"Offhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to know what Dicky had written to me had been appeased by Lillian's offhand remark that country mails were never reliable, and that my letter would probably arrive later, the elder woman went to her own room to puzzle anew over her son's letter, which simply said over again what he had told ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... for him had no sting, nor the grave a victory. He prepared for his passing, looking after every detail, as he had planned trips to Europe. Jauntily, jokingly, bravely, tremendously busy, keenly alive to beauty and friendship, deciding great issues offhand, facing friend or foe, the moments of relaxation chinked in with religious emotion and a glowing love for humanity—so he lived, and so ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... enter the laundry and pass over his parcel, as though it were his week's washing. He would be gone before they had discovered its contents. He merely needed to be offhand and nonchalant. More than once he had seen dilapidated actors carrying a limited wardrobe to the laundry at equally small hours of the night. And the sloe-eyed iron-thumpers would never ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... own native land, the scandals of the court and the cloister, the petty struggle for the primacy of Wales, and the great tragedy of the fall of the Angevin Empire - is all alike dealt with in the bold, dashing, offhand style of a modern newspaper or magazine article. His first important work, the 'Topography of Ireland,' is, with due allowance for the difference between the tastes of the twelfth century and those of the nineteenth, just such a series of sketches as a special correspondent in our own ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... a little startled at the question, lightly as it was put. She felt that it was scarcely a problem that could be settled offhand. And yet something in Priscilla's manner seemed to indicate that she ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... understand him. So he resorted to a mixed system of his own, sometimes using Latin words and making the changes which regularly would have occurred, and when words failed, making signs, and in extreme cases drawing pictures of what he wanted. This versatility with the pencil, for many of his offhand sketches had humorous touches that almost carried them into the cartoon class, interested officers and passengers, so that the young student had the freedom of the ship and a ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... raw-boned black, was his constant attendant, a bodyservant, as it were. He shipped raw sugar from his plantation in boat-loads to the Southwark wharves in Philadelphia. Frank liked him because he took life in a hearty, jovial way, rather rough and offhand for this somewhat quiet and ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... at creating a musical equivalent for the Maeterlinck 'atmosphere,' The score of 'Pelleas et Melisande' is a pure piece of musical impressionism, an experiment in musical pioneering the value of which it is difficult to judge offhand. He has wilfully abjured melody of any accepted kind and harmony conforming to any established tradition. His music moves in a world of its own, a dream-world of neutral tints, shadowy figures, and spectral passions. The dreamy unreality of the tale is mirrored ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... not everything is as self-evident as it seems; on the other, that two people rarely understand the same thing by "self-evident,'' so that what is self-evident to one is far from so to the other. This difference becomes especially clear when a lawyer examines professional people who can imagine offhand what is in no sense self-evident to persons in other walks of life. I might cite out of my own experience, that the physicist Boltzmann, one of the foremost of living mathematicians, was told once upon a time that his demonstrations were not sufficiently detailed ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... brings the water to one's eyes. Davy Lindsay had yet to play many a spring before King James, and some that were not gay. But the gentle stripling with the infant on his shoulder, the pertinacity of the little babbling cry, the "homely springs" played offhand that it was pity to hear, but which the lad enjoyed almost as much in laughing at their dashing incorrectness as the baby who knew only that it was a pleasant sound—how bright and vivid is the picture! Thus while the lords and his mother ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... fatality, thought the remark very offhand from a man in his position, comic even, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national policy. ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... think it over oncet, Tillie, and till to-morrow mornin' a'ready I'll give you my answer. My conscience won't give me the dare to adwise you offhand in a matter that's so serious like what ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... on his deeply wrinkled, tough old face, which Sewall said "looked like the instep of an old boot that had lain out in the weather for years,"—"what I can't make out is why you make all this fuss instead of hanging 'em offhand." ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... obeyed the colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand, informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for the same period was 66,255 bushels. All of which information, ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... to think of the description he had given to Shirley, in his offhand way, of "the perfect woman." It was a faithful list of Miss Millicent's charms, so far as they were apparent to him. Shirley had noted them down with great carefulness, and would be sure to notice how fully the authoress met the ideal he now had in mind. It only remained for the schemer to say ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... converse around the soda fount of a Kansas drug store; and I want you to feel as free to talk back as though we had gotten into this difficulty by accident instead of design. Ask me all the questions you want to, and if I'm unable to answer offhand I'll look the matter up later and telegraph you—at your expense. With such unbounded liberty there's really no telling whither we will drift, what subjects we may touch upon; but should I inadvertently trample upon ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires her more than ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... expressly and solely to accompany the preceding text in which the distinctions of synonyms have been carefully pointed out. It is not expected, intended, or desired that the questions should be answered or the blanks in the examples supplied offhand. In such study nothing can be worse than guesswork. Hence, leading questions have been avoided, and the order of synonyms given in Part I. has frequently been departed from or reversed in ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... held in front of Bearpaw's tent not long afterwards. It was a very grave and orderly council—one which would contrast favourably with many of our nineteenth century councils, for those savages had not at that time acquired the civilised capacity for open offhand misrepresentation, calumny, and personal abuse which is so conspicuous in these days, and which must be so gratifying to those who maintain that civilisation is the grand panacea for all the moral ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... was not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. "It can't be decided offhand." ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... for it? Nothing whatever, you understand. Not so much as a bone penholder, carved to resemble a chessman and with a hole in the top through which you could see four views of Nauheim. And, as for experience, as for knowledge of one's fellow beings—nothing either. Upon my word, I couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady who sold the so expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads to the station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whether the porter who carried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or no when he said that the regular tariff was a lira a parcel. The instances ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... in contact with the other sex. You are infused with your lover's magnetism, which must remain till displaced by another's. Go to parties and picnics; be free, familiar, offhand, even forward; try your knack at fascinating another, and yield to fascinations yourself. But be honest, command respect, and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... first of many that Anne spent at the brown-stone house next door. The 'Roseland' family became so fond of her that Mr. and Mrs. Marshall talked about adopting her. 'It was too important a matter to decide offhand,' Mr. Marshall said; 'too great a responsibility to undertake lightly. They would wait awhile. Of course the child would ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr. Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind her father; and she took a ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... acquainted. I believe this to be the case throughout the Middle West. From this point of view the population is not so well mixed as it is in the East. No one in Massachusetts or Connecticut can point out to you, offhand, the families that came from particular counties in England. And yet in England, a migration from one county to another is always recognized and remembered. A cousin of mine, visiting on an English estate, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... Socrates in a striking manner, and by a method peculiarly his own. "Professing ignorance, he put perhaps this question: What is law? It was familiar, and was answered offhand. Socrates, having got the answer, then put fresh questions applicable to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showing that the definition ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... we going to do with Eeny-Meeny when we go home?" asked Gladys. That was a question nobody was prepared to answer offhand. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... the party: he was a slow, sour old man, with fishy eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was afterwards remembered) exchanged winks with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... one else can know, his own conditions and requirements, and should be able to form very exact ideas of just what he wants, and the doing so is, in my opinion, one of the most important requisites for satisfactory tomato growing. I also believe that it is as impossible for a man to answer offhand the question, "What is the best variety of tomato?" as for a wise physician to answer the question, ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... seem to be an absolutely wanton slander, were not a certain excuse to be found in the linguistic affinities of the word 'pragmatism,' and in certain offhand habits of speech of ours which assumed too great a generosity on our reader's part. When we spoke of the meaning of ideas consisting "in their 'practical' consequences", or of the 'practical' differences which our beliefs ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam, in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they, unless they are going to be Richard the Thirds, or ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... several slaves attended, Captain Burnett described in Hindostanee, as if speaking to Reginald, a wonderful rod he possessed, which had the property of discovering poison—as also the poisoner, by whirling itself about as soon as he appeared, and pointing towards him. He spoke in a natural, offhand manner, as if there was nothing unusual in what ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... hands and your teeth. An hour passed—busy, yet pleasant—and we were both gorged to the gills and had reared back with our cigars lit to enjoy a third jorum of black coffee apiece, when Johnny, speaking in an offhand way to Bill, who was still hiding away biscuits inside of himself like ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... so offhand," said Dwight. "But what you've said is all you have to say according to law. And there don't have to be witnesses ... say!" he said, ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... for Persis Dale to have a husband. His elation over all that was implied by her consulting him on so personal a matter, was almost lost in his feeling of annoyance. This made it plain that he must lose no time, but marry her offhand. What with her penchant for orphans and for foolish investments, she would make ducks and drakes of her fortune unless a man ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is very strong, as ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... night for me in one way. Mr. Phelps thought I was the guest of honor, and so did Count S.; but I didn't, for there was nothing in my invitation to indicate it. It was just a friendly offhand note, on a card. By the time dinner was announced Phelps was himself in a state of doubt. Something had to be done; and it was not a handy time for explanations. He tried to get me to go out with him, but I held ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... intention—this is action, this is effectuation in the only shape in which, by a pure experience-philosophy, the whereabouts of it anywhere can be discussed. Here is creation in its first intention, here is causality at work.[1] To treat this offhand as the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... tale's publication had no existence,—the very name having been taken some years after. This is another instance of the literary perils to which imaginative authors may be subject; for litera scripta manet, especially if in printer's ink, and, for aught I know, that offhand word might be held a continuous libel. For all else, by way of notice, the stories speak for themselves; as, Covetousness was the text for "The Crock of Gold," while Concealment and False Witness are severally the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... symphony, the Oberon Overture and a Mozart concerto. These performances were interesting; a personality like his is so curious that it is quite amusing to find it coming out in the works he conducts. But how Mozart's features took on an offhand and impatient air; and how the rhythms were accentuated at the expense of the melodic grace. In this case, however, Strauss was dealing with a concerto, where a certain liberty of interpretation is allowed. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... "Offhand," returned Marsh, "I would say, that somebody has been keeping a secret record. That person sat at this desk making additional notes. In a moment of forgetfulness, or perhaps the necessity of hasty concealment, the notebook was placed under this sheet and ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... Bird, at all events. Offhand I would say that a huge cavern had been washed in the earth and the ground ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... one to consider possible ramifications of every great enterprise. Rhodes wanted simply to sweep away all obstacles without giving the slightest thought to the consequences likely to follow on so offhand a manner of getting rid ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... the deep structures, and when it is so moved it is not tender or sore. Any little lump which ulcerates located on the genitals must be regarded with suspicion. Boys and men should not be satisfied with any offhand statement that, "it is nothing." It may be a chancre, and it may be exceedingly serious if not ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... the moment. For though Sally, as we have seen, had taken him into her confidence the day after her mother's wedding—and, indeed, had talked over the matter many times with him since—the actual truth was far too strange to suggest itself offhand, as it would have been doing had the doctor connected the fact that Sally's mother went out to India to be married with this meeting of two lovers at a simmering railway-station, name not known. The idea of the impossible per se is probably the one a finite intelligence most readily admits, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... my way down the stream, little elated at my solution of what at first had seemed a mystery, for I felt that Nick would have told me offhand all ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... inadequacy fully to match it of the peculiar systems that he knows. They don't just cover HIS world. One will be too dapper, another too pedantic, a third too much of a job-lot of opinions, a fourth too morbid, and a fifth too artificial, or what not. At any rate he and we know offhand that such philosophies are out of plumb and out of key and out of 'whack,' and have no business to speak up in the universe's name. Plato, Locke, Spinoza, Mill, Caird, Hegel—I prudently avoid names nearer home!—I am sure that ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... him. "I dunno 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried. "Every canyon 's got a trail that runs up a ways, and there's canyons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter out, like." And he added with heavy sarcasm, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... in reply to an attack made in the Guardian newspaper on May 20, because it represents in the main the position occupied by some members of an existing School. I do not linger over an offhand stricture upon my 'adhesion to the extravagant claim of a second-century origin for the Peshitto,' because I am content with the companionship of some of the very first Syriac scholars, and with the teaching given in an unanswered article in the Church Quarterly ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... asked me a question about her work which I could not answer offhand, I secretly consulted a standard cook-book, and later gave her the desired information airily. I taught her to cook many of the things which I could cook well, and imbued her with a sort of sneaking respect for my knowledge. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... to hasty legislation, unless the House of Lords should be able to interpose and procure the further consideration of questions of vital importance which it would be dangerous to attempt to settle offhand (S631). ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... turned to some good work. If I do not return, it will rest on your conscience that before you make your confession, you shall see it well placed for a charity. You'll have to find the charity, I can't say what it should be offhand now, but come with me. I must tell some man living my secret, and you're the only one. Besides—I trust you. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... James nodded in offhand fashion as he took off his overcoat. "Hello, Jeff! Thought I'd look you up. Got settled in your diggings, eh?" Before his host could answer he rattled on: "Just ran in for a moment. Had the devil of a time to find you. What's the object in ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... constitutional party; to-day it again stands for internationalism in the more advanced countries of Europe, but are we justified as yet in calling this more than a phase in the development of democratic doctrine? It is a very difficult question, which it would be presumptuous to try to answer offhand; all we have tried to show here is that, on the whole, the assumption as to the peaceful tendencies of a democratic foreign policy is a doubtful one, on which we must to ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... for the beef-shoot was forty yards "ef ye shot from a chunk." Twenty-seven yards, or about two-thirds the distance, if the shot was offhand. "A chunk" was any rest for the rifle—a bowed limb cut from a tree, the fork of a limb driven firmly into the ground, a part of a log—anything that was the height to give the needed low level to the rifle-barrel when the ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... was swarming with old women. And, after all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of course, he couldn't undertake to say—offhand—whether she was or wasn't any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into in ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... moment when Mr. Prohack ought to have been resuming his ill-remunerated financial toil for the nation at the Treasury, Bishop suggested in his offhand murmuring style that they might pay a visit to the City solicitor who was acting in England for him and the Angmering estate. Mr. Prohack opposingly suggested that national duty called ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... is also the most beautiful," he replied. "Yes, I can name her offhand. She has all the finesse of her sex, together with the reasoning mind; she is surpassingly good to look at, and knows how to use her looks to obtain her end; as the occasion demands, she can be as cold as steel or warm as a ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... pretty officious! Never saw you until two or three weeks ago," he muttered. "Not accustomed to being treated in that offhand manner. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... could be more mistaken than that which induces people to believe a small book the easiest to write. Easy reading is hard writing; and a thoroughly good small book stands for so much more than the mere process of putting it on paper, that its value is not at all to be judged by its bulk. The offhand word of a man full of knowledge is worth a great deal more than the carefully prepared utterance of a person who having spoken once has nothing more to say. In our introduction to this work, therefore, we propose to reverse the common process of ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... wrote some lines, which I enclose to you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic merit; and Miss Nimmo tells me that you are not only a critic but a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerable offhand jeu d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo or you, if they were worth house-room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... standing of practically any bill taken by a broker into a bank, for sale, can be passed upon instantly. New firms come into existence, of course, and have to be fully investigated, but the experienced manager of a foreign department can tell almost offhand whether he wants a bill of any given name ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... or offhand—Bonaparte never admitted any one to such secrets—instead of the proclamation he had dictated to Bourrienne two days earlier, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... like to answer such a question positively, offhand, but I don't, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition of ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Sun of the tropics is not to be claimed offhand. The imperious luminary does not grant his letters-patent to all. Very few does he permit to wanton in his presence without exacting probation. He is a rare respecter of persons. Though there are faces, like King Henry V.'s, which ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Bonbright felt curiously calm, curiously cold, curiously detached from the scene. He regarded the other man.... This man was his father. His FATHER! The laws of life and of humanity demanded that he regard this man with veneration. Yet, offhand, without investigation, this man could jump to a vile conclusion regarding him. Not only that, but could accuse him, not of guilt, but of failing to conceal guilt!... Respectability! He knew he was watching a manifestation of the family tradition. It was wrong to commit an unworthy act, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... are best? Not which are the most intriguing, or cause the most hilarity, but which really and truly are the most useful for their purpose—that of conveying food to one's mouth in a convenient and graceful manner. Don't condemn Ann offhand. If I were to ask you this question, what ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... reason. In the darkness of the middle ages, when the Romish Church impregnated religion with the crudest superstitions, going so far as to forbid its adherents to read the Bible, and when the greatest philosopher representatives of the Church, like Albertus Magnus, would have rejected offhand, as a childish fancy or, indeed, as an heretical chimera, any attempt to rescue the lower classes of the people from their wretched state of spiritual servitude—in a time like this, the truly majestic spectacle is presented of a philosophy declaring war on superstition, and setting ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... for her, where she might wait while he went on alone to the house, and presently returned with both the good people of the farm. They were more offhand and less deferential than were her own people, but were full of kindliness. They were middle-aged folk, most neatly clad, and with a grave, thoughtful look about them, as if life were a much heavier charge to them than ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... French being Netherlandish. The next, as a result of immediate intercourse, Italian. Then German, Spanish, and the rest, as intercourse gave opportunity. It is not always an easy matter to say offhand whether a MS. is French or Flemish. In the earlier days it is not easy to say whether it be French or English, or even whether French or Italian. But ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... me offhand, 'Does the male hummer help the female feed the young?' I am quite sure I should have answered, 'Of course he does.' As the case now stands, however, I am inclined to believe ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... laid his hand on Gilbert's shoulder and whispered to him in a pleasant, offhand way, "Get through and come in the office, I ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... find that we are of some account in the world,' says Mr Desmond, in his offhand Irish way; 'but if you please, Miss O'Regan, we are as hungry as hounds, and as thirsty as hippopotami, and I'm sure you'll say a good word to get us something to ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... New York down East," he said in an offhand manner, as if, after all, a man might meet a New Yorker and still not ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... the singing summer birds easily espied amongst the young leaves and sprouting brushwood; the long days and warm nights of June, when the wild rose is a beauty to be admired, and the distant masses of elder have a fine foamy appearance. These extracts settled Belinda offhand, and she and Lamia laid their heads together and read the book faithfully. They are good girls, spite of the names selected for them by a fanciful parent, and if they are not proud of those names, and prefer being called by their intimates Blind (with a short "i") and Lammy, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... wasn't botherin' me," was the offhand answer. "I was on'y wonderin' where you would find a ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... a trifle disappointed at this offhand response to her more earnest speech, but she only smiled gaily, and turned ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... pearl-shell fish-hooks? To this question, those who maintain that no handiwork of man exists which does not borrow from nature, or from something precedent to itself, may find a satisfactory answer offhand. As it weathers on the beach, the basal valve of the commonest of the oysters, of these waters occasionally assumes a crude crescent. Indeed, several of these fragments have at odd times attracted attention, for they ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... of influenza, consequent on the vile weather, which had woefully reduced the hospital staff. She seemed to be feverish and ill at ease, and tried to cover the symptoms by a reversion to her old offhand manner. As I was so seldom alone with her I could find scant opportunity for intimate conversation. I thought that she might have regretted the frank exposition of her feelings regarding Leonard Boyce. But she showed no sign of it. She spoke in ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... the ground, going about amongst his guests, and showing a friendly offhand courtesy which prejudiced every one in his favour. Lady Florimel soon joined him, and a certain frank way she inherited from her father, joined to the great beauty her mother had given her, straightway ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... pater,' said Mr. Robert—he always calls his father pater, ye know—'I reelly can't arrange matters in that offhand way. You must give me time.' 'Not another minute,' said Mr. Fenley. 'Oh, dash it all,' said Mr. Robert, 'you're enough to drive a fellow crazy. At times I almost forget that I'm your son. Some fellows would be tempted to blow their brains out, an' ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... frontiersmen having caught the practice of giving sobriquets from the Indians, the appellation of Hurry was far oftener applied to him than his proper designation, and not unfrequently he was termed Hurry Skurry, a nickname he had obtained from a dashing, reckless offhand manner, and a physical restlessness that kept him so constantly on the move, as to cause him to be known along the whole line of scattered habitations that lay between the province and the Canadas. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Palmerston called on Lord John. He admitted that he had done wrong—that he ought to have consulted him, and have made him privy to his answer, but that he had attached so little importance to the proposal, and had considered it so totally out of the question, that he had replied offhand. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... "Wouldn't want to say offhand. We'd have to figure that. That's another reason for filling the boat up, though. The more we have the less everyone's share of ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... course you don't get me." She went to the mirror and patted her hair, then curled on the bed, with an offhand "Won't you sit down?" and smoked elaborately, blowing the blue tendrils toward the ceiling as she continued: "Of course you don't get it. You're a nice sensible clerk who've had enough real work to do to keep you from being afraid that other people will think you're commonplace. You don't have to ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... commanded, but he could not move her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities—Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remark—flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any unwatchful ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... they were no longer fighting units, and when the motives of conquest and defence were no longer in operation, is a question on which I should not like to dogmatize either way. Certainly we have no right to assume offhand that the unifying process which has given the nations the mass cohesion and efficiency they require for holding their own against enemy States would still remain in full power when there were no longer any enemy ...
— Progress and History • Various
... in an offhand way, "that the Germans have taken the lead in historical inquiries, and they laugh at results which are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have made good roads. When I was with Mr. Casaubon I saw that he deafened himself in that direction: it was almost against his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... locality. Thus in wounds of different parts of the hairy scalp, so little variation exists in the relative density and structure of the skin, that, in spite of the want of external support at the aperture of exit, it is often difficult to discriminate offhand the two apertures, if neither bone nor brain debris occupies ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... as I kin, exactly, offhand," he replied, "there bein' so many of them from time to time. He was always doin' things one way and another. He give to everybody around here that asked him, and to a good many that didn't. I remember once"—and a smile gave ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... article he buys it at the price of the day, and not at what the price of it may become. There is no doubt that would be a more satisfactory way of dealing if it could be done but I don't see how it could be adopted, because no curer could offer to buy fish offhand at a price that ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... wavering expressively on the threshold as if in rebuke of such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps sounded down the passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, crossed the hall, and went to the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered in her turn, disliking to disturb her husband, yet anxious that he should ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... functions, and it's a lot of different things. It's one thing from the point of view of the regiment, and another from that of the War Office. It's one thing on the official side, and another on the military, and another on the social. You can't decide anything about it in an abstract, offhand way. Rupert Ashley might be a capital officer, and every one might say he'd done the honorable thing in standing by Olivia; and yet he'd find it impossible to go on as colonel of the Rangers when his father-in-law ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... statue committee. Mrs. Frostwinch says Mr. Calvin's the man who has most influence in the committee, and it occurred to me that it would be a good thing if you'd put Mrs. Fenton up to taking my part with Calvin. You see," he continued, in an offhand manner, "artists don't get any show nowadays unless they keep their eyes open, and I mean to be wide awake. I'm ready to do a good turn, too, for anybody that helps me. John told me the other day that you and he had had a row, and if you can do me a good turn in this, I may be ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... room with a proprietary air. He threw in the casual "Lola" as if he owned her. Dale is the most delightful specimen of the modern youth of my acquaintance. But even Dale, with all his frank charm of manner, has the modern youth's offhand way with women. I often wonder how women abide it. But they do, more shame to them, and suffer more than they realise by their indulgence. When next I meet Maisie Ellerton I will read her a wholesome lecture, for her soul's ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Hunsicker, one of last season's debutantes. Given to tennis and all outdoor sports generally. Offhand but stanch. It was she who gave a woman's care to Mrs. Taylor when the latter fainted ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... was an old lady who had difficulty in walking," the seine-maker went on in the same offhand manner, "and maybe she stumbled and fell when Glory ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... reply. In his heart he blamed Rhodes that the prisoner had not been let escape during the absence of the girl, and also resented the offhand manner of the young American concerning the duty ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... consider," said Monica with a smile, "but one can't do these things offhand—that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy of you not to go there—she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's a pretty ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... going to be very systematic about it. In this note-book I am making a list of all the nice Mount Markers. I couldn't think of any myself right offhand, so I had to resort to the directory. Now I shall go through the list and grade them. Some are black-marked right at the start. Those that sound reasonable, I shall try out. The one that makes good, I shall marry. I've got ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... had seen several of the men snip the head from a rattlesnake with a single offhand shot—yes, they all carried their weapons easily and wontedly. But the target of an immobile can lacked in stimulation to concord ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... shore Mr. Bransome, for that was the new man's name, rapidly recovered his presence of mind and manner, and, by way of covering his past confusion, remarked that he supposed the surf was seldom so bad as it then was. I replied in an offhand way, meaning to make fun of him, that what he had passed through was nothing, and appealed to the patrao to confirm what I had said. That negro, seeing the joke, grinned all over his black face; and Mr. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... you," said he, in rather an offhand way, "I would either forgive this man the sin into which his love has betrayed him, or I would try to get a divorce. This would cost money: but, if you don't mind expense, I think I could ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... use of haggling over the matter, and beating so long about the bush? One should know offhand the long ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... one day back in April, as I'm drivin' home from the station with Sadie, who should step to the curb and hold me up but Mr. Bayne. Does it offhand, friendly, mind you. Course I stops sudden. Sadie bows and smiles. I lifts my lid. Mr. Bayne holds his square-topped derby against his white shirt front. We shakes hands cordial. And I'm most gaspin' for ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... anything in this world from which it would be desirable to see men delivered, it is from a certain small, cheap wisdom which expresses itself in general verdicts on all humanity, and enables the fribbler or dolt who can not see beyond his nose to give an offhand summary of the infinite. There is 'an aping of the devil' in this flippant assumption of our immutability, which strangely combines the pitiful and painful. Oh! if the ne plus ultra which antique Ignorance complacently inscribes on the gates of its ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a comment in the Commonplace Book of a Connecticut girl. Lucy Sheldon lived in Litchfield, a thriving town in eighteen hundred, and did much reading for a child in those days. Upon "Sir Charles Grandison" she confided to her book this offhand note: "Read in little Grandison, which shows that, virtue always meets its reward and vice is punished." The item is very suggestive of Goldsmith's success in producing an abridgment that left the moral where ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... embarrassing not to be able to remember offhand how large your family is, but mine seems to vary from day to day, like the stock market. I should like to keep it at about par. When a woman has more than a hundred children, she can't give them the individual ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... accepted as the future creed of a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without a precedent was produced offhand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of this obscure democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the face of a free people and pronounce the following fine ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... for King Valoroso roared out 'POOH, stuff!' in a terrible voice. 'We will have no more of this shilly-shallying! Call the Archbishop, and let the Prince and Princess be married offhand!' ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jimmy! The Judge and me are only going to rastle with the sperrit of that gay young galoot, when he drops down for his girl—and exhort him pow'ful! Ef he allows he's convicted of sin and will find the Lord, we'll marry him and the gal offhand at the next station, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. We're goin' to have this yer elopement done on the square—and ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... cases came up, such as disputes as to debts, failure to perform contracts of sale or purchase, false measurements, theft, assault, defamation, and misdemeanors of all kinds. Sometimes the court decided offhand, sometimes compurgation was allowed immediately or on the next day, sometimes juries were formed and gave decisions. The law which the court of pie-powder administered was often referred to as the "law merchant," a somewhat less ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... must be very rich," I said. "I wonder," I asked, "if I could sell him an automobile?" The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... was something in the quiet man that had effectually prevented any development of roughness in Norah. Boyish and offhand to a certain extent, the solid foundation of womanliness in her nature was never far below the surface. She was perfectly aware that while Daddy wanted a mate he also wanted a daughter; and there was never any real danger ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... they got to the station, he dared not even propose to her the extra comfort of first class, lest he should intensify the alarm he perfectly well divined under her offhand, flighty manner. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and made careful research, and then presented the lecture just once—never delivered it again. I put too much work on it. But this had no work on it—thrown together perfectly at random, spoken offhand without any special preparation, and it succeeds when the thing we study, work over, adjust to a plan, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... his impatience until breakfast-time, then strolled down to the bunk house, wearing the boots. Several of the men were there, just finishing the meal, and rolling their after-breakfast cigarettes. Whitey sat down, sort of offhand and careless-like, and to his pained surprise, no one noticed the boots. Then he crossed his legs and leaned back, with his hands clasped behind his head—and Buck ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... his solitary way along some watercourse, attracts little attention apart from that aroused by his clumsy, grotesque shape; yet few who look upon him are able to give offhand even a bare half-dozen facts about the humble creature. Could they give any information at all, it would probably be limited to two or three usages to which his body is put—such as ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the heels, of course. I shall have to compare the marks that I have found here with those I have collected, following out the method of the immortal Bertillon. Every make of shoes has its own peculiarities, both in the number and the arrangement of the nails. Offhand, however, I should say that these shoes were American-made—though that, of course, does not necessarily mean that an American wore them. I may even be able to determine which of a number of individual pairs of shoes made the marks. I cannot tell that ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... "Maybe. But who's going to pay for all this. By the time the circle was a thousand light-years in diameter there would be ten thousand ships and a million clerks working on recapturing one escaped prisoner. Another thing; I don't know offhand what he's been sentenced for, but I'll wager there are ten thousand planets on which his crime would not be a crime. Do you think we could ever extradite him from such a planet? And even if by some incredible stroke ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... will be no such thing as separation. We shall draw from our little box a small white packet, and, though Nostradamus may offer us every secret of magician or alchemist in exchange for it, we shall refuse offhand. How shall he lure us with a shadow, a ghostly visitant, savoring of the pit and summoned only by the most marrow-freezing incantations? Here in our hand is a mysterious, more potent charm, bringing us the warm, human personality of the man. We are not spiritualists, yet here sealed in the white ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... his cacoethes scribendi, after those few blank days at Becket, Felix saw nothing amiss with his young daughter. The great observer was not observant of things that other people observed. Neither he nor Flora, occupied with matters of more spiritual importance, could tell, offhand, for example, on which hand a wedding-ring was worn. They had talked enough of Becket and the Tods to produce the impression on Flora's mind that one day or another two young people would arrive in her house ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Apologists solved almost offhand, namely, the task of showing that Christianity was the perfect and certain philosophy, because it rested on revelation, and that it was the highest scientific knowledge of God and the world, was to be rendered ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... vision of the soul, the greater is the task and the more gigantic the creative power which such a task may develop. It has been said that, in this scene, Goethe revealed leanings towards Catholicism. I do not pretend to deny it offhand, but I must insist on these leanings being understood in the sense of my premises. Goethe took from tradition those elements which were able to materialise his spiritual life and gave them a new interpretation. We are justified in believing that he accepted nothing but what was conformable ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... wincing there was the surprise of a man who in a moment of expansion has made a sacred confidence only to find it crop up lightly in subsequent conversation. He was obliged to employ some self-control in order to say, with a manner sufficiently offhand, "What happened?" ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... hammer because it jarred his fingers, argues sloth, not the "artistic temperament." Oh, mon ami, that "artistic temperament." "Is this all? Up again!" If you are discouraged I can only suggest a course of reading in the lives of dramatists. I recall a few offhand—Lessing, Moliere, Scribe, Wagner, Ibsen, these will suffice. When did they stop and fold their hands in despair? As for the Elizabethan and Restoration playwrights, their facility of invention, their ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous figure which had lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth. He was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat offhand in his manners, giving the impression that he had seen life in social strata on some far lower horizon than the ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... am going to stay over and didn't fancy eating my Christmas dinner alone I thought perhaps the girls who had no particular plans for the day would like to join me at either Martell's or Vinton's. Then I'll explain about the price of the dinner, etc., all in a perfectly offhand manner, and let them do the rest. There are anywhere from one to two hundred girls who live at the various rooming and boarding houses who will be glad to come. Many of them have never been inside either Vinton's or Martell's. You would hardly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... me should have given me a hint of the way her heart was tending, even at that early time, but Hamilton was so much more likely to attract a woman than I, and his manner was so much more offhand and dashing than mine that I thought it impossible for such a girl as Betty to think twice of me while she might have been thinking of him. But I was wrong, as will unfold later; wrong, greatly to ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... we came up toward the gloomy corner, there was a shout of bantering laughter from those whom, offhand, I should have called Aunt Lou, Cousin Becky, Brother Bob, and Milly Snagg, and we saw that the automaton had just dispatched his opponent—the fifth member of the party, a well-bronzed countryman, with a shaved neck ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Ask him any questions you like. I've perfect confidence in him, and I stand by any statement of his we print. I don't think people realize how careful we are on financial matters—they seem to think that a popular paper will print any sort of canard offhand." ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... of course. In an offhand manner, to his next neighbor. It went round the table, and a sort of icy silence, after that, greeted his small sallies. He never knew what the trouble was, but his ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to go further than this and to give offhand a definition of humor, or of that elusive quality, a sense of humor, he might find himself confronted with a difficulty. Yet certain things about it would be patent at the outset: Women haven't it; Englishmen haven't it; it is the chiefest of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... there was no need. If there were any of the directors who did not borrow money on the stock, Mr. Hurd could not think of them offhand. Once more he walked to the window, and this time he looked long and thoughtfully out over the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... was one of them. Indeed, the faculty for organization seems innate in the American people, so that when it became necessary to raise and equip so large a body of men at a few weeks' notice, the task was undertaken offhand by lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, and schoolmasters, without a minute's hesitation, and was performed on the whole with ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... in a guilty way, but he was, as you might say, flummoxed. "Now," I said to him, "where did you get it—that's the point?" He took his time to answer, and then he said: "Well, Mr Gilman," he said, "you know me; I am an honourable man. I can't tell you offhand, but I am above the board." He's foreign, you know, in his expressions. "Yes," I said, "that's all very well," I said, "but here I've got a stolen note and you've got the value for it. Now I tell you," I said, "what I'm going to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... by two ladies, he again appeared. Between two violent blushes, and with an air which would have been light and offhand if it could, Mr. Ransome presented to his friend, the foreman, his mother—and Miss Usher. And as if the foreman had not sufficiently divined her, Miss Usher's averted shoulders, burning cheeks, and lowered eyelids made it impossible for him to forget that she was the Lady whose approval ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... round the bushes came the tall form of Alexander Roddice, striding romantically like a Meredith hero who remembers Disraeli. He was cordial with everybody, he was at once a host, with an easy, offhand hospitality that he had learned for Hermione's friends. He had just come down from London, from the House. At once the atmosphere of the House of Commons made itself felt over the lawn: the Home ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... "Answer that offhand! There is a reporter down-stairs for the Sunday Gorgon, who wants five hundred words from you which he is prepared to take down in shorthand. ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... to ask the loan of a pound or two of my own money off them. And there have been times, in the pre-1914 past, when I have felt it would be better to go without money than to have the stuff thrown at me, shovelled at me in that contemptuous offhand manner. I now repaired in person to the premises of Box and Co., with their handsome marble facade and their costly mahogany fittings, and had a word with Mr. Box himself. A little artful flattery, a few simple lies and just a touch of ginger in the matter of professional competition, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... testifies to ample. Thar's my old dad! I can see him yet,' an' yere Enright closes his eyes some ecstatic. 'He was a shore man. He stood a hundred-foot without a knot or limb; could wrastle or run or jump, an' was good to cut a 4-bit piece at one hundred yards, offhand, with his old 8-squar' rifle. He never shoots squirrels, my father don't; he barks 'em. An' for to see the skin cracked, or so much as a drop of blood on one of 'em, when he picks it up, would have mortified the ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... J. George Watts, and the brother-in-law each took a cigar with that careless yet deferential manner which always distinguishes the treatee from the treator; and then the box was protruded in an offhand way toward Harry Covare, the personal clerk of the Registrar; but this young man declined, saying that he preferred cigarettes, a package of which he drew from his pocket. He had very often seen that cigar-box with a Havana brand, which ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Perhaps the best offhand description of Washington in these later days is that given by an English actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving near Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man and a woman was upset. Bernard dismounted to give help, and presently ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... the high and low places; he seldom made mistakes in judging men offhand, an art acquired only after many initial blunders. This man Breitmann was no sham; he was a scholar, a gentleman, a fine linguist, versed in politics and war. Well, the little mystery would be brushed aside in the morning. Breitmann would certainly ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... over to-day when Peter was bolting some new wire stuts on the windmill tower and I was busy dry-picking two polygamous old roosters which Whinnie had beheaded for me. My husband attempted an offhand and happy-go-lucky air which, I very soon saw, was merely a mask to hide his embarrassment. He even flushed up to the ears when little Dinkie drew back for a moment or two, as any child might who didn't recognize his own father, though he later solicitously tiptoed to the sleeping-porch ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... in a modest, offhand way. "I made it out of hollow bamboo reeds connected with a spring. And now I'm making one for the King. He saw this and had a lot of bamboo sticks put up all over the town, without any underground ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... is ready, and comes slowly down the stairs, giving some very audible and offhand orders in the hall respecting his particular belongings. A close observer might notice that he speaks and laughs a little too readily. The little, pale woman, sitting motionless in the room, hears him, and in her heart of hearts hears ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... him. Now, a true lover of Shakespeare never calls him the bard of Avon, or a bard of anything; and he reads him o' nights and ponders over him o' days while he is walking, or smoking, or at night again while he is waking in his bed. If he is too poor to buy a copy offhand, he saves up his pennies till he can get one, and he does not trouble himself about the commentators or the mulberry tree. He would not give two pence to sit in a chair made of it; for he knows that he could not tell it from any other chair, and that it would not help him to ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... embarrassing. One day she announced she wanted me to marry one of her brothers-in-law. "I got two nice ones and we'll go out some Sunday afternoon and you can have your pick. One's a piano tuner; the other's a detective." I thought offhand the piano tuner sounded a bit more domestic. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... men who met Steve in the bank knew vaguely that some sort of invention was being perfected, but did not know what it was. They spoke in an offhand way of the matter to their friends and that increased the general curiosity. Every one tried to guess what was up. When Steve was not about, John Clark and young Gordon Hart pretended to know everything but gave the impression of men sworn to secrecy. The fact that Steve told them nothing seemed ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... from Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays Only or a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various |
