villain in this piece. He was a slack, loose, shiftless sort of fellow—but he did not do anything to Edward. Whilst they were in the same station in Burma he borrowed a good deal of money—though, really, since Major Basil had no particular vices, it was difficult to know why he wanted it. He collected—different ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... barely dipping his oars. It was slack tide now and the pea-pod just held her own. Down on the breeze floated a distant, melancholy note, the voice of the whistling buoy south of Roaring Bull Ledge, two miles from Isle au Haut. Was it an ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... soil'd, 840 Like the soil'd tissue of white violets Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, By romping children, whom their nurses call From the hot fields at noon: his head droop'd low, His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay— 845 White, with eyes clos'd; only when heavy gasps, Deep, heavy gasps, quivering through all his frame, Convuls'd him back to life, he open'd them, And fix'd them feebly on his father's face: Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... twirled in the shade of the yew, Till her gossips and chums of the city danced too; They never are slack ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... did the full, crushing horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his bonds like ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... There comes a wandering figure to the open window. It is that of a man of about thirty-five, of feeble gait, leaning the weight of all one side of him on a stick. His dark face, with black hair, one lock of which has gone white, was evidently once that of an ardent man. Now it is slack, weakly smiling, and the brown eyes are lost, and seem always to be asking something to which there ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to come a slack in the storm. The ship rode more easily, and Bob began to take heart. A little later Mr. Carr came down into the cabin. He breathed a sigh of relief as ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... was cut into strips and fashioned into a rawhide line which Bill made fast to their belts, leaving plenty of slack to allow free use of the rackets. The rifle was left in the cave, and, muffled to the ears, the two stepped ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... in an ordinary business suit, was not the man of the world of Graduation night, yet there was a new maturity in his eyes and the set of his jaw that Lydia liked without really observing it. Old Lizzie watched the two as they climbed the slope to the woods. Billy strode along with the slack, irregular gait of the farmer. Lydia sprang over the ground with quick, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the opening, but the attendance of all others was cruelly slack. To hear the attack, the people came in crowds; to hear the defence, they scarcely came in t'ete- 'a-t'etes! 'Tis barbarous there should be so much more pleasure given by the recital of guilt than by the vindication ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... expert turn. The explosions settled into a dull, regular succession, and he coupled the propeller and slowly maneuvered the ketch up over the anchors, reducing the strain on the hawsers and allowing Halvard to get in the slack. He waited impatiently for the sailor's cry of all clear, and demanded the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... had not squarely centered the trap and the jaws clamped on but two toes. He fought the trap with all his strength, backing up to gain slack in the chain, then throwing all his weight and force into his spring as he launched himself into the air, only to be jerked violently to the ground at ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... and watching the last flake of the first coil gradually diminishing. Everything had been well prepared; the men were at their posts; it was an anxious moment lest a kink might occur. But, as the last round came up, the motion of the ship was slightly slackened, the men handled the slack cable handsomely, and in two minutes the change was made with perfect order, and the paying out from the second coil was as regularly commenced and at this moment continues, and at an increased rate to-day of five ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... weight of the packing-cases, to which every house in the trade is liable. In the fruit market, there is positively nothing doing; and the growers, who are every day becoming less, complain bitterly. Raspberries were very slack, at 2-1/2d. per pottle; but dry goods still brought their prices. We have heard of several severe smashes in currants, and the bakers, who, it is said, generally contrive to get a finger in the pie, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... flood of Greeks broke upon us, growing deeper with every moment. Above the pandemonium my companions were howling hoarsely and imploringly for the interpreter, while clutching their trembling victim by the slack of his labor-stained shirt lest he escape un-enrolled. The interpreter, in accordance with a well-known law of physics and the limitations of human nature, could not be in sixteen places at once. I crowded ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... the slack wire, too, when you get a chance," advised Benares. "We'll try you on the high trapeze in the triple act, some time. Glad you're in the profession, Wildwood, and we'll all give you a ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... lips were open, his bony jaw slack. "Well, I'll be damned. Do you know who you're ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... would row a ways up the river and throw out the net and then row on up to the mouth of Black Creek and fish for perch, and when the tide turned would row out and take up the net, which would catch the flood slack not far above. What he thought I do not know, for he went to Dick Martin, an experienced shad fisherman, and told him what I was going to do. Dick hastened to tell him, in alarm, that what I intended was impossible, that there was a row of old ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... phrase, he could only become 'pucka' instead of 'kucha'—a permanent instead of temporary judge—he would prefer it to anything in the world. He feels less anxious, and declares that he has 'not written a single article this week'; though he manages when work is slack, to find time for a little writing, such as the chapter in Hunter's ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort. Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene. It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... large fire was kindled, in which stones were heated red hot. When ready these were spread out on the ground, and a thick coating of leaves strewn over them to slack the heat. On this "lovo," or oven, the bodies were then placed, covered over, and left ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... I say, and in spite of Margaret's note of perfect acquiescence I feel myself reasoning against an indefinable antagonism, "it is so easy to fall into a slack way with life. There may seem to be something priggish in a meticulous discipline, but otherwise it is so easy to slip into indolent habits—and to be distracted from one's purpose. The country, the world, wants ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the General kindly to the O.O., "it's not quite perpendicular, it's a bit too low; wants a stronger prop, wires are a bit slack, the vane itself wants looking to, and the whole thing is in rather a bad position, but otherwise it's all right—quite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... married in the village, and Brian settled down at Murghadeen, here he was doing well, and times and again asking her to come and live with him. Then Mick would have been able to help her out of his pay much more efficaciously than he could do by his earnings at Kilmacrone, where work was slack and its wage low, so that the result of a lad's daily labour sometimes seemed mainly the putting of a fine edge on a superfluous appetite. All these points were most clearly seen by Mick in the light of a fiercely burning ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... ye have kept your honesty, Or else for ye have fallen in frailty And knowe well enough the olde dance, And have forsaken fully such meschance* *wickedness For evermore; therefore, for Christe's sake, To teach them virtue look that ye not slake.* *be slack, fail A thief of venison, that hath forlaft* *forsaken, left His lik'rousness,* and all his olde craft, *gluttony Can keep a forest best of any man; Now keep them well, for if ye will ye can. Look ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... boy who was afraid of work, and now, putting on his everyday rig, he applied himself with a light heart to the duties of the ship, lying stoutly back upon the slack of the tackle, while the sailors hoisted the heavy articles of the cargo, or running aloft to loose the sails for drying after the drenching night dews, and assisting to furl them ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... bonny bird," continued the hostess, addressing a little girl of twelve years old, who had by this time appeared, "tak the gentleman's horse to the stable, and slack his girths, and tak aff the bridle, and shake down a lock o' hay before him, till the dragoons come back.—Come this way, sir," she continued; "ye'll find my house clean, though it's ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... beaten in getting my despatch to the telegraph wire, that once, when three pontoons of the bridge across the Danube were sunk, he crossed the gap hand over hand by the hand-rope, sloshing down with the current as the slack of the rope gave to his weight! Andreas became quite an institution in the Russian camp. When Ignatieff, the Tsar's intimate, the great diplomatist who has now curiously fizzled out, would honour us by partaking sometimes of afternoon tea in our tent, he would call Andreas by his name ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... slack day with him," she said rather gravely. "I assure you he works harder than most clergymen, and is very conscientious and painstaking. He is not at all strong, but ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... effort among the Chinese in China. The importance of this work cannot be measured by its bulk. Nor is it to be estimated by any census of countable immediate results. It is a kind of work, which, according as it is done, or left undone; or as it is done with slack and nerveless hand or with vim and vigor, will test the very character of our churches; will touch the conscience and well-being of the nation; and will, without a doubt, have vital and decisive connection with the future of that most populous ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... better. David isn't fit to have the care of her, and—well, doctor, I can say to you, who know it as well as I do, that Delia mightn't be the best person for David to have round him just now, when he needs cheering up. Then, too, I can do her sewing along with my own, as easy as think; work's slack now, and there's nothing I'm specially drove with. I've been wishing right along that I could do something to help, now that David is so poorly. I'm kin to David, you know, so take it by and large, doctor, it doos seem like ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... winter time, when people were provided with warm substantial gowns, not likely soon to wear out, and when, accordingly, business was rather slack at Miss Simmonds', Mary met Alice Wilson, coming home from her half-day's work at some tradesman's house. Mary and Alice had always liked each other; indeed, Alice looked with particular interest on the motherless girl, the daughter of her whose ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Mr. Jonathan, he ain't the head—for thar's his brother Abner still livin'—but, head or tail, he's the only part that counts, when it comes to that. Until the boy grew up an' took hold of things, the Revercombs warn't nothin' mo' than slack fisted, out-at-heel po' white trash, as the niggers say, though the old man, Abel's grandfather, al'ays lays claim to bein' connected with the real Revercombs, higher up in the State—However that may be, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... in their power to assist the civil magistrates, and preserve the public peace of the kingdom. The king after his return acknowledged with many thanks the care which the clergy had bestowed in this particular. Nor were they slack in assuming the merit to themselves, for they often reminded him in their future discords that his kingdom had never been so quiet as during his voyage to Denmark, when the clergy were in a great measure intrusted with the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to the church and held thanksgiving services. A stillness brooded over the town. Life hardly moved; the strands hung slack. Thanksgiving soon changed to revival. Services lasted a week. The ministers preached terrible sermons, burning with terrible words. "Repent before it is too late. Twice God has warned this town." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... It was now nearly slack water, on a high flood, and the schooner lay just above the bend of the creek. Presently a large, portly-looking man, dressed like as Yorkshire farmer, came, to the bank, and in a stentorious voice ordered the captain to haul into the creek at once! ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Yet there rang True music through his rhapsodies, as he sang Of brotherhood, and freedom, love and hope, With strong wide sympathy which dared to cope With all life's phases, and call nought unclean. Whilst hearts are generous, and whilst woods are green, He shall find hearers, who, in a slack time Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme, Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice. His "yawp barbaric" was a human voice; The singer was a man. America Is poorer by a stalwart soul to-day, And may feel pride that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... opinions lately sprung in Germany; and by them some have been seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if judgment has been exercised according to the laws of the church, and conformably to the laws of this realm, we be without blame. If we have been too remiss and slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth. If any man hath been, under pretence of this [crime], particularly offended, it were pity to suffer any man to be wronged; and thus it ought to be, and otherwise we cannot answer, no man's special case ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... trade at present. Still, a few coasters have come in, and I hope that every day things will get better. Besides, all the vessels that have been lying in the Pool since June will want painting up and getting into trim again before they sail out of the river, so things may not be so slack after all. You will find everything in order in the store. I have had little to do but to polish up brass work and keep the metal from rusting. When do the apprentices ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... a question of the number of these foreigners. The inflow of a comparatively small number into a neighbourhood where much of the work is low-skilled and irregular, will often produce an effect which seems quite out of proportion to the actual number of the invaders. Where work is slack and difficult to get, a very small addition of low-living foreigners will cause a perceptible fall in the entire wages of the neighbourhood in the employments which their competition affects. It is true that the Jew ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... many and many exciting reports of boxing-matches. Bruising was considered a fine manly old English custom. Boys at public schools fondly perused histories of the noble science, from the redoubtable days of Broughton and Slack, to the heroic times of Dutch Sam and the Game Chicken. Young gentlemen went eagerly to Moulsey to see the Slasher punch the Pet's head, or the Negro beat the Jew's nose to a jelly. The island rang as yet with the tooting horns and rattling ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said 'Flag,' sir. You give different replies for different ranks so that the officer of the deck may know how to receive the people that are coming aboard. It would make him awful mad if you gave such an answer that he would extend wardroom honors to a steerage officer. Now, stand by to slack away and ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... boat off to a little distance from the frigate. The yard and stay-tackles fell, at the next instant were overhauled down and hooked by the man in the boat. The boatswain's mate, in the gangway, piped "haul-taut," and the slack of the tackle was pulled in; then followed a long, steady blow of the call, piping "sway-away," and the boat, with all in her, rose from the water, and ascended as high as the hammock-cloths in the waist, when the stay-tackles ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tide were unfavourable the next day for quitting our anchorage until the afternoon: in the morning Mr. Roe sounded and examined the south arm; and as he found the passage to be quite clear we weighed at slack water with the intention of proceeding through it and anchoring in the basin; but the strength of the wind obliged us to anchor under View Hill and detained us the whole of the following day which was unsuccessfully ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... the Vice-Chancellor's party, Falloden, after a somewhat slack morning's work, lunched in college with Meyrick. After hall, the quadrangle was filled with strolling men, hatless and smoking, discussing the chances of the Eights, the last debate at the Union, and the prospects of individual men ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... scraped out for an inch in depth, and afterward refilled. Mortar protected in the same way, or even unprotected, is often used for the purpose, but it is not equal to the paint and sand. Mortar a few days old (to allow refractory particles of lime to slack), mixed with blacksmith's cinders and molasses, is much used for this purpose, and becomes very hard ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... be sold, ten strong hearty, Negro men mostly tradesman, such as caulkers, carpenters, sailmakers and ropemakers.[3] Any person wishing to purchase may enquire of Benjamin Halliwell of Boston." Such an advertisement indicates that shipbuilding was slack at Halifax and more brisk at Boston. A conjecture may be hazarded that these slaves had been taken by their master to Halifax to build ships and then returned to the colony when ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... strong believer in strict discipline, at once ran to obey the order, accompanied by the most active among the men, while others ran to slack off the sheets and ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... matters in Norfolk were in a very slack state—rectors and vicars lived away from their parishes, subscribing amongst them to pay the salary of a curate to undertake the church services. As his duties were consequently manifold some parishes were without his presence on Sunday for a month and sometimes longer. The parish clerk ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... chest, in a voice like a deep-toned bell. His arms hung slack at his sides, but the muscles stood ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... rain when A slack rope tightens. Smoke beats downward. Sun is red in the morning. There is a pale yellow or ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... state of our economy is disturbing. We take office in the wake of seven months of recession, three and one-half years of slack, seven years of diminished economic growth, and nine years ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... lived in the Moat House once went to Rome, where they throw hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among the village people—but they were too beastly slack, so ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... down, but she would not obey. He tried at once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her- holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use: besides, it could not arrive for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... grassy knoll close to the water was Chris flat on his back, his mouth open, fast asleep. A half dozen fine bass lay on the grass beside him, the end of his fishing line was tied to one ebony leg, and a coil of slack line ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... forward to the day when it will be able to command a vessel of its own. Now it would be too much to say that the club expected to be able to buy the Hauppauge (the first thing it would have done, in that case, would have been to rename her). For it was in the slack and hollow of the week—shall we say, the bight of the week?—just midway between pay-days. But at any rate, thought the club, we can look her over, which will be an adventure in itself; and we can ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... have spoken without issuing therefrom reliable, seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most embarrassing of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men, distracted with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything or, grown slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the weapons of prudence, exerted a ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the house for sleep begin to grien, Their joints to slack frae industry a while; The leaden god fa's heavy on their een, And hafflins steeks them frae their daily toil; The cruizy too can only blink and bleer, The restit ingle's done the maist it dow; Tackman and cottar eke to bed ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... assented Mr Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose I was to go up to twenty-five thousand . . . ?" He twined his fingers lovingly in the slack of Mr Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a good kid! Shall we say ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... languor, lassitude later, latter lawful, legal lax, slack leave, let lend, loan liable, likely libel, slander lie, lay like, love linger, loiter look, see ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... during the whole day and night of the 18th, had, on the following morning, when the wind and sea still continued unabated, so destroyed the bergs on which our sole dependance was placed, that they no longer remained aground at low water; the cables had again become slack about them, and the basin we had taken so much pains in forming had now lost all its defences, at least during a portion of every tide. After a night of most anxious consideration and consultation with Captain Hoppner, who was now my messmate in the Hecla, it appeared but too ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done, and I ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with the death-grip still on the roomal, planted a knee between the victim's shoulder-blades, and jerked the head upward—still the spine did not snap; and slowly tightening the pressure of the cloth he smothered the man beneath his knee till he felt the muscles go slack and the ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser |
