"Work off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... school, more than any other institution, is dependent on the weather. Every small boy rises from his bed of a morning charged with a definite quantity of devilry; and this, if he is to sleep the sound sleep of health, he has got to work off somehow before bedtime. That is why the summer term is the one a master longs for, when the intervals between classes can be spent in the open. There is no pleasanter sight for an assistant-master at a private school than that of a number of ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... had passed the examinations with honors, and as Van thought of his achievement again and again he wondered if it could be true that he was one of that light-hearted band who were starting off on their summer vacation with no conditions to work off. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... very improvident, and will for the most part spend their money in drinking, a very short time after they have earned it. They will come back possibly with a DEAD HORSE TO WORK OFF—that is, a debt at the accommodation house—and will work hard for another year to have another drinking bout at the end of it. This is a thing fatally common here. Such men are often first-rate hands and thoroughly good fellows ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... the wharf log, which was nearly on a level with the water, left her, without tying, to look for some angle worms. It being rough on the Lake at the time, the rolling of the waves caused the boat to work off, and before he could return she had drifted well out on the broad waters of the Lake. We were too small to realize our situation. Not knowing how to paddle, we were left to the mercy of the waves. On the return ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... whether it be a political party, a church, a fraternal order or one of the idiotic movements that incessantly ravage the land, because joining gives him a feeling of security, because it makes him a part of something larger and safer than he is himself, because it gives him a chance to work off steam without running any risk. The whole thinking of the country thus runs down the channel of mob emotion; there is no actual conflict of ideas, but only a succession of crazes. It is inconvenient to stand aloof from these crazes, and ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... was never a small boy and thus had no chance to work the deviltry out of his system. You yourselves have been abundantly blessed in this regard. I think I may say that here, in our Normal Academy, you have had an almost ideal playground to work off those boyish high spirits, to perpetrate those mischievous pranks that the world expects of its young. Remember that you are now going out into the mature work of life, where you will encounter ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... seen that O'Ryan was in earnest, and what O'Ryan wanted he himself wanted even more strongly. He was not concerned greatly for O'Ryan's absence. He guessed that Terry had ridden away into the night to work off the dark spirit that was on him, to have it out with himself. Gow Johnson was a philosopher. He was twenty years older than O'Ryan, and he had studied his friend as ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... at him now, fixedly, a frosty gleam in her gray eyes. She looked a moment, and her breast heaved. She swept the work off her lap with a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... open and I am at your service.' 'Well, Brother,' said he, 'I have been looking over my stock' (he had about a dozen and a half of fly-specked straw hats on his show case, left over from the year before and not worth 40 cents), 'and I have about come to the conclusion that I'll work off the old goods I have in preference to putting in any new ones. You see if I buy the new ones they will move first and the old goods will keep getting ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... pretty much everything of value that the Khorassani freebooter had overlooked, besides committing more atrocities upon the population. At the end of another decade an army of Mahrattas took possession, and completed the spoilation by ripping the silver filigree-work off the ceiling of the Throne-room. Not long after this, yet another adventurer took a hand in the work of destruction, tortured the members of the imperial family, and put out the eyes of the helpless old emperor, Shah Alum. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... bunch over so I could shoot it back to him if it wasn't all right," Johnny explained with dignity. "They sure can't work off any punk stuff on me, ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... her playmates. It was cold, at night, with no other cuddly little fur-ball to snuggle down to. It was stupid, with no one to help her work off her five-months spirits in a romp. And Lass missed the dozens of visitors that of old had come to ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... all right," said a gentleman standing by. "The rogue was quite ingenious in trying to work off his bad money ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... me little lady. Ye just naturally can't help bouncin' about like a rubber ball. Ye have to work off yer animal spirits somehow, I s'pose. But if so be that ye could sit a bit quieter, I might be injuced to take ye agin some other day. But I'd rather yer ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... yesterday," said Dunster. "It must have been a rag! Couldn't we work off some other rag on somebody before I go? I shall be stopping here till Monday in the village. Well hit, sir—Adair's bowling is perfectly simple if you go ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... it doubtful. "Course, I was lookin' for second-hand stuff, but I don't think he ought to work off anything that ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Bettesworth and J. Batley in Pater-noster-Row, London, England, in 1690. Basle, London, Boston, Madrid! The author seems to have had wandering on the brain. By the bye, Leon, with your features you could easily work off a fake as 'the Wandering Jew.' There's money in it—people will swallow anything in that ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... the papers to their proper places, picked up Patricia's bank, which he still had with him, turned out the light, and then tramped down the long flights of stairs to work off his excitement. He was disappointed not to have succeeded in this first attempt to prove his suspicions, but he found some consolation in the certainty which came to him, even in the face of this defeat, that he was ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... and when a nation has no surrounding nations to fight, it will, as we have just proved, fight itself. When it can have no foreign war, it will get up a domestic war; for the human animal, like all animals, must work off in some way its fighting humor, and the only sure way of maintaining peace is always to be prepared for war. A regular standing army of forty thousand men would have prevented the Mexican war, and an army of fifty thousand ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... up the gov'nor," said Bertie Godolphin. "Then the eldest daughter is engaged to be married; that's right; only three daughters and two h'orphan nieces to work off now!" ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... so young that they could properly compel Kendal to go into the fields with them and make cowslip balls, and some robust girls of eighteen and twenty, who mutely demanded the pleasure of beating him at tennis every afternoon. He was able in this way to work off the depression that visited him daily with the damp odor of London art, criticism, quite independently of its bias toward himself. He told himself that he had been let off fairly easily, though he winced considerably ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... plenty of champagne, and then they danced as though their lives depended on it. Why they did it? Oh, well, young people, rich and fashionable, bored by Sunday evening at home; they wanted to work off the week's idleness in two hours, so ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... me tell you something, Dick," the secretary answered, firmly. "Don't you work off all your dyspeptic ideas in this neighborhood. My Senator is a great man. They can't appreciate him up here because he's honest—crystal clear. I used to think I knew what a decent citizen, a real man, ought to be, but he's taught me some new things. He'll teach them all something ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... the reputation of being orderly and well disposed; but like all negroes they are up to anything if not watched and attended to. I expect the kindest treatment of them from you, for this has always been a principal thing with me. I never suffer them to work off the place, or exchange work with any plantation....It has always been my plan to give out allowance to my negroes on Sunday in preference to any other day, because this has much influence in keeping them at home that day, whereas if they received allowance ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... have been fighting most of the time for three or four years generally become pretty cool, while those in the rear seem to become hotter and hotter as the end approaches, and even for some time after it is reached. They must in some way work off the surplus passion which the soldier has already exhausted in battle. Whatever may be true as to Sherman's methods before Lee surrendered, the destruction inflicted on the South after that time was solely the work of passion, and not of ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... want families to stay together; say to absent parents who aren't paying their child support if you're not providing for your children we'll garnish your wages, suspend your license, track you across state lines, and if necessary make some of you work off what ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the crockery man, "has made a big hole in our business. Some one suddenly discovered that crockery would be a taking thing to help work off poor goods. Of course, the home jobber benefited by it for a very short time, and then the New York importers stepped in and took the cream. Baking-powder men, coffee-grinders, tea houses, and others sent out crockery, and people, got so much of it for nothing ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... another job, though I suppose it's better than teaching school." The daughter sighed. "Honest, father, sometimes when I've been on my feet all day, and the children have been mean, and the janitor sticks his head in and grins, so I'll know the superintendent is in the building and get the work off the board that the rules don't allow me to put on, or one of the other girls sends a note up to watch for my spelling for he's cranky on spelling to-day, I just think, 'Lordee, if I had a job in some one's kitchen, I'd be too ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Fire Brigade strike is settled. Patrons are asked to bear with the Brigade, who have promised to work off arrears ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... Isn't it awful to have to work off a condition? Please don't let me bother you ever, Jude, when you have that task on hand," ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... did not stop on refusing the eligible owner of an unmortgaged estate. No! she set out to look for work off her own bat, and actually found it in that occupation which, far less paid than more, opens up a perfect vista of possible adventures under the guise ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... you because you lost your head; because you forgot you were playing football. If you're only going into this to work off your private grudges, then I don't want you around. I'll fire you off and keep you off. You're here to play football, to think of eleven men, not one. You're to use your brains, not your fists. Why, the first game you play in some one will tease ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... the Master, John; perhaps He thinks you should rest now," answered his wife. "You've got plenty able helpers to take the heavy work off your hands." ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... a parting kiss, and remained pacing up and down the room to work off her indignation before returning to her father. She was quite as angry with herself, as with my Lady, for having lost her temper, and so given her enemy an advantage, more especially as when her distress became less agitating, her natural shrewdness began to guess that the hint about scandal ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sleep aboard the ship, he would be more than pleased. You see, he has his cargo pretty nearly loaded, and hopes to be able to get away at midday the day after to-morrow; so the sooner I am on board the sooner I shall be able to take some of the worry and trouble and work off his shoulders." ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... her room she threw the broom Timea had tried to take away furiously on the ground; then again beat the chairs and sofas with the handle, in order, as she said, to shake the dust out, but really to work off her anger on them. If in going out or in her dress caught in the door, or the sleeve on the handle, she wrenched it away with her teeth clinched, so that either the dress was torn or the handle dragged off, and then ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... fortunate enough to land a knockout blow with my left at the outset I'd finish him easily; but if he should play me and keep out of my reach he might get me winded so he could finally get the best of it. I must work off more flesh." ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... lively vessel lift to the swelling wave, and smelt the salt pure breeze from off the sea. Though the sea-breeze was very reviving after the hot pestilential air of New Orleans, yet as it came directly in our teeth, our captain wished it from some other quarter. We were enabled, however, to work off the shore; and as during the night the land-breeze came pretty strong, by day-break the next morning we were fairly ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... also a man milliner. When I could not dispose of my medicines, I tried mantillas, and in the course of my tour I sold the whole of Margaret's wares, faithfully remitting to her the money for the same. I think she would have put her whole stock of goods on me to work off in the same way; but I never gave her ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... confessed, found a new joy in that new attack. It gave him a chance to work off his superabundant energy. The confined space of the cabin was in his favour. He blocked all attempts to encompass him, while his mighty arms did terrific execution, and when the finish came it showed the would-be ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... enough of it up here before you've gone very far," he predicted. "Just the same, you might have come by the office and asked permission before you began to work off your digging fit ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... their feelings, you know. There's hardly one of them who hasn't sent somebody to the war; son or brother or sweetheart. And all that's left for—for those who stay behind—not always the least hard thing to do for a patriot, Peter—is to honour, as far as they can, each one who returns. They work off some of their accumulated feelings that way, you know; and in their rejoicings they do not forget those who, alas! will never ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... course, heard nothing of this, or he might perhaps have thought better of Fenn. As for the junior dayroom, it was obliged to work off its emotion by jeering Jimmy Silver from the safety of the touchline when the head of Blackburn's was refereeing in a match between the juniors of his house and those of Kay's. Blackburn's happened to win by four goals and eight tries, a result which the patriotic Kay fag attributed solely to ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... answer was, "We would rather starve." And this haggard patience was saving the manufacturer himself from ruin, who had been engaged in over-manufacturing, till his warehouses groaned with an enormous stock which the cotton blockade enabled him to work off. Great fortunes have been made in this way, while the operative slowly went to rags, road-mending, and the poor-rates. In London, hard upon midnight, I have often been attracted by the sound of street-music to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... in the farm-year, visited often to observe and comment on the off-worlder's work. Aaron Stoltzfoos privately regarded the endless conversations as too much of a good thing; but he realized that his answering the Murnan's questions helped work off the obligation he owed the government for the eighty light-years' transportation it had given him, the opportunity he'd been given to earn this hundred acres with five years' work, and the interest-free loans that had put ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... the war some South Carolina planters tried to solve this problem by introducing into the contracts provisions leaving only a small share of the crops to the freedmen, subject to all sorts of constructive charges, and then binding them to work off the indebtedness they might incur. It being to a great extent in the power of the employer to keep the laborer in debt to him, the employer might thus obtain a permanent hold upon the person of the laborer. It was something like ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... comfortable in the boat-house, but Ben kept piling on wood and raking out the coals with an iron bar, as if the heat and light were still insufficient, when in fact he thought nothing of either, but was making desperate efforts to work off the anxieties that had beset him like so many hounds, ever ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... that I had been expected to secure the fall crops on mother's lot, and this was not unreasonable, for I had married a Pennsylvania farmer, and their wives and sisters and daughters did such work often, while the "men folks" pitched horseshoes to work off their surplus vitality. Lack of strength was no reason why a woman should fail in her duty, for when one fell at her post, there was always ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... their good behavior are apt to get restless and nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick Venner had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed life with. When the savage passion of his young blood came over him, he would fetch out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these amiable beasts are wont to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his back, vault into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... woman did? That's so, hossy; you're right there. But we ain't complainin', you and me, I want you to understand. We've done real well this trip, and before we get our little oats to-night we'll work off every stick in the whole concern, you see if we don't, and have money to put in the bank, io, money to put in the bank. Gitty up, you hossy!" He flourished his whip round the brown horse's head and ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... baby while she was gone to Europe. In that case, he intended to follow after; and he thought some good people would lend them money to buy their little ones, and, both together, they could soon work off the debt. But this project had been defeated by Mrs. Bell, who brought a white nurse from Boston, and carried her infant ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... old stamps on hand, but will sell them in the ordinary way. At first, the public may prefer getting new stamps, and if so, there is no objection to this wish being acceded to, but it is also desirable to work off in due course all remnants of old stamps. A change in the design of the stamp of the present series of postcards, post-bands and stamped envelopes, to correspond with that above referred to, ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... one to know them! And what about tin? Price going up daily. When we do get started we shall have to work off our contracts at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was laid before the Board of Admiralty by Captain Murray Sueter. In this statement the duties of naval aircraft were laid down; the two first to be mentioned were: '(1) Distance reconnaissance work with the fleet at sea. (2) Reconnaissance work off the enemy coast, working from detached cruisers or special aeroplane ships.' The policy is clear and sound; but a world of ingenuity and toil was involved in those two short phrases—'with the fleet at sea', and 'working from detached ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... for the implied compliment. But there IS a 'drag,' as you call it. There's going to be a big one, too, I'm afraid—when they get out and see this tract we're going to work off this spring." She stopped and studied him as a chess player studies ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... tent closed on us like an umbrella. We would never have spread it again had not some of the drift settled round us, and so we were able to secure it after an hour or two. The air was full of thick drift, and to work off some of Taylor's energy I said we might climb the island and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... wrest the island from the moribund nation that has so long misgoverned it; but a semi-official expression of concern for men striving to achieve their liberty afforded Europe a pretext to "get together" and work off on a distant people that war spirit, so long suppressed at home, lest it disturb the balance of power. The British journals, which had warbled so sweetly anent their American cousins and "the indissoluble bond of Anglo-Saxon brotherhood," ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... house. They hung about in disconsolate little groups, and grumbled. Miss Beasley, who was generally well aware of the mental atmosphere of the Grange, registered the barometer at stormy, and decided that prompt measures were necessary. To work off the steam of the school, she suggested a good old-fashioned game of hide-and-seek, and gave permission for it to be played on those upper landings which were generally forbidden ground. Twenty-six delighted girls started at once upstairs, and passed ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... puppy, so that he should not arrive muddy at his new mistress's house. She had twined a ridiculous blue ribbon in his russet curls, which he tried to work off whenever he got a chance, desisting only to lick vigorously ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... chest, full five feet from the ground. Of course the whole hall was in a smother every time, with mats and rugs all out of place upon the slippery floor. And then the noise! The only thing was to leave the house and work off some ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... Moros pay this tribute of three maes as being more wealthy people, and because they are excellent farmers and traders. They are so rich that, if they would labor and trade for four days, they would gain enough to work off the tribute for a year. They have various sources of gain and profit; and so they have an abundance of rich jewels and trinkets of gold, which they wear on their persons. There are some chiefs in this island who have on their persons ten or twelve thousand ducats' ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... the substance of the will, she went springing up the mountain-side, as it were to work off her excitement by fatigue. At the mountain-top she gazed over the River St. Lawrence with an eye blind to all except this terrible distortion of life. Yet through her obfuscation, there ran admiration for Tarboe. What a man he was! He had captured ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... what I need to work off my surplus energy," declared Tabitha enthusiastically. "May we take some ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... reason in the world why Justine should not do it. The girl was not overworked, and she was being paid thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents every month! Justine was big and strong, she could toss the little extra work off without any ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... and do what I said at first. Let somebody take the place and work off the debt—in a way, you understand. You can look about for a music class, and Lizzie here can get a position in the public schools. Of course you know you are welcome at my house ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... as he glanced after her and, flinging himself onto his horse, rode away to the stables at a reckless pace, as if to work off some emotion for which he could ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... still love, and have a right to hear of her, I will indulge myself in saying something more. That something shall be what I said to myself then, as I promenaded to and fro,—that bodily exercise was one of my safety-valves in those times,—in the endeavor to work off so much of my superfluous animation as to be in a state to sit down and paint again; and thus I spake: "I must have had before me an uncommonly fine specimen of a class whose existence I have conjectured before, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... fus'-class thing ter work off bad tempers wid," the old man began, tightening the strings as he spoke. "Now ef one o' deze mule tempers ever take a-holt of yer in de foot, dat foot 'll be mighty ap' ter do some kickin'; an' ef it seizes a-holt o' yo' han', dat little fis' 'll ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... dare to look at him; she could not bear that he should see her do so; it was enough to know that he was free—that he was there—that it was over. She did not want to see how it had changed him; and, half to set him at ease, half to work off her own excitement, she talked to her father, and told him of the little events of his absence till the meal was over; and, at half-past one, good nights were exchanged with Leonard, and the Doctor saw him to his ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the more haste since he was unable to repay this courtesy with the most trifling purchase; such slight matters annoyed Kirkwood intensely. Perhaps it was well for him that he had the long walk to help him work off the fit of nervous exasperation into which he was plunged every time his thoughts harked back to that jovial black-guard, Stryker.... He was quite calm when, after a brisk walk of some fifteen ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... June 12, 1864, the United States sloop-of-war Kearsarge lay at anchor off the sleepy town of Flushing, Holland. Her commander, John Ancrum Winslow, had served in the navy of the United States for thirty-seven years, and had done good work off Vera Cruz in the war with Mexico, but the crowning achievement of his life was at hand. As his ship lay swinging idly at her anchor, a boat put off to her, a messenger jumped aboard, and three minutes later a gun was fired, recalling instantly every member of the ship's company ashore. ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... wrong, was split clean in two. But these were not results that could be read yet awhile in election figures. Meanwhile the exhausted Lincoln reconciled himself for the moment to failure. As a private man he was thoroughly content that he could soon work off his debt for his election expenses, could earn about 500 pounds a year, and be secure in the possession of the little house and the 2,000 pounds capital which was "as much as any man ought to have." As a public man he was sadly proud that he had at least ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the recess was only over the week-end and lessons began again on Monday. Only those girls who lived very near to Briarwood made a real vacation of the first winter holiday. A good many used the time to make up lessons and work off "conditions." ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... assignment after Professor Mantelish came out of the dope was to snap him back into trance and explain to him how he had once more been put under hypno control and used for her felonious ends by the First Lady of Tranest. They let him work off his rage while he was still under partial control. Then the Ermetyne woke ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... only a blind, sir," was the startling answer, "Mr. Billings has some old goods that he is trying to work off. They are not quite up to the mark, but that 'ad' ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... request the services of the greatest dignitary of their acquaintance, and Sir Bevil's blunt 'No, no, poor fellow! say no more about it,' made her suppose that he suspected that Robert's vehemence in his parish was meant to work off a disappointment. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... running 'way down here," and the equally earnest and far more peevish complaints of the ticker tired, just-a-minute-to-spare fathers that it cost them about five thousand, just to take an hour to work off ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... against her she made the vow as she had made it fifty times already. She would be gentle with him; she would be patient; she would let him work off on her the agony of his suffering nerves, and smile at him through it all. She would help him out of the idiotic situation in which he found himself. The other girl was only an incident, as the show-girl had been to the Bellington boy, and could be disposed of. She attached to that only ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... feverish intensity which astounded Arlt and roused his audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Thayer took his new honors quietly, however. In his secret heart, he knew that this had been the simplest way to work off his stored-up emotions, and he reached New York, early in November, with a greater reputation and steadier nerves than he had even dared ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... machete it is, and I hope you will find something to use it on and work off some of ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... really it is. Please don't ask me again. Anyhow, I know it is father who wants me to stay, not you. I presume he's on the duty tack. I think what he has to say will keep till to- morrow night. If he must work off some of his sentiments on gambling, let him place his efforts where they are needed—let him tackle Jule Hammond, but not ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... Percival," said Rupert, in a slightly wearied tone, "if you are going to rant and rave, I'll go out. My room is quite at your disposal, but I am not. I've got a headache. Why don't you go to a theatre or a music hall, and work off your superfluous energy there by clapping and ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... follow that because men are capable of doing hard work they like it. Some, indeed, fidget and fret if they cannot otherwise work off their superfluous steam; but on the other hand there are many big lazy fellows who will not get up their steam to full pressure except under compulsion. Again, the character of the stimulus that ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... to yourself a romantic Hotspur of a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's gate was shut on him. At nineteen Hugh Guinness drank and fought and gambled, as other ill-managed boys do to work off the rank fever of blood. Unfortunately—" he stopped, and then added in a lower voice, quickly, "he made a mistake while the fever was on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... said Billy Louise under her breath. "Your kid is almost as happy as you are, right now. Don't be shocked, there's a dear, or think I'm going to break my neck. Blue and I have just simply got to work off steam. You, Blue!" She leaned ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... fingers trembled as she handed him the flower. Albert felt a choking feeling in his throat. The crowd pressed round. A German offered ten thousand francs for a flower which the young girl had put to her lips. At last Albert could work off some of his ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... Hugh," and though a pleasant savour of old times was about it, Fleda could not get up again the bright feeling with which she had come up the hill. There was a miserable misgiving at heart. It would work off in time. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... look out for a place in the country. When I get back to Russia I shall take five years' rest—that is, stay in one place and twiddle my thumbs. A place in the country will come in very handy. I think the money will be found, for things don't look bad. If I work off the money I have had in advance (half of it is worked off already) I shall certainly borrow two or three thousand in the spring, to be paid off over a period of five years. That will not be against my conscience, as I have already let the publishing department of the Novoye Vremya make two or ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... and chances were he'd be one again more often than he'd care to admit. In a short while, hours perhaps, he'd be gone—and he'd never see Dorothy again. Somehow the thought was not as comforting as he had expected, and he tried to work off a lingering doubt that rose ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... Winfield, promptly, "and I'd advise you to sit for your photograph. The papers would like it—'Picture of the Only Woman Who Doesn't Want Anything'—why, that would work off an extra ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... sure that the wives and children of our reservists want neither food nor money to pay their rent. . . . They tell me that in a few weeks the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association will be ready to take much of this work off our hands, though acting through local distributors. Indeed, the Vicar—indeed, my husband has already received a letter from the District Secretary of the Association asking him to undertake this work. In time, too, no doubt—as Government makes better provision—that work will ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... bucked, bolting first to one side and the other of the road, and refused to consider Smythe's well-worded assurance that wise horses were really fond of automobiles, which were taking a great deal of work off their shoulders. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... that boy's been arter you. Two years, you trampled on him as if he'd been the dust under your feet. He was poor an' strugglin'. He was left with his mother to take care on, an' a mortgage to work off. An' then his house burnt down, an' he got his insurance money; an' that minute, you turned right round an' says, 'I'll have you.' An' now, you say, 'Is it all right?' Is it right, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... conversation as freely as was her wont in the family circle, but sat on the grass by her uncle, watching him with adoring eyes, trying to work the signet ring off his big little finger, which in the memory of man—of Molly, I mean—had never been known to work off, while she gave him the benefit of small pieces of local and personal news in a half whisper from time to time ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the stitch on needle, pull up a loop through 1st and 3d stitches of preceding row, take up the yarn, and draw through the 3 loops on the needle at once, chain 1 to close the cluster, * draw up a loop in same place with last and another in 3d stitch, work off ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... have a pointer, Leopold, who really is a marvellous animal, and I work off tales of his doings on Geoffrey when he is more than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... commission he received to write a Requiem Mass. We are sure now that it was Count Walsegg who wished to palm off the composition as one of his own. To Mozart, however, there was something uncanny in the whole matter, and he could not work off the suspicious dread that the death-music he was writing was an omen of his own end. Shortly before his father had died, Mozart had written him a letter begging him to be reconciled to death when it should come, and speaking ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... time there wasn't much left to tell her about the Castle or the Castle Rock. When I began to work off my erudition by mentioning the name of Edwin, for whom Edinburgh was named, and who made it a royal borough in the eleventh century, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... himself, for he knew the man would return to his tale, and probably all the sooner for being left to work off his transient horror how ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... likely to work off some of its effects, and thus would rob the cow-pox of its efficacy on the system. I do not like to interfere with vaccination in any way whatever (except, at the proper time, to take a little matter from the arm), but to allow the pock to have ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... without even looking at her again, in a white heat of fury. But before the hot dawn of another June day had given him an excuse to get up and try to work off his feelings with the most strenuous labor that he could find, he had spent a horrible sleepless night which he was never to forget as long as he lived. His anger gave way first to misery, and then to a panic of fear. ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... these birds. I was concerned about the dogs. They were losing condition and some of them appeared to be ailing. One dog had to be shot on the 12th. We did not move the ship on the 14th. A breeze came from the east in the evening, and under its influence the pack began to work off shore. Before midnight the close ice that had barred our way had opened and left a lane along the foot of the barrier. I decided to wait for the morning, not wishing to risk getting caught between the barrier and the pack in the event ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... practice, there was some running around the bases. But Manager Watson knew better than to keep the boys at it too long, and soon called the work off for the day. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... to say to ourselves, "Well, if this person or this thing do seem disagreeable, or if this work, or even this little bit of obedience, be very tiresome, perhaps it may really be only a fancy of mine, and if I go to it with a good will, I may work off the notion;" or, "Perhaps I am cross to-day, let me take good care how I answer." And a little prayer in our hearts will be the best help of all. Self-command and goodness will not come by nature as we grow up, but we must work for them ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Watson announced to his family that old Sam Motherwell wanted Pearlie to go out and work off the caboose debt. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... of some kind, that's all I c'n tell," he admitted. "But of course, they'd need a press of some sort to work off the paper money on. Now, chances are, it's bein' put up right in that long shed yonder, that we c'n see. Question is, how're we goin' to get close enough to peek through a crack, and find out what's goin' on ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... need to work off some of their energy, and there's always a show they might happen onto ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... a low-cut shoe. Strange that a man's life may hinge on such a slight detail, but this fact enabled him to work off his right shoe and his sock. He extended his bare foot, and with his toes searched the pocket of the emissary for the key to the door. Finally ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... is, Missus; but the Yankees done kill him," exclaimed Morris, opening and shutting the carriage door with a bang, as if he hoped in that way to work off some of his excitement. ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better—and indeed, the more lasting a man's ultimate good work is, the more sure he is to pass through a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for him at all. We must all sow our spiritual wild ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler |
