"Odds" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... withered sticks of which could still be seen in some broken red flower-pots upon a shelf out of my reach. How these people came to have charge of me I shall never know, but I have sometimes believed, from odds and ends of conversation they let drop when they were quarrelling, which they were always doing, that my real father and mother had died when I was a ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... heavily against odds, doing all she knew. And yet, in the searching light of summer, it was plain, as Ransome pointed out, that Granville was undergoing ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... door closed behind us, and we stood in a little room which looked as if a small boy of twelve had knocked it together out of old scraps and odds and ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... foresail shivering, her wake would be as straight as her mast; only, he was a rare fellow for carrying on, was old Captain Goss! We would be staggering under a whole main-sail, when the other smacks had three reefs in theirs; and it was odds but we had one line of reef-points triced up, when our neighbours would be going at it under storm-trysail and storm-jib. He worked the Lively Nan hard, he did, did Captain Goss. Sweet, and wholesome, and easy as she ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... fruit that, instead of settling the Italian revolution in 698, he postponed it to 706. But as a statesman as well as a general Caesar was a peculiarly daring player, who, confiding in himself and despising his opponents, gave them always great and sometimes extravagant odds. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of all the things he had tried to do within the last two years, and how he had done none of them. People had not liked him, and he had not suspected why, and had not cared. People liked his elder brothers, and he was glad and proud of it; and a jumble of odds and ends and fragments became tangled and snarled in his mind. What would people say of his return? Did he care? He asked nobody's leave to go, and came back on his own account. But his mother—she would look sad; but she would be glad. It certainly was a ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... came it was not to advance, but to retreat. Falling back, they found themselves near their camping-place. Valley Forge had not quenched the faith of Jabez Rockwell in General Washington's power to conquer any odds, but now he felt such dismay as brought hot tears to his eyes. On both sides of his regiment American troops were streaming to the rear, their columns broken and straggling. It seemed as if the whole army was fleeing from the veterans of Clinton ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... case, he already had too fine a sense of humour to have persevered in his original plan after reading that masterpiece of drollery. It is worthy of note that the voluminous writings of his childhood, dashed off at headlong speed in the odds and ends of leisure from school-study and nursery routine, are not only perfectly correct in spelling and grammar, but display the same lucidity of meaning, and scrupulous accuracy in punctuation and the other minor details of the literary art, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... "What's the odds so long as you're happy?" called the girl on the chiffonier. "Besides, it's no better next door. They'll invite you to make yourself at home under the bed, as they did me. Come on back and tell us your summer's experiences. Min has had one dizzy whirl of adventures ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... kerchief was covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last died in that house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers: there were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing—nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... a truth only too patent that taste and conscience are sometimes at odds. One man wears his faults so gracefully that we can hardly help falling in love with them, while another, alas, makes even virtue itself repulsive. I am moved to this commonplace reflection by thinking of the blue jay, a bird of doubtful character, but one for whom, nevertheless, it is impossible ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... however, only four of the enemy turned their attention to the two friends, the others being too busy preparing to attack the English main body to think about them. Yet, even as it was, the odds were quite unequal enough—four stalwart men in the very prime of life, and hardened by years of toil and activity on the seas, against two youngsters who were but little more ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... then went out of the room. He ate a lonely meal, not of the lobster—he kept that for another occasion—but one made up of cold scraps from the pantry. He wandered uneasily about the premises, quieted Job's wails for the time by a gift of eatable odds and ends tossed into the boathouse, smoked, tried to read, and, when it grew dusk, lit the lamps in the towers. At last he walked to the closed door of ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... difficulties. A small native force of about forty men accompanied them, making, with our own, between eighty and ninety people. The forts having been destroyed, no further obstacles were expected to our advance beyond the felling of trees and the vast odds as to numbers in case of attack, the pirates being reckoned to be about six thousand Dyaks ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... the two specimens of which she had providentially become possessed in her lap, and they looked very pretty against the navy-blue of her skirt. Diva was very ingenious: she used up all sorts of odds and ends in a way that did credit to her undoubtedly parsimonious qualities. She could trim a hat with a tooth-brush and a banana in such a way that it looked quite Parisian till you firmly analysed its component ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... his men, who were all Piedmontese, and of very different temperament from the Neapolitans. On one occasion a band of 250 brigands waited for us on the top of a small hill, never dreaming that we should charge up it with the odds five to one against us—but we did; and after firing a volley at us, which emptied a couple of saddles, they broke and fled when we were about twenty yards from them. Then began one of the most exciting scurries across country it was ever my fortune to be ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... there is nothing here belonging to Mrs. Eustace beyond her clothing, and some few odds ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... Vicomte," he murmured, applying the tobacco to his nostril as he spoke. "It's odds you won't be able to repeat that pretty story to any more of your friends. I warned you that you inclined to relate it ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... meaning anything personal," Bobby responded amicably. "We know that Thayer's voice is beyond all odds the best we have heard for a three years. How do you do it, Thayer? You look as calm as a Dutch dolly; but you manage to tear us all to bits. Even I felt sanctified at your recital, and Miss Van Osdel's lashes were ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... (for his wife had been set free years before, and lived in Philadelphia). His room over "the old kitchen" was the boys' play-room when he would permit them to come in. There were so many odds and ends in it that it was ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... gained applause; If they exceed our count in arms and men, It is not just to think that odds, because One lover equals ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and leave a picket wherever they see the resemblance of path or trail leading out. If it were to come on moonlight—as luckily it won't—we'd had but a poor chance to get past them without being seen. And that would signify a fight against awkward odds—numbers, arms, everything. We must steal past somehow, and so the darkness will be ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... It's suffocating in here. Come." She rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... beyond comparison more rigorous and prejudicial to commerce; and the same effect would result to the inhabitants—as it appears, inevitably. For, not being able to suffer the lesser burden, they could ill endure the greater; and the damage would exceed the benefit by many odds, since in the two or three years that it would take to obtain the decision, even though it were as favorable as that regarding the two per cent, either it would have cost your Majesty the loss of the Filipinas, or you would have spent in their conservation ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... in the West, and they mean to spring him on the London talent. Sir Lothian Hume is his patron, and to make a long story short, he lays me odds that I won't find a young one of his weight to meet him. I told him that I had not heard of any good young ones, but that I had an old one who had not put his foot into a ring for many years, who would make his man wish he ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he han't no proof, goes right into it and kills three o' my prime fat niggers: that makes us bad friends on every score. But he got a nigger ahead o' me a'ter awhile, and I ware detarmined to straighten accounts, if it was by stealin' the odds. Them ar's my principles, and that's just the way I settles accounts with folks what don't do the square thing in the way ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... something. It raises the value of the operation, and demonstrates its usefulness and necessity; for if there is little difference apparent between the house before cleaning and after, there is a world of odds between a house-cleaning and a house cleaned. There is a perfect delight in seeing what order can be brought out of chaos, even though you are obliged to make the chaos first, ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... of all the ages prior to the advent of this Pytheas all written record is silent. Hence we have to play the part of scientific detectives, examine the footprints of the early man who inhabited our island, hunt for odds and ends which he has left behind, to rake over his kitchen middens, pick up his old tools, and even open his ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... major, aged thirty-four. For a long time he had hated the very thought of the child—his child, in giving birth to whom the woman he loved had died. Then came a curious change of feeling; and for three years before his return to England, he had been in the habit of sending home odds and ends picked up in the bazaars, to serve as toys. In return, he had received, twice annually at least, a letter from the man who thought himself Gyp's father. These letters he read and answered. The squire was likable, and had been ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they had driven their foe to the wall at last, prudently halted, as they were in no hurry to engage such a terrible being in a hand-to-hand contest, overwhelming as were their own odds. The Huron wisely held his fire, believing he could keep his enemies at bay much better by such means than by discharging it. The great point with him was to defer the attack until the arrival of assistance, and he had strong hopes that he ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... English company, can hardly be overestimated. Nor, although the victory was so easily won, was it less remarkable than Clive's other military achievements for the strategy which he displayed or for the unfailing nerve and coolness with which he encountered the enormous odds against him. Clive had not anticipated that the Nawab would be able to array against him so large a force. When day broke on that June morning, and revealed to his astonished gaze the 50,000 horse and foot and the large artillery ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... yet—about the senator and his politics, I mean. Why, Great Snipes, man! he isn't in it a little bit for the social frills and furbelows; he never was. Let me intimate a few things: Politically speaking, David Blount is by long odds the biggest man in his State to-day. He can have anything he wants, from the head of the ticket down. You spoke rather contemptuously just now of his two months in the Senate; you probably didn't know that he might have gone back if he had wanted ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... I was an inquisitive Bluebird. Then he told me his parents left him enough money to live without working. He never did a solid hour's real work in his whole life. With his talent and his personal attractions he might become a famous musician if he had some odds to fight against or some person to encourage him and make him do his best. He said he knows he never developed his talent to the full extent but that since he knows me he is playing better than he did before. I wonder if I really am an inspiration to him. I suppose a genius ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... Valrenne has been represented as a French victory against overwhelming odds, it may be well to observe the evidence as to the numbers engaged. The French party consisted, according to Benac, of 160 regulars and Canadians, besides Indians. La Potherie places it at 180 men, and Frontenac at 200 men. These two estimates ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... views. The rooms are sweet with flowers in winter, and the gardens are fragrant in summer. One can lounge and read all day, or take a walk, or do a dozen other things. The cheerful, interesting conversation at table, and in the odds and ends of time through the day, would be sufficient stimulus to all but the most exacting guests; while, as a matter of fact, there are always a few hours in the evening when everybody seems to be at leisure, and these form the social centre of the day. For my part I would ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... off the scalp of the fourth school-master before the evening was over. He spelled eagerly, confidently, brilliantly. Stoop-shouldered as he was, he began to straighten up. In the minds of all the company the odds were in his favor. He saw this, and became ambitious to distinguish himself by spelling without giving the ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... stranger, "because this is one of the few games of patience that has been reduced to a scientific gambling basis. The odds, allowing for the usual advantage to the banker, have been determined at five to one. Say I'm the banker. I sell you the pack for fifty-two pennies, and I pay you five pennies for every card you get out. Five to one. ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... whom, And from whom I was form'd, flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my Guide And Head, what thou hast said is just and right. For we to him indeed all praises owe. And daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy So far the happier Lot, enjoying thee Preeminent by so much odds, while thou Like consort to thy self ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... steel; but to be at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to defend himself—it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at best he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds all against him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort of defense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary—then he could face death with a smile. It was not death that he feared now—it was that horror of the unknown that is part ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... public—and behind the scenes all the private vice you could afford. Theoretically no-limit games, but that was true only up to a certain point. When the house was really hurt the honest games stopped being square and the big winner had to watch his step very carefully. These were the odds Jason dinAlt had played against countless times before. He was ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... one morning, found the Happy-go-Lucky at anchor, not far from Saint Michael's Mount. On seeing the royal cruisers, the outlaws cut their cables, and making sail, stood out to sea. Undaunted by the vastly superior odds against them, the daring smugglers stood to their guns, and fought with a bravery worthy of a better cause. For a whole hour—entertaining to the last the hope of escape—they maintained the unequal contest. They knew, indeed, that if ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'er bit, which we all must do (Let 'er go—let 'er go), An' whether she's old or whether she's new Don't make much odds to a war-time crew, But 'ooever's sunk or 'ooever's drowned, The Sound o' Mull keeps pluggin' around. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... whatever that, with all their faults, the beggars can fight. It will be a tough affair, but I believe we shall have some British troops here to help, before the final advance. We can depend now on both the Soudanese and the Egyptians to fight hard, but there are not enough of them. The odds would be too heavy, and the Sirdar is not a man to risk failure. But with a couple of brigades of British infantry, there can be no doubt what the result will be; and I fancy that, if we beat them in one big fight, it will ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... had Pablo known another man like this one. Had he not broken the spirit of that outlaw devil Teddy in ten minutes? Who else could shoot the heads off chickens at a distance as he had done? Was there another in New Mexico that could, though taken at advantage, put up so fierce a fight against big odds? The young Mexican hated him because of Juanita and his opposition to Miss Valdes. But the untamed and gallant spirit of the young man went out in spite of himself in homage to the splendid courage and efficiency of ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... in my own Eye, and not deformed in that of the World, to a Celebrated Beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent Passion for her, or you have not the proper Taste of her Charms; and if you have such a Passion for her, it is odds but it [would [1]] be imbittered with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a door leading into the hall, a large and lofty apartment, with a fine old staircase ascending to a square gallery. The heavy oak balusters had been painted white, so had the panelling in the hall. Time had converted both to a dusky gray. Some rusty odds and ends of armour, and a few dingy family portraits decorated the walls; but of furniture there was not ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... veins. He could not look without a quiver upon the great mass of men bearing down upon them, but the strains of fife and drum put courage in him and told him to stand fast. He saw the face of Colonel Talbot grow darker and darker, and he had enough experience himself to know that the odds ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... conveyed to others. The jerks, the breaks, the inequalities, and harshnesses of prose are fatal to the flow of a poetical imagination, as a jolting road or a stumbling horse disturbs the reverie of an absent man. But poetry makes these odds all even. It is the music of language, answering to the music of the mind, untying as it were "the secret soul of harmony." Wherever any object takes such a hold of the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Mr. Stillinghast, "is a mystery. She is either a profound hypocrite, or an honest Christian. This scene, however, has fixed my resolves. That Helen may be a fool, but she's not much of a papist. Odds, it will hardly require the temptation of a handsome husband, and a splendid settlement, to make her forswear her creed. I will see Jerrold this very day." When he arrived at his counting-house, he went directly to his desk, and penned a note, which ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... these facts are considered, it may cease to be a matter of so much amazement abroad how it happened that our noble Army in Mexico, regulars and volunteers, were victorious upon every battlefield, however fearful the odds ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... great force. So indeed it befel, and upon the plain in front of the Spaniards appeared a mighty host, varyingly estimated between thirty and a hundred thousand warriors. The Spaniards with their allies numbered—fearful odds!—about three thousand. "The God of the Christians will bear us through," said the brave and beautiful Marina. A frightful battle now ensued, the issue of which hung in the scale for hours. Charging, volleying, borne this way and that by the flood of the enemy's ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... the paper, in order to see if anything further was to be read on the reverse side; but, finding nothing there, he refolded the document, placed it in the box which served him as a receptacle for odds and ends, and brought the day to a close with a portion of cold veal, a bottle of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... boldness for you on both sides! All the town was laughing and betting on the event of the night in June: and the odds were in favour of Kirby; for though, Lord Cressett was quite the popular young English nobleman, being a capital whip and free of his coin, in those days men who had smelt powder were often prized above titles, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dragoons, crack regiments, full of the best horsemen in Italy, who had been waiting, waiting, all the war through, for their chance to come. Their chance had come at last, the chance to die, charging against overwhelming odds, in order that Italy, or at least the glory of her name, might live for ever. One commanding officer called all his officers around him and said, "The common people of Italy have betrayed our country's honour, and now we, the gentlemen of ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... But soon it became evident that Scaife had lost, not only his temper, but his head. He rushed here and there with so little judgment that the odds amongst the sporting fellows went to six to four against the Manor. At the beginning of the game they were six to four the other way. And, inevitably, Scaife's wild and furious efforts unbalanced Desmond's play. Both boys ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... starting from the school in the Park, round the Fifteen Acres, outside the Monument, and back to the start—just one heat, about a mile and a half—the ground good, and only soft enough. In consideration, however, of his greater weight, I was to give odds in the start; and as we could not well agree on how much, it was at length decided that he was to get away first, and I to follow as fast as I could, after drinking a pewter quart full of Guinness's double stout—droll odds, you'll say, but it was the old fellow's own ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... of Peggy's outspoken warnings nor any of St. George's silent acceptances of the several situations—always a mark of his disapproval—checked the game of love-making which was going on—the give-and-take stage of it, with the odds varying with each new shifting of the cards, both Peggy and St. George ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and I should think, as soon as they hear in London that the Dutch are on the point of putting out, and Albemarle has sailed, they will send him orders to join us at once. We have only about sixty sail, while they say that the Dutch have over ninety, which is too heavy odds against ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... performed this gallant action to be sent him, that he might do them honour and reward them as they deserved; and he bestowed large presents upon Pacheco in particular. Some affirm that the performance of this gallant feat by so small a number of our men against such great odds, raised fear and jealousy of the Portuguese in the mind of the zamorin, and made him anxious to get them away from his country; for which cause he gave his consent to the treachery which was used against them, as I mean to shew ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... was in the act of tightening his harness, declined to say much, merely expressing the opinion that everyone has got to die some time and that there was, after all, some satisfaction in being killed in a fight against odds. I confess I was favourably impressed by the very nonchalance of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... had dared to hope. The boat was a large one, probably their launch, and pulled ten oars; and there were three men in the bows working the gun, and the coxswain aft steering, making altogether fourteen hands—very heavy odds. ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... I left I looked over to where on the floor there had so recently occurred such agony. They had placed a rug there and on the rug a table, and on that table there was a book. Guess what book. 'Women's Stockings,' by Willy! And—and then—Your health, Matrena Petrovna. What's the odds!" ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds—the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes. I have carried a dinner-pail and worked for day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There ...
— A Message to Garcia - Being a Preachment • Elbert Hubbard
... by the events of the past month,—if I were to follow my own tastes, I say, I would go boldly to the prison where this pestiferous pirate captain lies, put double irons on him, and place a strong guard round the building. In this case I would be ready to defend it against any odds, and would have the satisfaction of standing up for the rights of the settlement like a man, and of hurling defiance at the entire British navy, at least such portions of it as happens to be on the island at this time, if they were to attempt a rescue—as ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... gathered that the body must have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why? Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, the broken table, the mud on the floor, and the hearth brush, the odds seemed heavy on entry by the window. I also found that the middle blind had been out of order that night and that it might have been quite possible for any one outside to have seen Sir Reginald sitting ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... wasn't a fair fight? Now don't begin telling me all about it. I dare say you were very heroic, and stood up against terrible odds. But you've a very black eye and a very sore cheek now, so you had better get to bed as fast ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... never failed Bruce when this dearest brother wanted her company; she was, as Mrs. Paget told her over and over, "the sweetest daughter any woman ever had." But deep in her heart she knew moods of bitter distaste and restlessness. The struggle did not seem worth the making; the odds against ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... little volume gives a most vivid and delightful picture of Poland as it was before the war, with its spacious steppes and wonderful forests, and it tells of the nation's struggle for freedom against overwhelming odds. The book deals largely with the manners and customs of the people in modern times, which the writer makes extremely interesting; but it tells also the main events in the history of the unfortunate kingdom ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... on Germany on August 4th, 1914, and almost immediately the combatant strength of its Regular Army was on service and the great bulk of that gallant force engaged in those fierce actions against odds which ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... "ther's lies I hate, an' ther's lies that don't make no odds. You've lied in a way I hate. You've lied 'cos you had to lie, knowin' you was doin' wrong. If you hadn't know'd you was doin' wrong you wouldn't have needed to lie—sure. Say, you're not only handin' over that kiddie to her mother, you're ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... nothingness before that wan, muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to be a dainty, cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked and lumbered with a litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her nominal authority, would not have dared or cared to displace; over them seemed to be spun the protection of something that was like a human cobweb. Decidedly Martha was in the way. It would have been an unworthy meanness to have wished to see the span ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... days of death, who is to know so much as where to carry one's questions? Watchmen and constables have died and changed a score of times in the past two months. The magistrates do their best to keep order in the city, but who can fight against the odds of such a time as this? The very men employed as watchmen may be the thieves themselves. They have to take the services of almost any who offer. It is no time to pick and choose. I carried my story ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... seen her, I do not wonder at Rochester's extravagant passion," rejoined the monarch. "But, odds fish! she seems ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... count the odds, ye shall not weigh the danger, When life is to be saved from storm, from fire, from thirst. Ye shall not leave your foe adrift and helpless; And when the boats go overside, 't ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Liberal Party held Chesterton's ideal—an England territorially small, spiritually great. The Speaker was struggling against odds: it was the voice of a tiny group. To Gilbert it seemed that this mattered nothing so long as that little group held to their great ideas, so long as the paper represented not merely a group or a party but the Liberal Idea. In an unfinished letter to Hammond ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... busy with these reflections as we drove through the streets of the city towards the Hartmann's residence, and I alighted at their door with my eyes full of unshed tears. How strangely at odds we can be with the circumstances of our ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... being-remembered is to the attainment of the ultimate end."—Campbell cor. "If the parts in the composition of similar objects were always in equal quantity, their being-compounded (or their compounding) would make no odds."—Id. "Circumstances, not of such importance as that the scope of the relation is affected by their being-known"—or, "by the mention of them."—Id. "A passive verb expresses the receiving of an action, or represents its subject as being acted upon; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... manuscript from a literary point of view the poor General did not exaggerate. Anything more hopeless as a continuous narrative I have never read. But it supplied facts, hit off odds and ends of character, and—what the autobiography seldom does—it gave the ipsissima verba of conversations written in helter-skelter fashion with flowing pen, sometimes in excellent French, sometimes in English, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... of our married life appear before me. Those years when periods of worry alternated with others of freedom from care. The years of my early struggle against heavy odds, to gain success. The years of "Love's young dream" how sweet that side of my life seemed then, and how far sweeter, deeper, stronger seems now the love of our later years through the triumphs and trials ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... help if I could, but advised going slowly, and seeing what they could do first. We did not dare to treat them like beggars, and send them money and clothes, and tea and sugar, as we do the Irish, for they were evidently respectable people, and proud as poor. So I took my bundle of odds and ends, and Mamma added some nice large pieces of dresses we had done with, and gave a fine order for aprons and holders and balls for our ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... relief to be given to the importunate friar; but the eager glance of the intrusive applicant so disquieted him—agitated, doubtless, from the idea of his small force being about to engage at such desperate odds—that he presently caused the attendants to look for the friar, but he was nowhere to be found. This caused him to array one Gib Harper in his armour, and appoint Lord Alan Stewart general of the field. The fight commenced with a rapid charge on the Scots by the Anglo-Irish under ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Gloria. Receiving no answer he guessed she was asleep and so went into the pantry for one of the little sandwiches that were always prepared for them. He found Tana seated at the kitchen table before a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends—cigar-boxes, knives, pencils, the tops of cans, and some scraps of paper covered with elaborate figures ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... I am capable of doing," said Thorndyke; "that I can promise you. The long odds against us are themselves a spur to endeavour, as far as I am concerned. And now, let me ask you, have you any cuts ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... a portion of the enormous rectory. There was a whole floor upstairs, and there were several rooms on the ground and first floors, that were never used, were unfurnished except for odds and ends of lumber left behind by the previous vicar, and were never entered. Rosalie once explored them all, systematically though very fearfully, and also very excitedly. She was searching for some one, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... of three men. As they came on the scene, the dog was torn down and hurled aside, giving a howl of agony, which infuriated his master. Letting fly his crossbow bolt full at the fellow's face, he dashed on, reckless of odds, waving his knotted stick, and shouting with rage. Ambrose, though more aware of the madness of such an assault, still hurried to his support, and was amazed as well as relieved to find the charge effectual. Without waiting to return ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... laborer, were humble enough to work under him as journeymen. When he was down they were ready to kick him down. When he was up they were ready to receive his helping hand. Mr. Thomas soon reached that "tide in his affairs which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." Against the odds which were against him his pluck and perseverance prevailed, and he was enabled not only to build up a good business for himself, but also to help others, and to teach them by his own experience not to be too easily discouraged, but ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... they say, "therefore we believe He is." Others do not go even so far as this; they know of Him only by hearsay. They have never bothered to think the matter out for themselves, but have heard about Him from others, and have put belief in Him into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends that make up their total creed. To many others God is but an ideal, another name for goodness, or beauty, or truth; or He is law, or life, or the creative impulse back of ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... armadillos abound near these rocky knolls, and are said to feed on ants and other insects. We had a long chase after one, which we observed some distance from the rock, over the cracked and dried-up plain: though it could not run very fast, it doubled quickly, and the rough cracked ground made odds in its favour; but it was ultimately secured. Pigeons, brown coloured, of various sizes, from that of a thrush to that of a common dove, were numerous and very tame. One of the smallest species alights and seeks about in the streets of small towns for seeds, like a sparrow, and more boldly ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... the corps of the army under Marshal Beresford, near Badajos, as we would rather see his long nose in the fight than a reinforcement of ten thousand men any day. Indeed, there was a charm not only about himself but all connected with him, for which no odds could compensate. The known abilities of Sir George Murray, the gallant bearing of the lamented Pakenham, of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, of the present Duke of Richmond, Sir Colin Campbell, with others, the flower of our young nobility and gentry, who, under the auspices of such a chief, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... you. If you wait until you get into years before you find right principles, and form good resolutions—well, even then it is better to make some start in the right direction. But why pile up the odds, that start you never will; or that you will not go far if you do? The enthusiasms of old men are as rare as they are short-lived, unless they are evolved out of earlier and ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... powerful Vasa and Oxenstjerna families, striving to put Christiern I. of Denmark on the throne. On the other side was Sten Sture, the Tott, Gyllenstjerna, Bonde, Bjelke, and Natt och Dag families, supported by the burgher element in Stockholm and the peasantry of Dalarne. With such odds on their side the issue could not long be doubtful. At a general diet held in 1471, Sten Sture was chosen regent of the kingdom. It is impossible to overrate the significance of this event. This was the first time that the burgher element played an important ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... God, in Whom he has placed his trust through all his upright life, with a fervor which has often brought him ridicule. Also, he still believes in England, and hopes through her efforts to be able to keep the peace. He waits another day. A start of seven days for Russia! The odds against Germany have grown tremendously. At last he orders mobilization. For a longer delay he would not have been able to answer to his country. As it is, there are many people who blame him severely ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Sabatier entered more carefully than he was wont to do, his hand upon a pistol thrust into his tri-color sash. It was evident he feared attack. His greeting was friendly, however; he showed a keen interest in the prisoner, and gave him odds and ends of news which were of ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... slowly and surely, preparing her for the dark experience to come. She knew that there was fitter work for her somewhere, but how to find it was a problem which wiser women have often failed to solve. She was no pauper, yet was one of those whom poverty sets at odds with the world, for favors burden and dependence makes the bread bitter unless love brightens the one and ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... it was all hers, bought and paid for, and she still had money for all her needs and to do those things she wanted to do. She turned away and looked back into the little parlor with its simple furnishings, its mannish odds and ends upon the wall. She heard the sounds of the old housekeeper busy in her heavy, blundering way with the domestic work of her home. She had so many plans for the future, and every one in its inception ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... toward my lady, so I cried out, as one beside herself, and without the advice of any one, that I would present in my own defence one knight who should fight against three. The fellow was not courteous enough to scorn to accept such odds, nor was I at liberty to retreat or withdraw for anything that might happen. So he took me at my word, and I was compelled to furnish bail that I would present within forty days a knight to do battle against three knights. Since then I have visited many courts; I was at King Arthur's ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... off the boathook, but some half-dozen armed men had already leaped into the frail vessel, crowding it to such an extent that a struggle, even had it not been madness against such odds, would have occasioned great personal danger to Oriana. Both Arthur and Harold seemed instinctively to comprehend this, and therefore offered no opposition. Their boat was taken in tow, and in a few moments the entire party, with one exception, were landed upon the adjacent bank. That exception ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... summons of her alarm clock Patty rose early in the morning, for there was much to do by way of final preparation. Before breakfast she had attended to many left-over odds and ends, and when she appeared at the table she said only an absent-minded "good-morning," and then knit her brows as if in deep and ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... made him careless. Having so often overcome the royal troops against great odds, he began to think himself invincible, and to despise his enemy. His success at Martinargues had the effect of greatly increasing his troops; and he made a descent upon the low country in the spring of 1704, at the head of about a thousand foot ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... blushing. "I will wear my great coat. But all the same, it is very unpleasant." And as he saw Rodolphe had already seized on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, "Stop a bit. There are some odds and ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... anything. He never remained longer at any one school than a year, and he learned at school very little that he needed most to know. In the course of his desultory schooling he picked up some Latin, a little Greek, a good deal of French, and an inconceivable medley of odds and ends of knowledge, which his wonderful memory enabled him to use sometimes ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... carries four or five times as many men as this ship. They are well armed, while we have only those two little guns, which are useless except for show. If the crew were Englishmen, we might attempt a defence, although even then the odds would be terribly against us; but with these natives, it is hopeless to think of it, and the attempt would only ensure ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... the elders—and the elders did not dance in the young Ohio in those days, rarely or never—gathered into various groups, discussing the dancers and various kindred topics, and the little odds and ends of graceful "they says" that append themselves to the persons ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... therefore I shall not Insist on this, but rather Countenance my Conjecture by this, that he found it so Difficult, not only, to Discriminate Red and Blew, (though the first of our promiscuous Experiments will inform you, that the Red reflects by great Odds more Light than the other) but also to distinguish Black and White from one another, though not from other Colours. And indeed, though in the Ribbonds that were offer'd him, they might be almost equally Rough, yet in such slender Corpuscles as those of Colour, there ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... onward progress, from that time until this, free from all the supposed evils of slavery. If infidelity and slavery be antagonistic elements, almost, if not altogether, too strong for moral control in a community, it certainly ought not to seem strange, that with this original odds against them, these five old slave States should be found very far behind their more highly favoured ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... occasions, generally had an ear or two of corn in his pocket; and Ned, whose nose had been many a time in that capacious receptacle of odds and ends, after sweeping around his master two or three times, would stop short and come sideling up, half coquetishly, yet with a knowing twinkle in his eye, and commence a search for the little tidbit that he had ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... bunch of your old pals inside. They'll be tickled to death to find I've dug you out of your hole. Hello! Is that this morning's paper? Let me look at the sporting page. Great team at New Haven, they tell me. What's the latest odds? I put up a thousand at five to three last week and am looking ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... whites already had assumed a domineering manner, and his final resolution was both natural and patriotic. King Philip was a man of reason, and it is said he had no hope of success when he began the war. It was a war against such odds that it must have but one termination, and he had little if any faith in a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... as an insult to his manhood. If he could be released from parole he would do loyal service for his country. Arnold had fought desperately around Lake Champlain with the remnants of the troops driven from Canada, but the odds against him were too great. Washington, alone, was the nucleus around which the hopes of America centred, but he could accomplish little except to hold positions between ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... and it seemed as if safety had been won. But the early light of the dawning day revealed an alarming scene. Before the daring band lay another fleet, flying the Mongol flag, while thousands of armed foes occupied the banks of the stream. The odds were hopelessly against the Chinese, there was no choice between death and surrender, but the heroic Changkone unhesitatingly resolved to accept the former, and was seconded in his devotion by his men. Dashing upon the Mongol fleet, they fought ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... changed into a mental vision of a hand holding a sack of peanuts. There was indecision. Should he take more risk and run up his available cash to make a larger killing, or would one Joseph Barcelona take a stand-offish attitude if some outsider were to lower the track odds by betting a bundle on Flying Heels, Moonbeam, and ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... had been throughout the whole day's battle, so was it now. King Olaf's men were greatly outnumbered; it was a conflict of skill and endurance against overwhelming odds. This final contest, while it lasted, was fierce and terrible. In a short time, however, many of King Olaf's champions fell. Brave and strong though they were, they could not withstand the furious onslaught of the ambitious and valiant Earl Erik. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... worst"; "let it go at that"; "I should say at a guess," etc. "Come with me"; "write with a pen"; "he came with a rush"; "things are different with us"; "with a twinkle in his eye"; "with God all things are possible," etc. Try to turn these phrases into any language you think you know; the odds are that you will find yourself "up against it pretty badly." The fact is, that prepositions are very frequently used on no logical plan, not at all according to any fixed or universal meaning; all that can be said about them in a ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... struggle against almost overwhelming odds. For a nation as weak, as unwieldy, as corrupt as China to undertake such a stupendous task seems almost inconceivable. Accurate statistics are not available, but it would seem that one-half of the Chinese were in the grip of this vice. In some provinces about ninety per ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... Oh! it makes you sore, When a bloke you despised at 'ome In them pifflin' days of the years before Takes a odds-on chance with the God of War, 'N' he tows you out with his left lung tore, 'N' a ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... slow way toward the blurred light, staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last. They stopped abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between themselves ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be so," answered Smith; "but we are built of English oak, and very stout forward, and I think not. But she would sink at once, being near to it already, and the odds are that the women are locked in the cabin or between decks out of reach of the arrows, and ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... make powerful enemies, and fight against odds. I make friends where I can, and instruments even of my enemies. You are to be ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... due to them. Of any other side to the picture, he like other good Englishmen, was entirely unconscious: he saw only on all sides of him the empire of barbarism and misrule which valiant and godly Englishmen were fighting to vanquish and destroy—fighting against apparent but not real odds. And all this was aggravated by the stiff adherence of the Irish to their old religion. Spenser came over with the common opinion of Protestant Englishmen, that they had at least in England the pure and undoubted ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Noonin, who was at Squire Lyman's when Patty was born? She was a widow, with not much of a home of her own, and was always going about from house to house nursing sick people, and doing little odds and ends of work. To-day she had dropped in at Squire Lyman's to ask if Mrs. Lyman had any more knitting for her to do. In the nicely sanded sitting-room, or "fore-room," as most of the people ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... the water. Those of the Indians who were guarding the horses, seeing what was going on at the camp, came rushing to the rescue of their friends. I now counted thirteen braves, but as we had already disposed of two, we had only eleven to take care of. The odds were nearly two to ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... building was thronged with the larger dealers—with millionaires and brokers, with men who were on their way to fortune, and those who had been millionaires and now were desperately struggling against the odds of fate as they saw their wealth swept away in ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... half smoked, a bell began tolling, and it seemed as if the whole village were pouring into the church. At this I was very much surprised, not having been used at any time of my life to the unanimous devotion of an entire population, but having always thought of the Faith as something fighting odds, and having seen unanimity only in places where some sham religion or other glozed over our tragedies and excused our sins. Certainly to see all the men, women, and children of a place taking Catholicism ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... kind, were my house-mates; and I have since been told that every great city has many such groups of people, the great prophets, the great historians, the great authors, the great actors whom the world does not know—the odds and ends of humanity, thrown aside by the rushing river of life into the gulley-ways that line its banks, the odd brothers, the odd sisters, the odd uncles, the odd aunts, for whom there is no place in the family, in society, or in the business of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... time our number had been reduced to four, the whole train-crew had become interested. From then on it was a contest of skill and wits, with the odds in favor of the crew. One by one the three other survivors turned up missing, until I alone remained. My, but I was proud of myself! No Croesus was ever prouder of his first million. I was holding her down ...
— The Road • Jack London
... was a one-story affair, with a small loft overhead, for the storage of extra oars and odds and ends of boat lumber. Up into the loft went the two boys and opened the tiny window at either end—-thus letting in some needed fresh air. Then they took the rank-smelling flour paste and poured half of the stuff into an old paint ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... uncertainties and cold days before him; he had to fight his way against sore odds. But he had won the heart of dear Rose Velderkaust, and that was half the battle. It is needless to say his exertions were redoubled, and his lasting celebrity proves that his industry was ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... chuck in all the odds and ends of wine left from the dinners of the week. To the untrained tongue, it is a fearful pleasure to partake thereof. Prather makes up his iniquitous debauches after the same recipe: absorbing the yellow journals and the orange output of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... separated when journeys like this were to be taken. And when in search of pleasure they were nearly always together. Frenchy, while being very friendly with Hopalong, a friendship that would have placed them side by side against any odds, was not accustomed to his company and did not ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... as I've a soul!" was his grace's comment, when Mr. Caryll had done. "A pretty story, my Lord Rotherby. I have a stomach for strong meat myself. But—odds my life!—this is ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... marauder was no less cunning than fierce. When the settlers, seeking vengeance for sheep, pigs, and cattle slaughtered by his pack, went forth to hunt him with dogs and guns, it seemed that there was never a wolf in the country. Nevertheless, either that same night or the next, it was long odds that one or more of those same dogs who had been officious in the hunt would disappear. As for traps and poisoned meat, they proved equally futile. They were always visited, to be sure, by the pack, at some unexpected and ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... and LaFarge were struggling for a start. Out of any score of names and reputations that should reach beyond the century, the thirty-years-old who were starting in the year 1867 could show none that was so far in advance as to warrant odds in its favor. The army men had for the most part fallen to the ranks. Had Adams foreseen the future exactly as it came, he would have been no wiser, and could ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... The similarities are more worthy of observation. Each general had wearied the administration with demands for reinforcements when each already outnumbered his opponent so much that it was almost disgraceful to desire to increase the odds. If McClellan had been reprehensibly slow in moving upon Yorktown, and had blundered by besieging instead of trying an assault, certainly the snail-like approach upon Corinth had been equally deliberate and wasteful of time and opportunity; and ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... he went, round and round in a rapid, mounting spiral, till only one of the daring redwings followed. I watched. Up they went, higher than I had ever seen a blackbird venture before. And against such unequal odds! But the hawk was scared and had not stopped to look back. He circled; the blackbird cut across inside and caught him on almost every round. And still higher in pure bravado the redwing forced him. I began to tremble for the plucky bird, when ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... of his school or college struggles. Deprecating his own abilities, it made him doubly anxious to find that not only did his Saint Werner's contemporaries regard him as the favourite candidate, and bet upon him in the sporting circles, (although Brogten furiously took the largest odds against him), but, what was worse, his own family, always proud of him, seemed to regard his triumph as certain. Thus circumstanced, and most fondly avoiding every possibility of causing pain or disappointment to that ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... morning came Pen was up long before his usual hour for rising. He did all the chores, picked up a dozen odds and ends, and left everything ship-shape for his grandfather who was now to succeed him in doing the morning work. Then he changed his clothes, packed his suit-case and came down to breakfast. Grandpa Walker had offered to take him into town with Old Charlie, but Pen had learned, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... through the chuff troops. Even so, their progress was difficult. Every few hundred yards they were halted and subjected to curt inquiry. Men and women who had heard of their gallant struggle against fearful odds pressed forward in an attempt to seize their hands, to embrace and applaud them, but these evidences of enthusiasm were sternly ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... while he was asleep. Lee knew a man who, because of his light strength and mastery of horses, had spent a prolonged youth riding in gentlemen's steeplechases for the great Virginia stables; a career of racing silk and odds and danger, of highly ornamental women and champagne, of paddocks and formal halls and surreptitious little ante- rooms. That he envied; and, recalling his safe ignominious usefulness during the war, he envied the young half-drunk aviators sweeping in reckless ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... assumption of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits of paper, and had so many queer odds and ends stuck all about it, that it looked like a bird's-nest. She was radiant with imaginary jewels; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles; and gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old greasy newspaper, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... as the most important personage in the building. They would walk up and down the corridors, hoping for a glimpse of some of the leading officials, when all the while Freckles McGrath, the real character of the Capitol, and by all odds the most illustrious person in it, was at ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... "The odds are ten to one against him," sadly muttered the father, drawing from his pocket a paper covered with figures. "We have it all written down here: I've calculated it;" and for perhaps the thousandth time the old man ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... The great odds against the two men—their bravery in the face of death, their grave danger—and last and greatest, the fact that one was the father of the beautiful creature he worshipped, wrought a sudden change in Number Thirteen. In an instant he forgot that ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the floods of broken levees, he truly believed, they would hold out. Let them do so only till the first hot breath of real Delta summer should bring typhoid, breakbone, yellow, and swamp fevers, the last by all odds the worst, and Butler's unacclimated troops would have to reembark for home pell-mell or die on Ship Island like poisoned fish. So much for the front gate. For the back gate, Corinth, which just now ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Servility: 30 Hear his tone (which is to talking That which creeping is to walking— Now on all fours, now on tiptoe): Hear the tales he lends his lip to— Little hints of heavy scandals— Every friend by turns he handles: All that women or that men do Glides forth in an inuendo (sic)— Clothed in odds and ends of humour, Herald of each paltry rumour— 40 From divorces down to dresses, Woman's frailties, Man's excesses: All that life presents of evil Make for him a constant revel. You're his foe—for that he fears you, And in absence blasts and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could have made for myself, came to me unsought and without effort. Such education as I have, a miscellany of odds and ends of learning, and such things as I have accomplished, are the chance results of various and disconnected impulses; and God himself has given me my beautiful friends. I have found them waiting for me all ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... Then followed a day or two during which Taffy and his mother took their meals at the window-seat, sitting on corded boxes; and an evening when he went out to the cannon in the square, and around the little back garden, saying good-bye to the fixtures and the few odds and ends which were to be left behind—the tool-shed (Crusoe's hut, Cave of Adullam, and Treasury of the Forty Thieves), the stunted sycamore-tree which he had climbed at different times as Zacchaeus, Ali Baba, and Man Friday with the bear behind him; the clothes' prop, which, on the ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... games on a Sunday," answered her brother, "Where's the odds? It's all Sunday's good for, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... man can draw the buckets on a winch, but they must have an ass inside a tread-wheel to hoist them up. Now, why this Colonel John Mohune, whom we call Blackbeard, should have chosen a well at all to hide his jewel in, I cannot say; but given he chose a well, 'twas odds he would choose Carisbrooke. 'Tis a known place, and I have heard that people come as far as from London to see ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... to be done, and all through the short winter day they were busy. There was a bundle of warm wraps to be put together for Babette to take with her. Her little trunk, with Pierre's cradle, and some odds and ends of furniture, would follow in a few days, when her aunt had collected and packed them all. Her little store of money was counted over. Alas! it was very slender. She must travel quickly and cheaply if it was to last her till she ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... captain sadly. "And I've no doubt the poor fellow was killed because he wouldn't join the rest of the gang. Twenty-four, then. That's pretty big odds ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... an' say it was just a flamin' mistake. All! says you? Don't you believe it. There's a lot more to come yet, take my tip—a devil of a lot, or I'm the biggest lunatic within a ten-mile circle of w'ere I'm stannin', which is givin' long odds to any other crank in ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... to throw away; Jenny found what she wanted to do with it, and after that, many a basket of apples and many a piece of cold short-cake was set by for her. Margery, too, remembered the Brownie when disposing of her odds and ends; likewise did Mrs. Van Brunt; so that among them all, Ellen seldom wanted something to give him. Mr. Marshman did not know what happiness he was bestowing when he sent her that little horse. Many, many were the hours of enjoyment ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... out to a party with a few of her friends, it happened that Jiuyemon, being alone in the house, was in want of some little thing, and, failing to find it anywhere, at last bethought himself to look for it in O Hiyaku's cupboard; and as he was searching amongst the odds and ends which it contained, he came upon the fatal letter. When he read the scheme for putting poison in his macaroni, he was taken aback, and said to himself, "When I caught those two beasts in their wickedness ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... discarded his crutch, as he had threatened, and walked out to the studio, using only a stout old blackthorn stick he had found one day when rummaging among a collection of odds and ends in the attic. He thought the stick was his father's and wondered why so interesting a walking stick—or staff; it could hardly be called a cane, he thought, because it was so large and oddly shaped—should be hidden away there. Had his father seen it he would have ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the contradiction pulled her up short. "No you wouldn't," he repeated quietly. "You wouldn't even go through this for him. You wouldn't play the game by him when he was dead. He always kept his end up, whatever the odds against him; but you—you couldn't. This was your chance to show that you were worthy of him. While he was alive, you played a winning game; it was easy to be true to him. But he—he was stauncher; he was most to be trusted when the game seemed all but ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... matter stood. Against these tremendous odds Grace fought—against coarse and perverted natures,—worse than all, against the power that should have been ranged upon his side. And added to these discouragements, were the obstacles of physical delicacy, and an almost morbid conscientiousness. A man of coarser fibre ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she added, and with a vehemence strangely at odds with her calm of the night before, she took Sholto by the hand and drew him after her into the room that ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett |
