"Underhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up for the defect of her vision by the keenness of her observation. She saw enough to cause her considerable annoyance, though it suggested nothing inconsistent with rectitude on the part of the boy, further than that there was something underhand going on. One supposition after another arose in the old lady's brain, and one after another was dismissed as improbable. First, she tried to persuade herself that he wanted to take the provisions to school with him, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... being now a wedded man, has, as is customary in such case, a special AMT (Government District) set apart for his support; the "Amt of Ruppin," where his business lies. What the exact revenues of Ruppin are, is not communicated; but we can justly fear they were far too frugal,—and excused the underhand borrowing, which is evident enough as a painful shadow in the Prince's life henceforth. He does not seem to have been wasteful; but he borrows all round, under sevenfold secrecy, from benevolent Courts, from Austria, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... services had been absolutely employed on behalf of his Lordship, he almost regretted the encouragement he had given to Nickem. In the first place he might want Nickem. And then he felt that in his present position he ought not to be a party to anything underhand. But Nickem was gone, and he was obliged to console himself by thinking that Nickem was at any rate employing his intellect on the right side. When he left his house with Larry Twentyman he had told his wife nothing about Lord Rufford. Up to this ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... me, even he shall live by me," John vi. 57. As parents that retain affection to their children, albeit they have committed great injuries, for which they are driven out of their houses, yet they will, as it were, underhand bestow upon them, and exercise that same love in a covered way, by a third person, by giving to them, to impart to their children. Notwithstanding this halts too much, for our Father dissembles not his love, but proclaims it in sending his Son, not doth Christ hide it, but declares, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover, he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor is he at all underhand—he never makes ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... house he is building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in obligations. It may take him two or three years to come even on it; but it is a prepossession with him. Now can't you see that if we go to him and tell him this sordid, underhand, unmanly tale, how his fine nature is going to be hurt, how his big heart is going to be wrung, how his home-house that he is building with such eager watchfulness will be a weighty Old Man of the Sea clinging to ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... face, and then Jim would lounge up and say unhappily, "Now—come—really—what's the use—you must try to eat a bit," or give some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius would keep on slinking through the doorways, across the verandah and back again, as mute as a fish, and with malevolent, mistrustful, underhand glances. "I can stop his game," Jim said to her once. "Just say the word." And do you know what she answered? She said—Jim told me impressively—that if she had not been sure he was intensely wretched himself, she would have ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... wonderful young lady, so handsome and high-spirited. But if she didn't always obey, she never did anything mean or underhand. Everybody loved her; and your poor mother was that took up with her that when my master proposed that they should marry, it was a good while before she'd consent—and all because she didn't want to part with Miss Sophy. She said that if Miss Sophy ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... exposed at every ford and cross road were such as are inseparable from a campaign, and breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there was nothing secret or underhand in my business. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the Bay of Islands to claim the restitution of their lands. Nothing but their strong affection and loyalty towards "Te Wiremu" could have enabled them to resist this appeal to their cupidity. But underhand dealing was the one thing that Williams could not bear, and he would hold no more communication with Governor Grey on the subject. His sons were of age: let them carry on ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... long enough in organized baseball to know that there are many twists and turns to it, and that many "deals" are carried on in what might be considered an underhand manner. Often, when rival organizations in the baseball world are at war, the various managers, and scouts, go to great lengths, and secretly, to get some player ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... much about things that were wicked. Either they were brave things to do and you did them if you wanted to, or they were underhand, hideous things and then you didn't want to do them. But suddenly Esther seemed to her something floating, tossed and driven to be caught up and saved from being swamped by what seas she knew not. Jeff walked over to the dark figure by the truck. Whether he had expected it to be Esther he ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... had tried to persuade Mme. Gibon to sell up her son-in-law by claiming from him the unpaid purchase-money for her husband's shop. He represented Fenayrou as an idle gambler, and hinted that he would find her a new purchaser. Such an underhand proceeding was likely to provoke resentment if it should come to the ears of Fenayrou. During the two years that elapsed between his departure from Fenayrou's house and his murder, Aubert had prospered in his shop on the Boulevard Malesherbes, whilst the fortunes ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... that a strange man had been noticed hanging suspiciously about the grounds; that the housemaid was so ugly a woman as to render it next to a certainty that he had some underhand purpose to serve in making himself agreeable to her; and that he has not as yet been seen again in the neighborhood since the day of her dismissal. So much for the one servant who has been turned out at Thorpe Ambrose. I can only hope there ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... occurred to her independently, but Diva was loath to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's invention by some odious, underhand piece of spying. What that might be must be investigated (and probably determined) later, but at present the business of Janet's roses eclipsed every ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... you will try to square the account in some sneaking manner. Well, I warn you now and here that it will not be healthy if you try any dirty tricks on me. If anything underhand happens to me, I'll know who was the originator of it, and I'll settle with you. That ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... faith in me luck. I won—I almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein' sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have an equal chance with me—else ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... make out; it is something dreadfully bad, something mean and underhand, and not redeemed by audacity, as his mother's misdemeanors may have been. If he has never committed murder, he has at least turned his back and looked the other way while some one ...
— The American • Henry James
... don't think that more than one word came out. And even for that one, judging by the temperature of my face, I had blushed as if for a bad action. Assuming a detached tone, I wondered how on earth he had managed to spot the little underhand game that had been ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... government on their part undertook to support the French king with a force equal in strength to that furnished by the Provinces, i.e. 4000 men, but at the same time a secret treaty was drawn up by which Henry agreed to a reduction of the English troops by one-half. This piece of underhand work was in due time discovered by the States, who saw that their allies were not to be trusted and that they must be on the watch lest their interests should be sacrificed to the selfish policy of France. The issue showed that Henry IV was in fact ready ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... contempt as a moral piston, a constant comparison of her own poetic, comfortable home with the hotel du Guenic. All deserted wives who abandon themselves in despair, neglect also their surroundings, so discouraged are they. On this, Madame de Rochefide counted, and presently began an underhand attack on the luxury of the faubourg Saint-Germain, which ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... interpreters, I had them—for there were our Harry and Moll catching at every gibe as fast as my brain could hatch it, and rendering it into French as best thy might, carping and quibbling the while underhand at one another's renderings, and the Emperor sitting by in his black velvet, smiling about as much as a felon at the hangman's jests. All his poor fools moreover, and the King's own, ready to gnaw their baubles for envy! That was the only sport ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... little blow. But then you expect her to be always so. You take it as part of her character, as a ship, just as you take account of a man's peculiarities of temper when you deal with him. But with her you couldn't. She was unaccountable. If she wasn't mad, then she was the most evil-minded, underhand, savage brute that ever went afloat. I've seen her run in a heavy gale beautifully for two days, and on the third broach to twice in the same afternoon. The first time she flung the helmsman clean over the wheel, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile." Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not with certainty; and indeed, so strange is the Professor, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... was to give Richard Morriston a hint of what was on foot, if not a stronger and more explicit statement. For that Morriston could be privy to the correspondence between his sister and Henshaw was quite unlikely. If anything underhand was going on, if Henshaw was holding some threat over the girl or pursuing her with unwelcome attentions her brother, as her natural guardian, should be warned. That seemed to Gifford his manifest duty. And yet he shrank from anything which might ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... bribes. In remote ages, when our country was emerging from a state of semi-barbarism, such things were in common practice. Political chicanery was a name given to various underhand and dishonest maneuvers to gain office and public power. It was frequently the case that the most responsible positions in the Government would be occupied by the basest characters, who used their power only for fraud to enrich themselves and their friends ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... what she was pleased to regard as the stolen packet. It had haunted her while she was at Craigie Muir; it had even horrified her. Her whole nature recoiled against what she considered clandestine and underhand dealings. Nevertheless she could not, she would not, tell. But she had very nearly made up her mind to say something to the girls themselves—to ask Betty why she had taken the packet, and what she had done with it. But even on this course she was ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... the citizens of Mexico, who had before taken possession of part of this commerce, continued in it, availing themselves of certain underhand work and management—by which the citizens of Manila perceived the damage that they were receiving, in that others were enjoying what had been conceded to them. Accordingly, as soon as they received the decree of 593, which was the first decree that granted to them exclusively ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... Should she run half-way down stairs, and just exchange one greeting unrestrainedly? But no; her heart beat so fast as to take away her breath, and that gave her time for recollection: Mrs. Lyddell might not think it proper, it would be meeting him in an underhand way, and that ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Intention rather to discover Beauties and Excellencies in the Writers of my own Time, than to publish any of their Faults and Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from some of my underhand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me so far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor shall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, so long as I keep ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... vulgar girl named Lydia Estabrooks, a Yankee lass, is about to become his bride. She covers herself with chains and ribbons, and her fingers blaze with stones. He has given it out in an underhand way that he has thrown ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... accessible deligate in the opposition and commission said committee of one to put said opposition deligate out of commission by means of social conversation and licker between the present time and the hour of 4 P.M. By so doing victory will perch on our banners, and there can't be no claim of underhand work or fraud from the other side. It'll all be according to the ethics made and purvided ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... is natural for a dunce (I repeat the word), who has been in the habit of writing the most childish nonsense, to break on the world suddenly as a genius, and startle every one with her wonderful thoughts? It stands to reason that some underhand work has been going on; and such being the case, I prefer to hold myself aloof from one who could be guilty of ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... Broad-Cloth. Considering these are only the Fruits of his leisure Hours, I don't know a prettier Fellow, for no Man alive hath a more engaging Presence of Mind upon the Road. Wat Dreary, alias Brown Will, an irregular Dog, who hath an underhand way of disposing of his Goods. I'll try him only for a Sessions or two longer upon his Good-behaviour. Harry Paddington, a poor petty-larceny Rascal, without the least Genius; that Fellow, though he were to live these six Months, will never come to the ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you, that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer's clerk; and he looks, to my mind, rather a mean, underhand sample of that sort of man. According to his own account,—by the bye, I forgot to say that he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand to look at,—according to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... deceived, wit is dearer than thou takest it to be: I tell thee, this libel of Cambridge has much fat and pepper in the nose; it will sell sheerly underhand, when all these books of exhortations and catechisms lie ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... of parts in his train, and then began to form his party. Lord Granville has never come into it., for fear of breaking with the King; and seems now to be patching up again with his old enemies. If Lord Bath has dealt with the Prince, it has been underhand. His ministry has had at the head of it poor Lord Baltimore, a very good-natured, weak, honest man; and Dr. Lee, a civilian, who was of Lord Granville's admiralty, and is still much attached to him. He is a grave man, and a good speaker, but of no very bright ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... danger of being swayed in religious inquiry by our sympathy rather than by our reason. I was in great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness and underhand dealing from the majority. But I have never had any suspicion of my ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... property by having it enacted that sixty years' possession should be regarded as a sufficient proof of ownership. As such an enactment would have upset all Wentworth's plans for a wholesale plantation, he succeeded in resisting such a measure, and partly by threats, partly by underhand dealings with particular individuals he obtained a grant of generous subsidies without any confirmation of the "Graces." In April 1635 Parliament was dissolved, and almost immediately the Lord Deputy made preparations for acting under the commission ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... Lothian, with the air of one who was well acquainted with the subject, "it's not the most cautious that are least suspected o' breakin' the law. Now, I ken a man that not one here would suspect, an' he has been carryin' on the business underhand this many a day. But tak' my word for it, the fox has his eye on him for all that, and it isna long before he'll be dropped on the same ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... part of Poland, Venice and Dalmatia, Salzburg, the Papal Legations, the Republic of Genoa, Piedmont, and Bosnia; and to this list Tuscany and Savoy ought probably to be added. But the charges brought against Thugut of underhand dealings with France, and of the willing abandonment of German interests in return for compensation to Austria in Italy, rest on insufficient ground. Though, like every other politician at Vienna and Berlin, he viewed German affairs not ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... free man on English terra firma. My brother Greg and I were brought up in close association with Riversley. One of the Beauties of Riversley we lost! One was left, and we both tried our luck with her; honourably, in turn, each of us, nothing underhand; above-board, on the quarter-deck, before all the company. I 'll say it of my brother, I can say it of myself. Greg's chances, I need not remark, are superior to mine; he is always in port. If he wins, then I tell him—"God bless ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... enlarged its form. It sold by the thousand. Its weapon of defence was the same as its weapon of offence—pitiless and complete publicity. Measures of reprisal, either direct or underhand, undertaken against him, King published ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... Trojan Club, and Trojans are not men who write to outsiders much. Not on club paper anyway. In fact, the very audacity of the man led me to blame myself for doubting him. He had not behaved just as a gentleman should, but on the other hand he had done nothing underhand. There was a damn-you look about him that made it unbelievable that he was a fraud. Soon after breakfast I set out on my tramp, and, going through Stilton and Huntingdon, made for Cambridge. All the way along I could not help thinking about my boon companion ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... could not expect that at his age. If her mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly great—perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he thought: 'I'm not a villain. I don't want to hurt her; and I don't want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a son! There's nothing for it but divorce—somehow—anyhow—divorce!' Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed slowly along the railings of the Green Park. Mist ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... kind. The important people in the neighbourhood have left us severely alone, whirling past our gates to pay assiduous calls on General Underwood. He is the local hero, and we are the hard-hearted strangers who did Something—nobody knows precisely what—but Something mean, and underhand, and altogether unwomanly about a lease, and so forced the poor dear General to endure draughts and cold rooms, and seriously retarded his progress towards health! It's no use pretending that I am not sorry about it, for I am; but all the same, they have ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... get no sympathy from me, Polatkin. A feller which acts underhand the way you done, trying to make up a Shidduch for Elkan behind my back ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... is strictly applicable!—that all unknown to him the police hold him suspect, and are endeavouring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion——" ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... to say to me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... not social animosity that induced him to slander me. The peasant values wealth far too much to hate the rich man. But I fancy my good corn-thrower there could not understand my tending him without any profit to myself. He was satisfied that there must be some underhand scheme, and he declined to be my dupe. More than one before him, richer or poorer, has acted in similar fashion, if not worse. It did not occur to him that he was lying when he spread those inventions abroad; he merely obeyed a confused command of the ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... herself, and she is a perfect dose to the poor audience. Lumley, the solicitor, manager of these he and she divinities, declares that if they don't behave better he'll shut the theatre at the end of the week. In the mean time, underhand proposals have been made to Adelaide to stop the gap, and sing for a few nights for them—a sort of proposal which does not suit her, which she has scornfully rejected, and departed with her tail over her shoulder, leaving the behind scenes of Her Majesty's Theatre ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... yes, miss: it will be all right. Theres nothing underhand, I assure you. It's a model ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... with insurmountable obstinacy, so that the captain himself, though he never changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to give it all the obstruction he could, particularly in the lengthening of the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size that, though it might serve to carry them to Juan Fernandez, would yet, he hoped, appear incapable of so ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... more than ever, and twisting her head round, "Even you have grown dull!" she cried. "She does, of course, indulge in expectations, but they are actuated by some underhand and paltry notion! She may go on giving way to these ideas, but I, for my part, will only care for Mr. Chia Cheng and Madame Wang. I won't care a rap for any one else. In fact, I'll be nice with such of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... here at half-past. Don't be angry. I've asked him to come—to explain his position clearly to you and mother with regard to me. There's to be nothing underhand—rien de secret! ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... women the gates of all the arts, to say nothing of the crafts. And all the while he not only continued to antagonize woman, proud and eager in her awakened faculties, with stupid interferences, embargoes and underhand thwartings, but he permitted her to struggle and die in the hideous contacts with life from which a small self-imposed tax would have saved her. Some of the most brilliant men the world will ever know have lived, and administered, and passed into history, and ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... once again that unfortunate girl at Cherry Orchard might be suspected of having recourse to this most degrading, most underhand form of crime. And for her sake the matter must not be ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Tom, "I don't want to interfere unless I am convinced that Andy is trying an underhand trick. My plans are missing, and I think he took them. If his machine is made after those plans, it is, obviously, a steal, and I want him ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... the place discreetly and on tiptoe, talking twaddle as she went and bending her head and her eyeglass over various objects with an air of imperfect comprehension that didn't prevent Nick's private recall of the story of her underhand, commercial habits told by Gabriel Nash at the exhibition in Paris the first time her name had fallen on his ear. A queer old woman from whom, if you approached her in the right way, you could buy old pots—it was in this character that she had originally been introduced ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... his victim down relentlessly from place to place. Arden is a miser in business, and a weak, gullible fool at home, alternately raging with jealous suspicion, and fawning with fatuous trustfulness upon the man who is wronging him. Mosbie is a cold-blooded, underhand villain whose pious resolutions and protestations of love could only deceive those blinded by fate, and whose preference for crooked, left-handed methods is in tune with his vile intention of murdering the woman who loves him. Alice, the representative of womankind ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... which any man conversant with public affairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having attempted to save the King by underhand means. Their own consciences told them, with equal justice, that their hands had been dipped in the blood of the most inoffensive and most unfortunate of men. The direct path was here, as usual, the path not only of honor but of safety. The principle on which the Girondists stood ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... secure some informal recognition of his offers of loyalty, and presumed himself authorized to make proposals to others on the King's behalf. They both professed a single-hearted endeavour to settle the King's authority, and each managed by underhand influence, and by lavish promises, to secure some powerful support. Lord Broghill was the abler of the two, and by his profuse devotion "quickly got himself believed." The Chancellor's scorn of such a man is best expressed in his own words. Lord ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... coolly. "This document goes into my safety deposit box. In case of my death, it will be left to responsible parties. When you die, it will be destroyed. I am not a rich man, Mr. Brown, but I shall devote a part of my income to having you watched; watched lest indirectly and by the underhand methods you know so well you again attempt to influence public opinion. After to-morrow, you ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Wharton, how was obedience in such a matter possible? What would you yourself think of a man who in such a position would be obedient? I did not seek her secretly. I did nothing underhand. Before I had once directly asked her for her ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... was just as opposed to all forms of popery, and had been quite sensible of the danger which must arise on the accession of James. He had been active amongst those who were firmly determined to struggle against the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism in England, but he had lent himself to no underhand plots against the King, and, although conscious that there existed an undercurrent of intrigue in favour of the Duke of Monmouth, neither he nor those with whom he was associated had expected Monmouth's landing. It was natural, perhaps, that men like Wildman and Danvers should believe that such ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... her from the first. She was unhappy at home. Her family and friends occupied no recognized station in life: they were mean, underhand people, in every way unworthy of her. It was her first ball—it was the first time she had ever met with a man who had the breeding, the manners and the conversation of a gentleman. Are these excuses for her, which I have ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Ayres, has a commission on that subject. Whether these intrigues extend from Mendoza over the Cordilleras, or not, I have no means to ascertain, but I know that the French Charge d'Affaires here has been endeavouring underhand to induce this Government to give up the fortifications of Monte Video to the State of Buenos Ayres, which can only be with the view of extending the influence of ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... don't know. Perhaps, when I come back, I'll look around for a car. I don't want him driven to doing underhand things." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... certain that the man who bowled me out was a direct descendant of Julius Caesar. He delivered the ball underhand at a rapid rate. It came twisting along, now to the right, now to the left; seemed to disappear beneath the surface of the soil, then suddenly came in sight again, shooting past the block. Eventually they told me it removed the left bail, and struck the wicket-keeper a fearful ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... far as to admit the priest, but no argument could persuade him to leave him alone with the invalid. He was the agent of the family, and it was his duty to see everything that went on. He would have nothing underhand in the matter! ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... Italicos. "The right of voting was not extended to all the Latin people till A.U.C. 664, and the Italian allies did not obtain it till some years afterward." Kritzius. So that at this period, which was twenty years earlier, their influence could only be employed in an underhand way. Compare c.42. ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... permission to hunt deserters, but THIEVES. I didn't help him to ketch the man that deserted from HIM, but the skunk that took MY clothes. For when the Leftenant found the man's old uniform in the bush, he nat'rally kalkilated he must hev got some other duds near by in some underhand way. Don't you see? eh? Why, look, Mag. Darned if you ain't skeered after all! Who'd hev thought it? There now—sit down, dear. Why, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Mankind in the Face: But we have laid our Measures so that by prompting the King to run upon us in all sorts of bare-fac'd Extreams and Violences, we shall bring him to exasperate the whole Nation; then we may underhand foment the breach on this side, raise the Mob upon him, and by acting on both sides seem to suffer a Force in falling in with the ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... paraded before you as wolves and as public enemies—you will find there the same kind of human nature that you find here in college, the same estimation of probity and of fair dealing. If you do mean or underhand things, you will find that they are branded in the same way there as here. You will find that manliness and integrity are the rule and not the exception, and I will venture upon the prediction that when the time comes for you to look back ...
— Morals in Trade and Commerce • Frank B. Anderson
... at all; it is solely built for Germany's needs in relation with that country's rapidly growing trade. The German naval bill was sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament and published ten years ago, and may be had at any large bookseller's. There is nothing surprising, secret, or underhand in it, and every reader may study the whole course mapped out for the development of the German Navy with ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... what I can to shut up all such houses as yours in my parish. I tell you of it, not from the least hope that you will anticipate me by closing, but merely that no one may say I did anything in an underhand fashion." ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... I cannot have such underhand work at this school. Now I want you cadets to do me a favor. I want you to act exactly as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I want you to tell all of the others to keep quiet about this. I want to set a trap, and if possible catch those ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... now, Leone, let me tell you my plans. They are all rather underhand, but we cannot help that; everything is fair in love and war. About twenty miles from here there is a sleepy little village called Oheton. I was there yesterday, and it was there that this plan came to me. Oh, my darling, turn your sweet face to me and let me be quite sure that ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... as what he called dawdling. The only thing that was lacking was that our hero should resist. He knew nothing of his brother's plans. The latter had wisely not initiated him into them, because he knew him too well to expect his support in a matter that he would have rejected as both underhand and disrespectful ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... like that meant an assured success; and the Kolossal offered Jimmy five hundred marks a night, so as to spike the Kaiserin's guns by getting hold of a unique turn and one not easy to replace; a piece of underhand work involving two months' empty houses at the Kaiserin, which, as it was, had only a second-rate troupe by way of "sisters," while at the Kolossal they had Roofers engaged by the year, real ones, the complete dozen, words and music guaranteed. And now the Kolossal would make huge ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... it!) As Samson discovered, Delilah lies, The stigma's stuck on by the cynical wise, And nothing can ever remove it. We'll cast out Delilah and spit on her dead, (That revenge is remarkably human), And pity the victim of underhand tricks So be that it's moral (the sexes don't mix); But, oh, think what the cynical wise would have said If Judas were ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... paper Appears to me no other than a trick Of Illo's own device. These underhand Traders in great men's interests ever use To urge and hurry all things to the extreme. They see the duke at variance with the court, And fondly think to serve him, when they widen The breach irreparably. Trust me, father, The duke ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... on his side. I've nothing whatever against him and don't bear him the least little grudge for not doing me justice. Justice is all I want. However, one feels that he's a gentleman and would never say anything underhand about one. Cartes sur table," Madame Merle subjoined in a moment, "I'm not afraid ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... Prefect, happened to look up as he passed Simon, and the fellow's expression struck him oddly. It was full of intelligence, and of a queer kind of sympathy. He had noticed it before. Simon had made himself useful to him in several underhand ways. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... sustained a severe shock. That Lady Newhaven, "that jolly little woman," the fond mother of those two "jolly little chaps," should have been guilty of an underhand trick, was astonishing ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... question; and secondly, to the effect produced by the correspondence between the Governor-General and Sir James Outram.[35] And here Lord Derby may perhaps be allowed the opportunity of removing a misconception from your Majesty's mind, as to any secret intelligence or underhand intrigue between Lord Ellenborough and Sir James Outram, to the detriment of Lord Canning. Lord Derby is in the position to know that if there is one person in the world to whom Lord Ellenborough has ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... ward is very dear to me; she is dearer to me than any woman I know. I am here in a most dreadful dilemma. On the one hand there is this horrible underhand business, with all its publicity; and on the other there is her position—a beautiful woman, fond of gaiety, living alone in this London, where every man's instincts and every woman's tongue look upon her as fair ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gallivats, which were moored altogether close in under the walls of the fortress. It was not difficult for me to guess that this bold exploit was the work of Colonel Clive, who had thus placed himself between his treacherous allies and the enemy, effectually putting a stop to all underhand communications between them. And I learned afterwards that but for this determined action on his part, the fortress would have been delivered up to Ramagee Punt that very morning, and the English excluded from all share ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... several coats of linseed oil and thoroughly dried. This will keep the wood from absorbing water and becoming heavy. The last two boomerangs are thrown in a similar way to the first one, except that one of the pieces is grasped in the hand and the throw given with a quick underhand motion. A little practice is all that is necessary for one to become skillful in throwing them. —Contributed by O. E. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Aunt Marian that I've told you all this," he went on. "I shouldn't want her to think that I was asking you to do something underhand." ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... Fisher's-Folly Congregation; Are only tools to our intrigues, 895 And sit like geese to hatch our eggs; Who, by their precedents of wit, T' out-fast, out-loiter, and out-sit, Can order matters underhand, To put all bus'ness to a stand; 900 Lay publick bills aside for private, And make 'em one another drive out; Divert the great and necessary, With trifles to contest and vary; And make the Ration represent, 905 And serve for us, in Parliament Cut ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN sits down and writes a ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... her, that my departure was close at hand—the same fatality still pursued us. She had once more attempted to meet me in the shrubbery walk, and she had found me there in company with Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff. In her hearing, the Sergeant, with his own underhand object in view, had appealed to my interest in Rosanna Spearman. Again for the poor creature's own sake, I had met the police-officer with a flat denial, and had declared—loudly declared, so that she might hear me too—that I felt "no interest whatever ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... swung his arm. Ken's quick eye caught the dark, shooting gleam of the ball. Involuntarily he ducked. "Strike," called the umpire. Then Dale had not tried to hit him. Ken stepped up again. The pitcher whirled slowly this time, turning with long, easy motion, and threw underhand. The ball sailed, floated, soared. Long before it reached Ken it had fooled him completely. He chopped at it vainly. The next ball pitched came up swifter, but just before it crossed the plate it seemed to stop, as if pulled back by a string, and then ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... dispirit." Mr. Bartlett quotes Margaret,—"There has been a pretty considerable mullin going on among the doctors." But mullin here means stirring, bustling in an underhand way, and is a metaphor derived from mulling wine. Mull, in this sense, is probably a corruption of mell, from Old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Sobber came out of confinement the Rover boys thought he might try to play some underhand trick on Tom, and consequently kept their eyes open. But nothing developed for some days, and then it came in a most ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... Do not pass for current coin what is base alloy. Let transparent honor and sincerity regulate all your dealings; despise all meanness; avoid the sinister motive, the underhand dealing; aim at that unswerving love of truth that would scorn to stoop to base compliances and unworthy equivocations; live more under the power of the purifying and ennobling influences of the gospel. Take its golden rule ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... bubbled in the seams, and the brains in the brain-pan. And all the while the excitement of the three adventurers glowed about their bones like a fever. They whispered, and nodded, and pointed, and put mouth to ear, with a singular instinct of secrecy, approaching that island underhand like eavesdroppers and thieves; and even Davis from the cross-trees gave his orders mostly by gestures. The hands shared in this mute strain, like dogs, without comprehending it; and through the roar of so many miles of breakers, it was a silent ship that ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... turn away the best servants I have, and put useless, dirty slatterns in their place, that happen to be Papists. You did not use to be so uncharitable, nor so unreasonable. 'T is the priest's doing. He is my secret, underhand enemy; I feel him undermining me, inch by inch, and I can bear it no longer. I must make a stand somewhere, and I may as well make it here; for Jenny is a good girl, and her folk live in the village, and she helps them. Think better of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... at the time he had sold the property to Mrs. Bragley's husband, Pacomb had made five other grants, and, now that the property had proved more valuable than he had hoped for, he was trying underhand means ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... to a long whistle of astonishment. "Of all the underhand tricks!" he exclaimed when the full significance of Joe's act was borne in on him. He was stupefied to think that Joe was a traitor to the school. "That'll fix his chances of getting into the Thessalonians," he ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... entered into an alliance with the Khan of the Crimea. He was summoned to Moscow, where he was arrested, but he managed to escape. His dukedom, however, was annexed to Moscow. Two years later, in 1523, (p. 108) the Duke of Novgorod-Severski was put in prison for underhand dealing with Poland, and that dukedom was added to Vassili's territories. This rounded up ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... in the East, in the very place where they ought to be, on the true frontier, at the door of their home. But they have to deal with a treacherous and cowardly opponent that instead of marching face to face, leaps the walls of the corral like sheep-stealers. . . . Their underhand tricks won't do them any good, though! The French are already in Belgium and adjusting the accounts of the Germans. We shall smash them so effectually that never again will they be able to disturb the peace of the world. And that accursed individual with the rampant moustache we are going to put ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Claiborne. "I have heard of many sneaky underhand things they have done. Poor Chester Hunt, I don't envy him ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... other women in Athens for you to philander with, without beginning to make love to her, the girl I had entrusted to you, and trying this underhand trick on me? ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... hands that he writes even below Ogilby: that, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourn bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. 'Tis true, I should be glad, if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on any ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... really care for the fellow, or is this some of what Mrs. Talbot had designated as Florence's "slyness"? No, once for all he would not believe that the pure, sweet, true face looking so steadily into his could be guilty of anything underhand or base. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... to press for the rent, and when to leave the money to lay out upon the land; and, according as they would want it, can give a tenant a help or a check properly. Then no duty-work called for, no presents, nor GLOVE-MONEY, nor SEALING-MONEY even, taken or offered; no underhand hints about proposals, when land would be out of lease, but a considerable preference, if desArved, to the old tenant, and if not, a fair advertisement, and the best offer and tenant accepted; no ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... at that moment how enraged he must be against me. He, like Miss Tattersall, had been playing an underhand game, though his was different in kind. He had been seduced (my bitterness against Anne found satisfaction in laying the blame at her door!) into betraying the interests of his own family. I did not, in a sense, blame him for that; ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... me now, and was not likely soon to forget me. Would he seek revenge? Beyond doubt he would, but I fancied it would be by some base underhand means. I had no fear that he would again attack me openly, at least by himself. I felt quite sure that I had conquered, and encowardiced him. I had encountered his like before. I know that his courage was not of that character to outlive ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Grandfer Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the partition, "her father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was as good a feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation ready against anything underhand." ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... shown that there was an open, avowed hostility on the part of the grand seignors and most of the lesser nobility to the Cardinal and his measures. The people fully and enthusiastically sustained the Prince of Orange in his course. There was nothing underhand in the opposition made to the government. The Netherlands did not constitute an absolute monarchy. They did not even constitute a monarchy. There was no king in the provinces. Philip was King of Spain, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to the conviction that American affairs, if not settled, might yet cause them much trouble. In various underhand ways, they approached Franklin. It was generally understood that every man had his price; that the influence of one man could be bought for a few hundred pounds; that another would require a lucrative and honorable office. Though the reputation of Franklin was such, that it was a delicate ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... "That's the most underhand cow ever I seen!" said Tommy. "She runs into them there bamboos and pretends she's going to run right clean through to Queensland, and when I go in after her, she wheels round and hunts me for my life. Near had me twice, she did. Every time I fire the old carbine, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... establishment of permanent diplomatic agents. The first ambassadors, selected largely from a panel of bishops, magistrates, judges and scholars, were expected to function not only as envoys but also as spies. Under them was a host of secret agents expected to do underhand work and to take the responsibility for it themselves so that, if found out, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... ways. 'To-morrow is Sunday,' he went on, 'and we must appear in church together. In this way only can we shut people's mouths and prevent their talking, and although I don't like anything in the form of secrecy or underhand actions, no one need know that you have been ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... by the tri-color flag hoisted above the French embassy, for which the ambassador was unable to obtain redress, forced him to demand his passports. On his return to Paris, the Directory appointed him Minister of War. An underhand proceeding of Sieyes, who was offended by Bernadotte's republicanism, induced the latter to send in his resignation. It was accepted, and when Bonaparte landed at Frejus the late minister had been three months out of office. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... greater circumspection, it would be necessary for him to have an interview with the judges of the Assize Court. The threat was quite sufficient. Nauendorff withdrew to a quiet abode in the Rue Guillaume, and granted his interviews in a more secret manner. Indeed, from open clamour he turned to underhand plotting, and so mysterious was his conduct that his landlord requested him to betake himself elsewhere. He found a yet more retired asylum, and still more suspicious-looking friends, until the police began to suspect that a conspiracy was on foot, and favoured him ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous |
