"Deftly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deck, both being early risers; she, in order to leave a clear field for Mrs. Milward's prolonged toilet, and the elaborate operations of her clever maid. The pretty grey hair had to be taken out of pins, brushed, back-combed and deftly arranged, as the frame to its owner's beaming and youthful face. Lacing, buttoning and hooking also ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made pretty curves and openings. So she went on, laying them deftly. ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the gulch and then back to the shaft. "Can't leave that lay-out," he went on. He bent over the prostrate figure and began to loosen the band of his shirt. Something about the boy's clothing attracted his attention, so, drawing his knife, he deftly and gently ripped away the coat and shirt. Then he arose softly to his feet and bared ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... case and brought out his favorite revolver. It was a long and ponderous weapon to be hidden beneath his clothes, but to Ronicky Doone that gun was a friend well tried in many an adventure. His fingers went deftly over it. It literally fell to pieces at his touch, and he examined it cautiously and carefully in all its parts, looking to the cartridges before he assembled the weapon again. For, if it became necessary to shoot this evening, it would be necessary ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... toward Kerry with the bleeding member outstretched. Now was the Irishman's time—by all his former resolutions, by the need he had for that money reward—to deftly handcuff the outlaw. What he did was to draw the other toward the daylight, examine the hand, which was torn and lacerated on the gun-hammer, and with sundry exclamations of sympathy proceed to bind it up with strips torn ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... in the district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put on, very deftly slid a five-ruble note up his sleeve, coughing drily and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness; I foresaw a sleepless ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... flicker of the eyelids. Calmly he uncrossed his legs and looking up at the ceiling he said, "Alas, certain scabby wethers succeed in stealing into the fold, but they are so rare as hardly to be worth thinking about." And he deftly changed the subject by speaking of a book he had just ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... utterance in yet another respect, and one of no slight or private significance, as the sequel will show. Within a minute or two of its delivery, Rachel was on her own doorstep for the last time, deftly and gently turning the latchkey, while the birds sang to frenzy in a neighboring garden, and the early sun glanced fierily from the brass knocker and letter-box. Another moment and the door had been flung wide open by ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... ever Rippling like a restless river, Puzzling many an older brain Dost thou hour by hour increase thy store Of marvelous lore. Thus a squirrel, darting deftly, Up and down autumnal trees, Sees its hoard of chestnuts growing swiftly In a heap upon the ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... might see him "strutting along like a king" with his breeches stuck in his boots, his coat on his arm, his flaming red shirt tied at the collar with a cravat such as could be seen nowhere else; with crape on his hat, the hat set deftly on the side of his head, his hair evenly plastered down to his skull, and a cigar in his mouth. If he condescended to adorn his manly breast with any ornament it was generally a large gold or brass figure representing ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... and eat them when it suits you," said the girl, deftly thrusting a plateful of hot cakes upon him. Divided between gratitude and annoyance, Geoffrey stood still, stupidly holding out the dainties at arm's length, while flavored syrup dripped from them. It was equally impossible ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... tickled to pieces that his idea caught on at once," Ethel Brown murmured to Ethel Blue as they sorted and packed their orders, not very deftly, but swiftly enough for the posies to add to the enjoyment of the people at the table and for the parcels to be ready for them when the motor came to ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... out, and, deftly unharnessing the horse, put him in her little shed, and gave him a feed of oats. The hens had gone to bed ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... the liver—sweet as a nut!" and she smelled of them with the air of an epicure. "We must keep them by themselves for the present." Then, deftly jointing the fowl, she put the parts to soak in cold water, strongly salted. "That will take out the wild taste," said she. "How I do wish Tom could eat some of this when it is cooked, it will be so strengthening! But I guess, ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... "constitute ourselves prosecutor, judge, jury, sheriff's officer, all in one;" we "practice intimidation as deftly as if we were a branch of another League; and, under threat of exposure," we "extort a tolerably heavy hush-money in payment of our ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... water, he went down out of sight, to Fred's great horror, but came up again directly, and then floated upon his back, swam sideways, and did other feats that seemed to Fred little short of wonders—so easily and deftly were ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... as usual? I will go and see if there is some more," said the girl, deftly arranging the tray. "See, it is quite hot ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... as that. He sat on a little low stool, and his plate was put on the floor in front of him. He would pick up his knife and fork, cut up his meat, and feed himself as deftly as possible. ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... been possible. Those huge tonal edifices, skyscrapers in bulk, soon prove barren to the spirit. A mountain in parturition with a mouse! Nor need we dwell upon the ecstatic Scriabine who mimicked Chopin so deftly in his piano pieces, "going" Liszt and Strauss one better—or ten, if you will—and spilt his soul in swooning, roseate vibrations. Withal, a man of ability and vast ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... tell the truth of himself; at any rate, to tell no untruth against himself. We think that Cicero of all men may be left to do so—Cicero, who so well understood the use of words, and could use them in his own defence so deftly. I maintain that it has been that very deftness which has done him all the harm. Not one of those letters of the last years would have been written as it is now had Cicero thought, when writing it, that from it would his conduct have been judged ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... splendour. Lady Mary had thrown open her ball-room, and the walls looked like a lattice-work of American Beauty roses and thorns. Great bunches of the same expensive ornament swung from the ceiling, and the piano was covered with a quilt of them deftly woven together. The pale green drawing-room was as lavishly decorated with pink and white orchids and lilies of the valley. Lady Mary felt that she could vie in extravagance with the most ambitious in her husband's ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... coarse graying hair and a heavy, fleshy face, he did not look like a brain. Yet Ross had been on the roster long enough to know that it was Millaird's thick and hairy hands that gathered together all the loose threads of Operation Retrograde and deftly wove them into a workable pattern. Now the director leaned back in a chair which was too small for his bulk, chewing thoughtfully ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... from breathing bronze shall draw More softness, and a living face devise From marble, plead their causes at the law More deftly, trace the motions of the skies With learned rod, and tell the stars that rise. Thou, Roman, rule, and o'er the world proclaim The ways of peace. Be these thy victories, To spare the vanquished and the proud to tame. These are imperial arts, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... thought. 'And he so tender and careful for my comfort. What a poor idiot I must have seemed! Yet, sure, I must find favour in his eyes, or he would not have wrapt the cloth so deftly round my feet. Oh, is he not noble and beautiful beyond all men who ever lived? I hear them say the Queen calls him "her Philip" and "her bright gem," and that he is the wisest statesman, and grandest poet and finest scholar of the age, and yet he is not too great ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... sprawled flat on his stomach among the grasses, one hand clutching his black curls, with his dream book on a small, round stone before him—for only so can Peter compose at all, and even then he finds it hard work. He can handle a hoe more deftly than a pencil, and his spelling, even with all his frequent appeals to Cecily, is a fearful and wonderful thing. As for punctuation, he never attempts it, beyond an occasion period, jotted down whenever he happens to think of it, whether in the right place or not. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... we started on this adventure the whole race of rogues has become the object of my sincerest admiration. What wits, what quickness, what gifts—so varied and so deftly used—what skill in deception, what ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... pitched his loud voice some notes higher, bellowing like a bull of Bashan as he rolled off sonorous sentences very deftly learned and remembered, in which glory and the service of the state and the example of old Rome were cleverly compounded into a most patriotic pasty. Even as he was in the thick of his speaking there came a flourish of trumpets at ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... under the water, as you cannot," he explained as he worked deftly and swiftly. "Within my own memory we have trapped their scouts wearing aids such as these so that they might spy upon our safe places. But their last foray was some years ago and at that time we taught them such a lesson that they have not dared to return. ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... hurrying to the rescue. "Let me hook it for you. What a perfect dream of a gown it is!" she added in frank admiration, as she deftly fastened it up the back. "It looks like the kind in the fairy tales that are woven out of moon-beams. Here, let me fix your hair, where ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... saying he was returning to the cenoby. I wonder, he said to himself, as he went up the hill, if they'd take interest in my craft, I could talk to them for a long while of the thread which should always be carefully chosen, and which should be smooth and of equal strength, else, however deftly the shuttle be passed, the woof would be rough. But no matter, if they'll get news of Timothy for me I'll listen to their talk of rams and ewes without complaint. It was kind of Jacob to say he did not think Timothy had fallen down a precipice, but what does ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... friends, beyond dispute I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. Punctual as Springtide forth peep they: But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh? Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to—what ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... uniform appearance; then, quitting the grotto, he replaced the stone, heaping on it broken masses of rocks and rough fragments of crumbling granite, filling the interstices with earth, into which he deftly inserted rapidly growing plants, such as the wild myrtle and flowering thorn, then carefully watering these new plantations, he scrupulously effaced every trace of footsteps, leaving the approach to the cavern as savage-looking and untrodden ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... among the first, lingered to watch a scene that was new to him, of which he was as yet an onlooker only. Here and there came a member of the orchestra; with violin-case or black-swathed wind-instrument in hand, he deftly threaded his way through the throng, bestowing, as he went, a hasty nod of greeting upon a colleague, a sweep of the hat on an obsequious pupil. The crowd began to disperse and to overflow in the surrounding streets. Some of the stragglers loitered to swell the group that was forming round the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... little, the thought of having been so deftly caught in a trap, almost entirely owing to his having been overconfident, an assurance only very natural under ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... found itself outside the corral, its first idea was to gallop away. A jerk of the lasso checked him effectually. Another member of the household then deftly threw his lasso in such a manner that the prancing steed put its feet in it, and was caught just above the fetlocks. With a powerful twitch of this second lasso its legs were pulled from under it, and it fell with tremendous violence on its side. Before it could rise the young Gaucho forced ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... leaning over the table, deftly put his thumb and forefinger between the boy's lips, and drew forth slowly a large white pocket-handkerchief, which seemed never to end, and threw it on the floor with ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... before they got to the regiment Webb was convinced that he had seen very much more than he really did at Russell, and he had heard a volume of gossip that, after all, he could not have asserted was told him by Gleason, yet had been most deftly suggested. Gleason was deep. He knew that they brought with them the mail of the last stage reaching Fetterman for three days. Further news would not be apt to come by letter for a week, by which time the regiment ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... amid bitter curses telling the disappointment of that breathless crowd, a young woman suddenly swept around the lower edge of the long table, brushing Winston with her flapping skirt as she passed, bent down, and whispered a half-dozen rapid sentences into the gambler's ear. The hands, already deftly shuffling the cards for another deal, scarcely paused in their operations, nor did those cool, observant eyes once desert the sea of excited faces before him. He asked a single brief question, nodded carelessly to the hastily spoken reply, and then, as the woman drew ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... half-French education had given her much that was lacking in the stodgy damsels of Mrs. Rainham's acquaintance. She was quick and courteous and willing; responding, moreover, to the lash of the tongue—after her first wide-eyed stare of utter amazement—exactly as a well-bred colt responds to a deftly-used whip. "I'll keep her," was Mrs. Rainham's inward resolve. "And she'll earn her ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... stripped the covering from the body. There at last it lay before us, stiff, yellow, and dread to see; and on the left side, above the thigh, was the cut through which the embalmers had done their work, but it was sewn up so deftly that we could scarcely ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... creamery, painted white inside and out as are all the creameries in Paris. There were great pyramids of butter ranged along the marble counter according to its freshness, with rosy girls deftly patting off pounds and half pounds, quarter pounds and even two sous' worth. Molly and her mother followed their noses to the freshest pyramid. It seemed to be just out of the churn and Molly declared that it ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... sensitive lips, delicate nostrils, and large, blue eyes,—with that wide, unafraid look of a child that has never been taught to fear,—revealed a spirit fine and rare; while the low, broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft brown hair,—that, arranged deftly in some simple fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every wayward breath of air,—gave the added charm of strength and purpose. The man, seeing these things and knowing—as few men ever know—their value, waited ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... sauntered about the meadows, along shady roads; they watched the black and white cows sleepily browsing, sometimes coming to the water's edge to drink, and looking at themselves, amazed. They saw the huge-limbed milkmaids come along with their little stools and their pails, deftly tying the cow's hind legs that it might not kick. And the steaming milk frothed into the pails and was poured into huge barrels, and as each cow was freed, she shook herself a little ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... she watched the deserted father grow indifferent to what he had to eat and drink—though he had once been so quick to appreciate the dishes which she prepared so deftly—and neglectful of the attentions which he had been wont to pay to the outside world, became embittered towards Melchior whom she had carried in her arms and loved like her own child. In former times Herr Ueberhell ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... they were going to be the death of somebody unknown. But observing in the procession an empty wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed the bearer of the gun with his eyes. A stone deftly thrown across him by the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. Two posthumous children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... waited. Swinging himself onto one he took his place among the men who sat on the rails with which the car was loaded. Then, as the big locomotive slowly pulled them out, some of his new companions vituperated the station-agent for stopping them, and one came near braining him with a deftly-flung bottle when he retaliated. There were a good many more men perched on the other cars, and Weston concluded, from the burst of hoarse laughter that reached him through the roar of wheels, that all of them ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... washing up the tea things, carried on her own little fears, and hopes, and wishes in her own mind. No one watching her would have guessed what those wishes were: she looked so trim and neat, and handled the china as deftly as though she had no other thought than to do her work well. And yet the inside did not quite match this proper outside, for her whole soul was occupied with a beautiful vision—herself with a fringe like Agnetta! It proved so engrossing that she hardly noticed Mrs Wishing's departure, ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... Paul lived with Mark I must not here tell; but before he grew to full manhood he had learned his art well. Mark was a strict master, but not impatient. The only thing that angered him was carelessness or listlessness; and Paul was an apt and untiring pupil, and learnt so easily and deftly that Mark was often astonished. "How did you learn that?" he said one day suddenly to Paul when the boy was practising on the lute, and played a strange soft cadence, of a kind that Mark had never heard. The boy was startled by the question, for he had not thought that ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... off her rampant pink bow, and the older girl deftly tied it among the raven locks of ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... petitioned Congress or the convention to disturb the tariff; nor had New York done so, although Mr. Greeley, then as now, was invoking, more or less frequently, the shade of Henry Clay to help re-establish what is deftly ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... the dead camel Guy and Melton poured in a hot fire that checked their impetuous advance instantly, and before they could rally for another charge, both had bolted into the gloomy hole, and the stone was deftly rolled ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... and the handle fell to the floor. Deftly the other removed a revolver from its place under the ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... pay. The practice of paying for oil needles, cotton and silk had been introduced, a practice most irritating with its paltry deduction from a girl's weekly wage. Next there was a system of fines for what was called "mussing" work. Every one of these so-called improvements in discipline was deftly utilized as an excuse for taking so much off ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... Miss Quincey, deftly improving a bad occasion, "if you don't understand arithmetic. Why, it's the science of numbers. Come now, ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... there are the covering, the runner "guard" which is of silk or leather, the "inside cap," the oftentimes fancy handle, which may be of ivory, bone, horn, walrus tusk, or even mother-of-pearl, or some kind of metal, and, if you will look sharply, you will find a rivet put in deftly here and there. ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... still struggled desperately. But his struggle was without success. For deftly Billy Magee drew from his pocket the precious package about which there had been so much debate on Baldpate Mountain. He clasped it close, rose and ran. In another second he was inside number seven, and had lighted a candle ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... must be at just the right temperature, which is 88 deg.F., or 31 deg. C. She takes one of the "centres," say a vanilla creme, on her fork and dips it beneath the chocolate. When she draws it out, the white creme is completely covered in brown chocolate and, without touching it with her finger, she deftly places it on a piece of smooth paper. A little twirl of the fork or drawing a prong across the chocolate will give the characteristic marking on the top of the chocolate creme. The chocolate rapidly sets to a crisp film enveloping ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... kill them. A young woman, whom I remembered as one of two who had danced for the kinematograph, had considerable charm of manner and personal attraction; it was a trifle disconcerting to find my belle a little later hunting the fauna of her lover's head. Her nimble fingers were deftly expert in the work and her beloved was visibly elated over ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... the baby deftly. "Oh, Mr. Williston, don't talk so—of course you're a gentleman!" she cried, "you couldn't help about the ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... spread the canvass to the gale, And love with us the tinkling team to drive 150 O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale; And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, Would hang, enraptur'd, on thy stately song, And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy All deftly mask'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. In a few minutes he had come about into her seat. He talked of sales of clothing, his travels, Chicago, and ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Note in England (DOWDESWELLS) have been deftly noted by a notable artist, namely, BIRKET FOSTER. From the "places of note," he has evolved some of the most delicate of harmonies. Whether he gives us a Canterbury cantata, a Richmond rondo, a Stratford symphony, a Lambeth lied, or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell—straight ahead, and turn to the left down the short ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... commonplace, had stolen upstairs to see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the teapot—almost too deftly—rejected the Orange Pekoe that the parlour-maid had provided, poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with really boiling water, and now called to the ladies to be quick or they ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... manner of the hammer-throwers of the Olympian games, an ordinary shield would prove more a weakness than a strength while one that would be strong enough to prove a protection would be too heavy to carry. Only another club, deftly wielded to deflect the course of an enemy missile, is in any way effective against these formidable weapons and, too, the war club of Pal-ul-don can be thrown with accuracy a far ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... entirely unpleasant. Having overcome an initial aversion, caused by its marked medicinal tang, she grew reconciled to it and finished her first smoke without experiencing any other effect than a sensation of placid contentment. Deftly, Mrs. Sin renewed the pipe. Silence had fallen ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Orton Beg will pardon me," said Edith, rolling her hair up deftly and neatly as she spoke, with the air of a privileged person ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... ran her eye over them deftly, as if they were the separate strings of an instrument which could afford gratification to her only when swept lightly all at one time by her tingling finger tips, or, more likely, by the intangible ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the listener moved. Deftly, swiftly, he unrolled the gaudy blanket, spread it thin upon the ground, covered it completely with his body. In lieu of a pillow his arms crossed under his head, and, leaning back, the hat brim still ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... play on his pipes. He can play with ye better nor I—he niver has aught else to do!" She smiled a wide, friendly smile on the old man as she said this, to show she meant no harm, and turned the slices of ham deftly so that they sent a puff of blue savory smoke up to her face. "Don't th' ham smell good, ye spalpeens, fresh from runnin' th' hills? Go an' wash ye'r faces an' hands and call ye'r father an' brothers. I've four," she added proudly to the man by the table ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... vigorously, but she was steadfast. So he went to the after cabin and brought out several blankets and a pillow, which she arranged deftly. ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... evaded McDevitt, deftly. Why tell that he had been caught smuggling whiskey, and after serving his sentence had ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... importunate train-oil breath; and now has advanced, till we stand both on the verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily down below. What argument will avail? On the thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, seraphic eloquence were lost. Prepared for such extremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside one step; draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a sufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say, "Be so obliging as retire, Friend (Er ziehe sich zurueck, Freund), and with promptitude!" This logic even the Hyperborean understands; fast enough, with ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... down at last. An old and very distinguished General took Miss Youghal for a ride, and began that specially offensive "you're-only-a-little-girl" sort of flirtation—most difficult for a woman to turn aside deftly, and most maddening to listen to. Miss Youghal was shaking with fear at the things he said in the hearing of her sais. Dulloo—Strickland—stood it as long as he could. Then he caught hold of the General's bridle, and, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... gilded and stained, in order to provide the favoured one with a bobbin unlike any other and quite distinctive in design. In the making of pillow lace, pins, cleverly placed so as to form the pattern, were inserted into the cushion, and the threads on a dozen or more bobbins deftly twisted in and out and tied round the pins. The glass beads, many of the older ones of odd shapes and colours, hand-made, made the first distinction, and their weight helped to keep the light turned wood bobbins in place. It was the bobbins which were ornamental, and some of the older ones—those ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... from the Post-Office) there is a modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine mouldings appear again in the first and second stories of a house lately restored. It might be thought that the shafts and arches had been raised yesterday, the modern walls having been deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance of antiquity, together with the ornamentation and proportions of the fabric, having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with unmixed sorrow of these changes, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... out on a rough mat-covered couch, turned towards her, and watched the slender, supple fingers—covered, in Polynesian fashion, with heavy gold rings—as they deftly drew out the snow-white strands of the pandanus. The long, glossy, black waves of hair that fell over her bare back and bosom like a mantle of night hid her face from his view, and the man let his glance rest in contented admiration upon the graceful curves of the youthful figure; ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... strode in carrying a log of wood as big as a man's body, which she deftly threw on the fire. As the flame blazed high she gave one look at the young officer sitting before it, and then walked out as silently and sturdily as she had entered. It was such a look as a Great Dane dog full of superiority and indifference might ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... deftly recovering his glasses, emptied the pockets. They yielded up nothing of the slightest consequence to either of us, and in a moment Dr. De Breen hesitated and frowned over the body's ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... and, bending over her untidy parent, deftly untied the knot in his flapping coat. When he was disentangled, she sat down and said, with a ghost of a smile, 'He ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... with the babies in her arms and at her knee, singing lullabies and leaving the fine music for her husband to sing by and by, was quite irresistible. Somehow, as I listened, I was troubled by no doubts lest she had not learned deftly to wipe ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... chatting; others begin to prepare their favourite smoke of hashish. A board is called for and the hashish-powder spread out upon it. The operator chops it into still finer particles by means of a semicircular blade, deftly blowing away the dust—this brings out its strength. He is in no hurry; it is a ceremony rather than a task. Slowly he separates the coarser from the finer grains, his fingers moving with loving deliberation over the smooth board. Then the cutting process is repeated once more, and yet again. Maybe ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the box, from which he took a device of spindles and cylinders, and placed it deftly within another small box which stood on the desk. Attached to this was one of the two-pronged ear-trumpets I already knew the use of. As I placed it in position, the clerk touched a spring in the box, which set some sort of motor going, and at once ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... about to refuse, but he checked his voice and hummed. Words of Selina's letter jumped in italics. He perceived Lady Ormont's hand. For one thing, would she be at Great Marlow alone? And he knew that hand—how deftly it moved and moved others. Selina Collett would not have invited him with underlinings merely to see a shoreside house and garden. Her silence regarding a particular name showed her to be under injunction, one might guess. At worst, it would be the loss of a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... watched every operation, but eagerly lent a hand where he could. Hammer, chisel, and plane were in turn used as deftly as if he had served an apprenticeship to the trade. He especially distinguished himself in planing the boards ready for the carpenter, who declared that James was equal to a trained workman. He did the work well and quickly, ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... my shoulder as a last warning, he wheeled deftly upon his heel, addressed Miss Elliott briefly, "Glad t' know YOU, lady," and striking into the by-path by which he had approached us, was ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... and bottle of preserving cream, and when I joined him where he was seated he had already stripped the skin off one of the birds, and was painting the inside cover with the softened paste; while a few minutes later he had turned the skin back over a pad of cotton-wool, so deftly that, as the feathers fell naturally into their places and he tied the legs together, it was hard to believe that there was nothing but plumage, the skin, ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... amazing to think that, but for the determination and self-confidence of quite a young author, a story that has gladdened and softened the hearts of thousands,—a story that has drawn welcome smiles and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its deftly-mingled humour and pathos,—a story that has been a boon to humanity—might have been sacrificed to the shallow ruling of a prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader, and ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... to show how he proposed to use this curious device. The Aleut, understanding perfectly what was required, again caught the thongs by their central ring and deftly began to whirl them about his head. Aiming at a post which stood up in the grass near the barabbara, he finally cast loose his whirling thongs, which promptly wrapped tightly around the post as they flew. The young brown hunter grinned ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... action, Tom tried to figure out some way to get to the radar deck unseen. Being assigned to the jet boat with Coxine, instead of Wallace, had been a lucky break and Tom wished for a little more of the same. Lining up with his boarding crew, he received his paralo-ray pistol and rifle from Gaillard, deftly stealing a second pistol while the gunnery ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... you enough to make out ten thousand to honor old Joe's draft," ruminated Mitchell, twirling the safe-knobs deftly. "You take it round and deposit it. On your way back jack Stevens up about those plows. Tell him if he don't get 'em round on time he loses one big customer—and that's me." Counting out the required amount, he stuffed the slight remainder in his pocket, slammed shut the safe, signed his letters ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... small pair of pliers from her saddle-pocket and deftly untwisted the strands of wire from one of the posts, while Freckles looked on with an expression of intelligent interest. When the gap was opened in the fence, he walked through and waited quietly on the other side until the wire had been replaced. It was not the first time he had done this trick, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... really an encyclopaedia of Hindu history, legend, mythology, and philosophy. Four-fifths of the poem consist of episodes, some of them very beautiful, as the tale of Nala and his wife Damayanti. These have no primary connection with the original, though they are worked in so deftly as to make the whole appear a splendid unity. For pathos, sublimity, and matchless language, no poem in the world exceeds ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... and Costigan explained in detail the changes which must be made in the Triplanetary field generators. All three set vigorously to work—the two officers deftly and surely; Clio uncertainly and with many questions, but with undaunted spirit. Finally, having done all they could do to strengthen their position, they settled down to the watchful routine of the flight, with every possible instrument set to ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... managed to acquire two million pounds sterling from the reluctant tax-payer, yet no monarch ever received such a universal consent when he desired to pass away. If any regret was felt anywhere, it was so deftly concealed that his death, to all appearance, gave ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... down, mother, and stoke the fire, I'll see to the rest," and for the next hour she flew around, doing one thing after another, and as deftly as a woman. She was so busy and so happy she forgot all about the beach and the busy scene there, the excitement, and ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... in his chair, lazily and deftly rolling a cigarette, which he lighted. Frank watched this piece of business, thinking of the best ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... of his flame-coloured hair; The lean athletic body, deftly planned To carry that swift ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... terrible feeling, Van Helsing held up a warning finger. "Do not stir," he said. "But I fear that with growing strength she may wake, and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia." He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... speech coincidentally with the drying of his hands. The impatient Cazi Moto snatched the towel deftly but respectfully and packed it away. Simba, who had listened with deference until his bwana should ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... to languor ere they made Their pretty toilet. Some had gathered flowers In fragrant wreaths, and others brought the grave Work of the morning. Yet because the wine— Sun of the South—gilds even toil, it seemed A poet's pastime. Scarlet beans they threaded Later to lie about some golden throat. Deftly they wove fine mats, and deftly twisted Bright witchery to adorn themselves, and snare Men's eyes. With little songs they pearled the air. Hush! it ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... feet in an instant. Mrs. Carleton running to a birch tree a few yards back from the beach, and breaking off a piece of bark, deftly bent it into a cup, which she handed to Miss Vyvyan to fill from the same pond that had supplied them with water the first day they were thrown upon the island. Refreshed by the draught the stranger ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... in the open at a camping site where a couch of boughs was piled for her under a deftly contrived shelter of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... subsidized for the evening, took his hat and coat away to some mysterious recess. Mrs. Martin led him into the parlor, lighted to a soft glow by deftly shaded electric bulbs. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... can never arrive too late to be welcome. Let us hope only that he will not object to being placed as it were 'below the salt,' instead of being seated with his peers at the more conspicuous board of the 'regulars.' He has deftly touched a fruitful theme, at which we have more than once hinted in this department ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes, 1881, was one of Miss Greenaway's favourites, although it may have been displaced in her own mind by subsequent successes. Nothing can certainly be more deftly-tinted than the design of the "old woman who lived under a hill," and peeled apples; nothing more seductive, in infantile attitude, than the little boy and girl, who, with their arms around each other, stand watching the black-cat in the plum-tree. Then there is Daffy-down-dilly, who has come up ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... suggested that perhaps he might write a similar department for The Ladies' Home Journal. Bok saw no reason why he should not, and told Mr. Curtis so, and promised to send over a trial installment. The Philadelphia publisher then deftly went on, explained editorial conditions in his magazine, and, recognizing the ethics of the occasion by not offering Bok another position while he was already occupying one, asked him if he knew the man for ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... low cool shed that smelt strongly of cut flowers, he took down a large open strawberry basket from a nail, and deftly arranged the leaves and fruit therein, with the finest ripened ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... a comfort, Christine," she declared one day when the girl handed her back a sock with a dropped stitch deftly picked up. "Your mother is a fortunate woman. I wish I ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... I should call a special example of Divine wrath," said Gentleman Bill, deftly dealing the cards for a new game. "What I meant to ask was, whether any one, yourself especially, had ever known one man to curse another man so as to bring ruin upon him, in spite of ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... fain, When they look on Sigurd and Gudrun, and the peace that enwrappeth the twain, For in her is all woe forgotten, sick longing little seen, And the shame that slayeth pity, and the self-scorn of a Queen; And all doubt in love is swallowed, and lovelier now is she Than a picture deftly painted by the craftsmen over sea; And her face is a rose of the morning by the night-tide framed about, And the long-stored love of her bosom from her eyes is leaping out. But how fair is Sigurd the King that beside her beauty goes! How lovely is ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... only infant's earliest governess! She taught the child to read, and taught so well, That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell. An adept next in penmanship she grows, As many a nameless slander deftly shows: What she had made the pupil of her art, None know; but that high soul secured the heart, And panted for the truth it could not hear, With longing breast and undeluded ear. Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, Which flattery fooled not, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which made demands upon all their resources and knowledge. In that conference he gave especial attention to the snub-souled financier who had sneered at his love of Nature. He tied his critic up in knots of self-assertion and bad logic which presently he deftly, deliberately and skilfully untied, to the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... citizens but it was too many on one to amount to anything as a fight, and so they commanded the peace and the foreign dog coiled his tail and took sanctuary under the wagon. Slatternly negro girls and women slouched along with pails deftly balanced on their heads, and joined the group and stared. Little half dressed white boys, and little negro boys with nothing whatever on but tow-linen shirts with a fine southern exposure, came from various directions and stood with their hands locked ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... 'One, two, three', and we all saluted very well—except H. O., who chose that minute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left lying about, and was only saved from falling by a man in a cocked hat who caught him deftly by the back of his jacket and stood him on ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... all open, and at the height of the floor, about two feet from the ground, there is a broad ledge of polished wood on which you sit down. A woman everlastingly boiling water on a bronze hibachi, or brazier, shifting the embers about deftly with brass tongs like chopsticks, and with a baby looking calmly over her shoulders, is the shopwoman; but she remains indifferent till she imagines that you have a definite purpose of buying, when she comes forward bowing to the ground, and I politely rise and bow too. Then I ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... so deftly and methodically, did they go about making a temporary camp, that Joy, watching with jealous eyes, admitted to herself that the old-timers could not do it better. Spruce boughs, with a spread blanket on top, gave a foundation for rest and cooking operations. But they kept away ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... deftly ripped a few stitches, leaving an opening of a couple of inches in one of the seams of the lining. Through this opening he carefully pulled the whole of both materials, thus reversing the whole thing. When it had all come through, he pulled and patted it smooth, and, behold! the bag was all as ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... but preoccupied. She fetched the egg for Rachel, and Rachel, having deposited it in a cooking-spoon, held it over the small black saucepan of incontestably boiling water until the hand of the clock precisely covered a minute mark, whereupon she deftly slipped the egg into the saucepan; the water ceased to boil for a few seconds and then bubbled up again. And amid the heavenly frizzling of bacon and the odour of her own special coffee Rachel stood sternly watching the clock while Mrs. Tams rattled plates and did ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... myself or utter a word, the pair dashed towards me, seized my hands deftly and secured them behind ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... arranging the fruit on his stall in front of his little shop on Clark Street. It was a clear, breezy morning, cool for October, but not cold enough to endanger the fruit that Achilles handled so deftly in his dark, slender fingers. As he built the oranges into their yellow pyramid and grouped about them figs and dates, melons and pears, and grapes and pineapples, a look of content held his face. This was the happiest moment ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... young nobles, in silken hose and velvet mantles, were met with ecstatic approval and sallies deftly personal. Since the beginning of the Council of Trent, which was still sitting, philosophy had become the mode in Venice, and had grown to be a topic of absorbing interest by no means confined to Churchmen; and young men of fashion took ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... indeed busily engaged in pencilling something on a blank sheet of paper; and, having finished, she folded it deftly into a cocked-hat, wrote a few words on the outside, and placed it between the leaves of ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... I caught him by the throat, with the other by the girdle, and flung him clean across the table into the corner, oversetting the lantern, but not extinguishing the light, for the Commandant caught it up deftly. As he set it back on the table I heard him grunt, and—it seemed to ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... which was so deftly managed by Nitocris, did not at first appear entirely satisfactory to them, yet a very few minutes' conversation sufficed to convince them of the wisdom of the arrangement. Brenda, with all the delicate tact which makes every highly-trained woman ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... whistled gayly as he walked. Oddly enough, just as he reached the sleeping Gringo, the outflung arm lifted abruptly from the ground for an inch or two. A little package shot four feet up into the air and was caught deftly by the barefoot ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the shilling, and the bird had perhaps expected me to do so, as he deftly caught it just as a dog catches a biscuit when you toss one to him. After keeping it a few moments in his beak, he put it down at his side. I took out four more shilling pieces and tossed them quickly one by one, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... life, without any idea of making any position for herself at all; and it sickened Howard to think how so much of his own existence had been devoted to getting on the right side of people, driving them on a light rein, keeping them deftly in his own control. Maud laughed at this description of himself, and said, "Yes, but of course that was your business. I should have been a very tiresome kind of Don; we don't either of us want to punish people, but I want ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of a broad chink in the folding doors that was making the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She shut them deftly. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... and all that slope is covered with hundreds and thousands of forms like shattered haka. But as the eyes grow accustomed to the gloaming it becomes manifest that these were never haka; they are only little towers of stone and pebbles deftly piled up by ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... other man was unusually quick for a big man. He handled his big sword deftly. After much sparring he was too quick for Almo, and the point of his slender blade scratched Almo's splay vizor, nicked his chin, and tore a long shallow slash in the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... so deftly that Lyster looked at her in surprise, even irritation. What business had she touching the bits of pasteboard like that—like some old gambler. Such a slight slip of a thing, with all the beauty of early youth in her face, and all the guilelessness of a vestal in the pure white of her garb. He ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... taking three lumps of clay, working deftly and silently, presently produced to his delighted sight rough but excellent portraits of these admirable men, who, when they woke up, laughed ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... and lofty bound, Through dew and exhalation; Ye trip it deftly on the ground, But gain ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the Epistles. At the close came a baptismal service, when 100 Maoris were received into the fold of Christ's Church; and afterwards a celebration of the Holy Communion, when more than that number participated. The service was followed by a feast, at which whole pigs were deftly carved and carefully apportioned, with their share of corn and kumeras, to each tribe: "In a few moments the whole vanished as if by magic. All was animation and cheerfulness, and even those who had come four and five days' distance ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas |
