"Deftly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Indeed, the definition of the quarter-staff, given at the commencement of Chapter II., seems to me to apply far better to the shillalah, which may in a sense be regarded as the link between the ordinary walking-stick and the mighty weapon which Robin Hood wielded so deftly in his combat with ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... top of her young voice, from the other end the court. It would be useless to pretend she doesn't shout it. She is elated—happy. She has won. She tears off the little soft round cap that, defiant of the sun, she wears, and flings it sky-high, catching it deftly as it descends upon the top of her dainty head, a little sideways. Her pretty, soft, fluffy hair, cut short, and curled all over her head by Mother Nature, is flying a little wildly across her brows, her large gray eyes (that sometimes are so nearly ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... 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 ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... sex. Certainly he had rarely encountered such absolute preoccupation as her smiling far-away look betokened as she went back and forth with her young canine friends at her heels, or stood at the table deftly slicing the salt-rising bread, the dogs poised skilfully upon their hind-legs to better view the appetizing performance; whenever she turned her face toward them they laid their heads languish-ingly askew, as if to remind her that supper ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... down a rasher of bacon from a hook on a rafter, and with his big pocket-knife deftly cut some thin slices into a frying-pan on the smoky stove, and into the hot grease he broke some fresh eggs which he had purloined from a hen's nest in the stable-loft. He had a loaf of baker's bread, and he made some coffee of exactly the strength he liked. These things ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... soon as the ship was clear of the Channel and fairly at sea, her father began the course of instruction he intended to pursue during the voyage. Mr Jacob Shobbrok the mate, and Nub, delighted to impart such feminine accomplishments as they possessed; and it amused her to see how deftly their strong hands ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... something here," he said to himself, and catching up his hat ran down stairs. In twenty minutes he was back with eggs, butter, bread, a pate, a bottle of wine and a can of sardines. The spirit lamp was lighted and the table deftly spread. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... did we notice that we were doing all the work until Aubrey selected the back hall window as the loosest, and opening his knife—the wickedest looking pocket-knife I ever saw, by the way—he proceeded deftly to turn the lock of the window and then to ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... old gentleman took it sedately and placidly, it was just the reverse with her. She was fairly running over with the joy of life. She would crawl about deftly until she saw a crab, then she would make a long detour to get it between her and the sun, so that her shadow should not frighten it. When she got within striking distance, she would wave her hand at her husband, as though she thought ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... "Let me, Zoran." He arose and brought a towel-wrapped bottle from a refrigerated bucket set into the wagon, and deftly took up a delicate three-ounce glass which he filled and placed before his superior. He took up another and raised his eyebrows at Josip Pekic who shook his head—a stomach as queasy as his wasn't going to be helped by alcohol. Kardelj ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... mother, directly I wake I remember it is my day for being with you. I can hardly be patient with breakfast, and the time it takes to get done with those thick cups of coffee that are so thick that, however deftly I drink, drops always trickle down what would be my beard if I had one. And I choke over the rolls, and I spill things in my hurry to run away and talk to you. I got another letter from you yesterday, and Hilda Seeberg, a girl boarding ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... nothing of the arrangement—another instance of Matilde's tact which pleased Veronica. Matilde herself was no longer pale. She had seen how desperate she looked and had put a little rouge upon her cheeks so deftly and artistically that the young girl did not at first detect the deception. But her features had still been drawn and weary. They relaxed suddenly in a genuine smile when she saw the gardenia. But Bosio grew paler, Veronica thought, and looked very nervous. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... he cried, dropping beside the motionless body; "it's nob'but a sheep." As he spoke his hands wandered deftly over the carcase. "But what's this?" he called. "Stout* she was as me. Look at her fleece—crisp, close, strong; feel the flesh—firm as a rock. And ne'er a bone broke, ne're a scrat on her body a pin could mak'. As healthy as a mon—and yet ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... be 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
... naturalised citizen of Gloria, of course,' said Soame Rivers, deftly insinuating his ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... to a 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 ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... knife was out of his pocket, and he was cutting deftly around the stamp, while Mary held the envelope flat against the door. He did it slowly, in order not to cut through into the letter, and he could not fail to notice the big dashing hand in which it was addressed to Mrs. Emily Ware. It looked so familiar that it puzzled ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had placed himself in position to begin the ascent, with both hands on the rope, and all his weight on one leg, the girl stooped down, and placing her lithe hands round his great wet fisherman's boot, deftly lifted the other foot and placed it in the right position on the first ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... enables him to work very close to the rows, and to stir the soil deeply without moving it or covering the plants. These cultivators are followed by women, with light, sharp hoes, who cut away the few weeds left between the plants. They handle these tools so deftly that scarcely any weeding is left to be done by hand; for, by a rapid encircling stroke, they cut within a half-inch of the plant. For several years past, I have urged upon Mr. Young the advantage of the narrow row system, ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... his slangs," observed Henry, as he inserted a ranya or osier-withy into his basket, and deftly twined it like a serpent to right and left, and almost as rapidly. Now a slang means, among divers things, a ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... shape of tiny spiders and perhaps other minute creatures, that mamma was seeking when she hovered under the maple boughs, now and then touching a twig or the underside of a leaf. Indeed, one might occasionally see her pick off her spider as deftly as one would pick ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... tapestry behind, and a canopy overhead; the Earl and Countess on chairs in the centre of the long narrow table. Lady Whitburn sat beside the Earl, Sir William Copeland by the Countess, watching with pleasure how deftly his son ran about among the pages, carrying the trenchers of food, and the cups. He entered on a conversation with the Countess, telling her of the King's interest and delight in his beautiful freshly-founded Colleges at Eton and Cambridge, how the King rode down whenever he could ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on his way with his nickel-plated lantern deftly anchored by his arm and his nickel-plated punch industriously working in his hand, mumbled, "Happy man! He's got just what he wants. Wish I was general passenger agent of this line. I'm not a catfish because I want to be one. He ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... expeditions alike relied? Columbus himself married the daughter of such a man, un piloto Italiano famoso navigante. Camoens makes the people of Mozambique offer Vasco da Gama a piloto by whom his fleet shall be deftly (sabiamente) conducted across the Indian Ocean. In the following century (1520-30) Sebastian Cabot, then in the service of Spain, commanded a squadron which was to pass through the Straits of Magellan to the Moluccas, having been appointed by ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Testament, and with chips off Molie're, and with shreds and tags of what-not snatched from a hundred-and-one queer corners. It was, in fact, an Autolycine style. It was a style of the maddest motley, but of motley so deftly cut and fitted to the figure, and worn with such an air, as to become a gracious ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... miraculously brought, and soon the griddle-cakes, gloriously brown, and deftly turned by Mrs. Quinn, were ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... Mademoiselle was deftly opening the girl's dressing case, but she paused now and turned. It was to Grace that she ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... away her hand; the wound, indeed, was no great affair, but he bound it up deftly with strips of his handkerchief. Dorothy's wet curls touched his fingers and clung to them, and her eyelashes ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... 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 is so ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... Larry," exploded Elephant, as he deftly "hooked" the glasses away from his companion's hands, and immediately clapped them to his own eyes, to let out a shout of amazement. "I declare if the old thing ain't floatin' like a big duck. Talk about her sinking, you couldn't push ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... Revolution. Neither of the operas, however, met the obstacles which blocked the progress of the comedies on which they are founded, because Da Ponte, who wrote the book for Mozart, and Sterbini, who was Rossini's librettist, judiciously and deftly elided the objectionable political element. "Le Nozze" is by far the more ingeniously constructed play of the two (though a trifle too involved for popular comprehension in the original language), but "Il Barbiere" ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the shark, and the stock of water so singularly obtained and so deftly stored away, might, if properly kept and carefully used, last them for many days; and to the preservation of these stores the thoughts of the sailor and his young companion ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... soon as she thought he was ready to have his mind turned away: "How nicely Ritchie managed! He carried me so comfortably and easily. It is enough to spoil me to be so deftly waited on." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... She fed the baby deftly. "Oh, Mr. Williston, don't talk so—of course you're a gentleman!" she cried, "you couldn't help about the money. ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Barracouta he somewhat enviously watched Spurling deftly unhook the skate. The remainder of the trawl was pulled in in silence. Percy kept the sloop at a distance that discouraged speech, closing the gap only when Jim signaled that he wished to discharge his cargo. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... not prove to be particularly willing. Every plough in its furrow, every mower deftly at work, awakened in him longings for his old agricultural pursuits. He wore his uniform with a good grace; there was no help for it, and grumbling would have only made the life harder. But to stay on longer than necessary—for ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law were discussing the mysteries of the last Education Bill with the satisfaction of men who hold similar views on the inanities ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... deftly swung the six-shooter around, the butt in his hand, his finger resting on the trigger. In this position he ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... man faded away into the crowd. Captain Kempt was nodding to this one and that of his numerous acquaintances, and Katherine felt Dorothy shrink a little closer to her as a tall, unknown young man deftly threaded his way among the people, making directly for the Captain, whom he seized by the hand in a grasp ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... here and watch the moon rise;" and he led Patty toward the window-seat, where he deftly ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... her baking early in the day. So it happened that when Martin Landis stopped in to see Amanda before he went to his work in the city he saw on the kitchen table a long row of pies ready for the oven and Amanda deftly rolling the ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... in coats of mail, Shone with a most attractive lustre; Strong claws, long limbs, a longer tail— They pinned their faith to bulk and bluster; They laid their eggs in every land And hid them deftly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... blacksmith and the tinsmith in the little village where he lived, and taught himself the elements of his trade at the blacksmith's anvil and with the tinsmith's tools. At fourteen that boy knew practically a great deal about the properties of metals, could handle simple tools deftly, and was well prepared to learn his trade readily when ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... valley. Another great company assaulted the Britons where they lay. Thereat broke forth a loud shrilling of clarions and sounding of trumpets, whilst the hosts drew together. As they approached, the archers shot so deftly, the spearmen launched their darts so briskly, that not a man dared to blink his eye or to show his face. The arrows flew like hail, and very quickly the melley became yet more contentious. There where the ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... the Dhah whom we had first seen, one of the others deftly threw upwards a long coil of the climbing plant, which, on reaching a part of the trunk of one of the palm trees some distance above his head, twined round the stem. The rope-like plant was then fastened to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Mademoiselle, deftly slipping off the white and silver that was Lily's gown. "It will be wonderful, dear. And you will be a great success. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... heavy wallet and opened it. From one of its compartments he took a small, triangular bit of blue cloth and, with the habitual impatience that marked his every speech and gesture, he threw it at Steiner, who caught it deftly ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Come, let us, dancing In dewy circles deftly tread; And while we dance round, New schemes shall be found, To ruin the living, and ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... 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 couple of days; worth the venture. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... seed, is now fertilized and capable of producing a future primrose. Covered with many protecting coats, it becomes a perfect seed. The original casket swells, hardens, is transformed into a rounded capsule or seed-vessel, opening by valves or a deftly constructed hinge. One day this seed-vessel, crowded with seeds, breaks open and completes the cycle of reproduction by dispersing them over the ground, where they sow themselves, and grow and become primrose plants in their turn, starring the grass ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... spontaneously the short homely phrase which sank his meaning into the minds of his hearers. Mallinson took refuge in a criticism of Drake's speeches from the standpoint of literary polish. He recast them in his thoughts, turning this sentence more deftly, whittling that repartee to a finer point. The process consoled him for Drake's misreckoning of his purpose in the matter of A Man of Influence, since it pointed to a certain lack of delicacy, say at once to crassness in the ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... pulling, she had towed the General to a chair, and into this, his favorite leather-armed, canvas-backed, hickory-framed companion of many a year, she deftly dropped him and then, giving him no chance for a word, gayly pirouetting, she seized one after another upon each member of the party present—an accomplished little mistress of ceremonies encased in a tailor-made traveling suit ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... and much in the same way, without being aware of his knowledge, which was mainly instinctive. The billy was on the blazing fire, and Done sat watching Mike smartly mixing a damper in the lid. To Jim this, too, was a wonderful accomplishment. Water and flour were deftly manipulated until a ball of dough that quite filled the small lid resulted. It was done with the cleanness and quickness of a conjuring trick. The dough was divided into two pats, to be cooked under the hot ashes. Then Mike improvised his wire grid again, and in a few minutes the steak he had ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... burned The ragged robe of winter, stitch by stitch, And deftly turned To moving melody the wayside ditch, The pale-green pasture field behind the bars 5 Is goldened o'er ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... figure, the cut of his iron-grey beard, and his intrusively fine eyes, conveyed a continual courteous invitation to inspect their infallibilities. He stood, like a City "Atlas," with his legs apart, his coat-tails gathered in his hands, a whole globe of financial matters deftly balanced on his nose. "Look at me!" he seemed to say. "It's heavy, but how easily I carry it. Not the man to let ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the flowers deftly arranged and surveyed them proudly. The chipmunk cocked his brown head and seemed to be ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... hurled his long-shadowed spear, and smote the shield of the son of Priam, equal on all sides; and through the glittering shield went the impetuous spear, and was stuck firmly into the deftly-wrought corslet: and the spear pierced right through his soft tunic beside the flank: but he bent sideways, and evaded black death. Next the son of Atreus having drawn his silver-studded sword, raising it, struck the cone[161] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... at the survivals of the village community in Britain it is not necessary to approach it through the medium of manorial history. Extremely ancient as I am inclined to think manorial history is, it is unquestionably loaded with an artificial terminology and with the chains so deftly forged by lawyers. An analysis of the chief features in the types of the English village community shows that the manorial element is by no means a common factor in the series. These types mark the transition from the tribal form to the village form. In Harris ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... man is a wicked man, and there were many among the writers of the Restoration. But of all reasons that exist for treating this side of life, Richardson's were the best, and nowhere do we find it more deftly done. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... closely, then he pressed on the paper. There was a small cylinder under the paper. He grinned at Sim and O'Malley. Deftly he slit the paper with his fingernail and removed a strip of it, revealing a listening device. Taking out his pocketknife he neatly snipped ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... a little, the thought of having been so deftly caught in a trap, almost entirely owing to his having been overconfident, an assurance only ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... which little children are bidden to read. Stories from the Old Testament are dressed up in pretty sugared language. Oh, you makers of these little books! oh, you fond mothers who place them so deftly in your children's hands! bethink you whether this strong meat is fit for Babes. An old man, whose life has been passed in Storms and Stratagems and Violence, not innocent of blood-spilling, bids you beware! Let the children read that other Book, its ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... slim, blue volume, the title of which at once arrested her attention. For, notwithstanding her fourteen years, and her dabblings in Richardson and Scott, Laura's liking for a real child's book was as strong as it had ever been; and A DOLL'S HOUSE seemed to promise good things. Deftly extracting the volume, she struck up her scales ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... trousers leg, and drew from his Wellington boot a two-edged, pointed thing almost long enough to merit the name of rapier. He tossed it in the air, let it spin six or seven times end over end, caught it deftly by the point, and returned ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... save the boy," said a voice, "if you'll give me a rope." In a moment more a deftly thrown lasso quivered in the air, and falling over Paul encircled his waist; then, by the aid of planks thrown across the margin, long, strong arms soon dragged him into safety, and he lay trembling, but safe, on solid ground, with his mother's arms around him, and nothing ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... a young woman of some penetration, deftly changed the topic, and Clavering came near to pleasing her, but he did not quite succeed, before he took his departure. Then Hetty ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... curly maids, Who deftly ply your pails and spades, All you who sturdily take your stand On your pebble-buttressed forts of sand, And thence defy With a fearless eye And a burst of rollicking high-pitched laughter The stealthy trickling waves that lap you And the crested breakers that tumble after To souse and batter ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... "Ah!" he stopped short. He bent over a moment; his fingers moved deftly. Then he straightened with a grunt of satisfaction. A section of the seemingly solid, immovable stone was sliding silently open. He ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... logical mind. Easy enough to paw over the men-folks and get silly over brass buttons and a uniform. She put it that way. She thought of the refrain of a popular song: "What Are You Going to Do to Help the Boys?" Tessie, smiling a crooked little smile up there in the darkness, parodied the words deftly: "What're you going to do to help the girls?" she demanded. "What're you going to do——" She rolled over on one side and buried her ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... minute the boat had been run into the narrow jaws of the great chasm, the sail had been lowered, and after they had glided some distance along, helped by the boat-hook deftly wielded by Tom Bodger, the smuggler suddenly sprang out on to a shelf of rock at ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dripped from his lips. The man who had held the lariat lay half under his fallen pony, whose efforts to rise were checked by the tightened rope still tied to the saddlebow. The two other men were on their feet, one clutching the straightened halter, the second deftly slipping a lariat around ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... through the lapel of his coat. Isabel had not intended to pin it in for him, but she was generally willing to do what was expected of her. She took a pin from her own dress (there were plenty in it), and fastened the flower deftly on the breast of Captain ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... expert nurse. He washed and dressed those two small brethren—the eldest of whom was barely three—as deftly and gently as if he had been trained to the work. And he manipulated their frugal meals, and stowed them away in his bed, with all the art of a practised nurse. How could he desert them now? How indeed? That very night, as ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... along, 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 to return them without flagrant discourtesy or to retire ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... put the dinner quickly and deftly upon the table, set the basket on a chair, and with a smile and a nod went out ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... hymn, my willing eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the passed day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... contrive to state every important fact at least three times: first, for the attentive; second, for the intelligent; and third, for the large mass that may have missed the first two statements. Of course, the method of presentment must be very deftly varied, in order that the artifice may not appear; but this simple rule of three is almost always practised. It was used with rare effect by Eugene Scribe, who, although he was too clever to be great, contributed more than any other writer of the nineteenth ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... whom they had served faithfully. Each room that had lately given up its tenant showed a disordered interior, with paper strewn here and there. Or some maid left behind to pack her mistress's heavier luggage could be seen kneeling before open trunks and deftly arranging their contents. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... syllable with the emphasis and the accent of Naples, but always softly, he started, and nearly dropped into the sea the piece of bread he was lifting to his mouth. Recovering himself in time to save the bread deftly with one brown hand, he turned half round, leaning on his left arm, and stared at Vere with large, inquiring eyes. She stood by the steps and beckoned to him, lifting up the packet of cigarettes, then pointing to ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... a railway train, the February fields and woods seem dead and dreary. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Every twig is lined with living buds, carefully covered with scales. Inside those scales are leaves and blossoms deftly packed, as only Mother Nature could pack them. Split one down the middle and examine it with your lens. You will see the little tender leaves, and often the blossoms, ready to break out in beauty when the warm days ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... spring, and wide apart The riven sphere showed its white hollow heart, And in the midst a gem; the which he laid Within her hand. "Behold," he said, "I made Most fair for thee this lustrous blood-red sard, And deftly traced its gleaming surface hard With carvings thick of bright acacias slim, Pomegranates lush and river-reeds. Its rim A spray of leaves enchased, white as with rime Night fallen. 'Slow drags the lagging ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... capstan-bar. With two quick, noiseless steps Jack placed himself close behind the dreaming rebel, and thrusting his left arm over his shoulder seized his musket with a firm grasp, while at the same time, with his right hand, he deftly slipped the revolver from ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... carved figure of a lion. Possibly by accident—probably by design, one of these figures was loosened so that it could be raised like a box-lid, and in the darkness of the night the swift, silent figure of the Spy would steal into the big room, lift the carved lion, deftly slip a message in cipher into the cavity beneath the figure and cautiously creep away, with never a creaking board to reveal her coming ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... genuine pleasure. "You must make another for yourself." Whether he took it as a command or as a request matters not. Suffice it to say, he soon produced another palm-leaf hat, and she tied it under his chin a great deal more deftly than he had performed the same service for her, consequently with a speed ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was deftly swung, and the forefeet caught, and then with a skilful move the feet were drawn together, and down went the raging Pacer to lie a moment later 'hog-tied' and helpless on the ground. There he struggled till worn out, sobbing great convulsive sobs while tears ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... daughter's direction; for Desiree, though she was still a mere girl, was endowed with exquisite taste, with a fairy-like power of invention, and no one could, insert two pearl eyes in those tiny heads or spread their lifeless wings so deftly as she. Happy or unhappy, Desiree always worked with the same energy. From dawn until well into the night the table was covered with work. At the last ray of daylight, when the factory bells were ringing in all the neighboring yards, Madame Delobelle lighted the lamp, and ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... critical instant there came an unexpected diversion. During the debate a number of the more important citizens had entered the room, and stood near the table round which the members sat. Suddenly, from the midst of those people, a long cloak was deftly flung, with such sure aim that it fell upon the circle of blazing candles, extinguishing them all, and in a moment throwing the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... But the girl had deftly extracted the key even as she passed in after him, and as the bolts shot from within she cried: "I thank you right courteously, Lord William, but mine apothecary, fearing that the air of this isle of Thrieve might not agree with me, bade me ever to sleep with the key of the door ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... and up the steps of the veranda passed Mrs. Cary, fairer than had been the flowers, a true daughter of the oldtime South, gentle and quiet eyed, her light summer dress of the cheapest material, yet deftly fashioned by her own fingers from slightly opened neck, where an old brooch lay against her soft throat, down to the dainty spotless flounces lying above ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... him closer in spirit than he had ever been to heaven, to feel her elbow brush against his own, as she deftly landed the smoking steak on the platter while Laramie ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... 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 ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... cord to the rudder-post of her canal-boat. Then she turned the cunning little windlass, and slowly up went the mast to its full height. The next thing was to unfurl the sail, set it properly, and set the rudder,—all of which she did deftly and correctly, making Will feel ashamed of what he had said about ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... trained to the business, it's fearfully hard to slip your hand deftly into some one else's pocket. Margery bungled, and Janet, impatient at her slowness, loosened slightly her own hold. On the instant, Willie Jones wrenched one arm free, dived into his pocket, and before his captors knew what ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... morning's exertions to notice the slim white figure which slipped backwards and forwards behind them, supplying every want with quick and delicate intuition, aiding Marged Hughes' clumsy attempts at waiting, so deftly, that Essec Powell's dinner was ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... space where the wind was beating itself to pieces against the trees in front of it, the sea was comparatively calm, and Paul deftly swung the boat about. His sharp eyes noticed a little cove, and, the four at the oars pulled for it with all their might. A minute, two minutes and they were in the cove and in safety. They had ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... operating table and the dwarf fitted an anesthesia cone over his face and opened the valve of the gas cylinder. In a moment he closed it and rolled the unconscious man on his face and deftly inserted the long needle. Instead of injecting a portion of the contents of the syringe as Dr. Bird had expected to do, he drew back on the plunger for a minute and then took out the needle and held the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... the less acutely conscious of her bereavement is proved by the fact that, so soon as her three full-fed pups were asleep, she rose very deftly and carefully, and drew out to the mouth of the cave the body of the puppy at whose throat she had found the stoat. Depositing the limp little body upon the chalky ledge before the cave, Desdemona regarded it mournfully, sitting ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... passed through the little fork made by the broken eye of a large darning-needle, stretched tight over a wooden handle into which the needle had been inserted; some tire cement was injected into the puncture, and the needle carrying the stretched bands deftly thrust clear through; on withdrawing the needle the bands remained, plugging the hole so effectually that it showed no leak until some weeks later, when near Boston, the air began to work ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... keen observation. It has also to be recognised that Burns was at his weakest when he attempted to describe scenery for mere scenery's sake. His gift did not lie that way. His landscapes, rich in colour and deftly drawn though they be, are always the mere backgrounds of his pictures. They are impressionistic sketches, the setting and the complement of something of human interest in incident ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Thure deftly caught the bridle rein; and then sat silent and motionless on the back of his horse, his eyes on his comrade, waiting in tense expectancy for the moment when he would reach the clump of bushes and look down into the valley ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... aware of those cold, incurious eyes studying her face as she wrapped the gauze bandage deftly around ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... still drink, I hope"; Fatty at the same time mollified and invited, with his one hand deftly pulling the slip-knots that fastened ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... bosom; on shore, a water mill in action, a train of cars passing over a bridge, a deer chase with hounds, huntsmen, and game, all in pursuit or flight, and the like. The barkeepers were marvels of dexterity and of especial knowledge. At command they would deftly and skilfully mix a great variety of drinks—cocktails, sangarees, juleps, bounces, swizzles, and many others. In mixing these drinks it was their especial pride to pass them at arm's length from one tall glass to another, the fluid describing a ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... a package of Durham from his pocket and fumbled around until he found a loose paper. He deftly rolled a cigarette, his long fingers moving with the dexterity of a pianist. He smoked a moment in silence, exhaling the smoke thoughtfully with his eyes towards the ceiling. The dog, his neck outstretched on Donaldson's knee, blinked sleepily across ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... he cried again, and would once more have caught her deftly to him, but again she slipped from him. "Sit down," she cried petulantly, motioning to the fallen log. "You're out of breath, you've had a long climb." She herself sat down and he followed her example, encircling her with his arms; a tiny ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... mirthlessly, with thinning lips. The box before him was open. His fingers worked quickly—a little wax behind the ears, in the nostrils, under the upper lip, deftly placed-hands, wrists, neck, throat, and face received their quota of stain, applied with an artist's touch—and then the spruce, muscular Jimmie Dale, transformed into a slouching, vicious-featured denizen of the underworld, replaced the box under ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... moments later, with this sorrow written on her face, to find Lucius, the colored man, deftly preparing the Captain for bed. The old borderer looked up with a smile, in which shame and sadness mingled. "Well, Bertie, I didn't think I'd come to this—me, that could once sit in me saddle and pick a dollar out o' the dust. But so ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... scholarship did not excite their envy because she was quiet and inoffensive. Proficiency in her studies was "one of her ways." I was talkative and aggressive, and needed taking down. They set themselves systematically about the performance of the duty. The work was done deftly and discreetly, out of the sight and hearing of our elders. Young and raw as I was, I was too wise to tell tales on them. By the time I was four years old that lesson was rubbed into my consciousness by the ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... coin was in the left, but the sly fellow did not confess that he had deftly changed it after ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis |
