"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not have any hard feelings toward me, Mr. McTavish,' said the jailer; and a decent man he wass, for all that there wass not a drop of Hielan' blood in him. 'I hope you will not think hard of me for not being hospitable to you, sir,' says he; 'but it's against the rules and regulations ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... ceremony? The bridegroom," I said to him, "he's a fine fellow, very free and easy. He's a valuer," I said, "at the Law courts, and don't you think, your excellency, that he's some rascal, some knave of hearts. Nowadays," I said to him, "even decent women are employed at the Law courts." He slapped me on the shoulder, we smoked a Havana cigar each, and now he's coming.... Wait a little, ladies and gentlemen, ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... There will be a hotel, very soon, where no attention will be spared, etc., etc. The Government will afford every facility, etc., etc. It seemed, indeed, a friendly little place, with delicious air and sky, and a good, reasonable, decent, English tone about it. Expenses moderate, ye fathers of encroaching families. Negroes abundant and natural, ye students of ethnological possibilities. Officers in red jackets, you young ladies,—young ones, some of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... life out of this woman who had slandered her dead mother, with the fury of any wild beast. For she was Pauline Felix's daughter. It was her mother's name that Mrs. Waldeaux had said could not be spoken by any decent woman. Lisa had been but a child, but she had held her mother's head close to her stout little heart as she lay dying—that awful mysterious death of which the young man had tried to make a telling story. The ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the things which made the present a source of misery to him was the fact that he was expected to behave more like a mad millionaire than a sober young man with a knowledge of the value of money. His mind, trained from infancy to a decent respect for the pence, had not yet adjusted itself to the possession of large means; and the open-handed role forced upon him by the family ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... how can you think my father's being at home or abroad could be of consequence?—The lady is of course a decent person?' ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... canst not be prowd, For age puls downe the pride of every man; In youthfull yeares by Nature tis allowde To have selfe-will, doo Nurture what she can; Nature and Nurture once together met, The soule and shape in decent order set. ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... the Sisterhood!" she said, defiantly. "I'd sooner die! You may tell Mr. Newbury I'll live my own life—and I've got my boy. John won't find me—I'll take care of that. But if I'm not fit for decent people to touch—there's plenty like me. I'll not cringe to anybody—I'll go where I'm welcome. So now you understand, don't you—what I wanted to ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Henry would take it that way, I'd rather had the wall bare, Mr. Gubb. I've cried and cried, and last night I made up my mind it was all my fault and that when Henry came home he'd find a decent paper on the wall. I don't mind telling you, Mr. Gubb, that when the paper was on the wall it looked worse than it looked in ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... him one evening when he came a-courtin', 'Jim,' says he, 'you'll never come to no good, if you act like Old Scratch as you do; you ain't fit to come into no decent man's house at all, and your absence would be ten times more agreeable than your company, I tell you. I won't consent to Sall's goin' to them 'ere huskin' parties and quiltin' frolics along with you no more, on no account, for you ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... rarely surrender to it without an inclination for the person of the lover; you are coarse enough to yield to it without taste. Constancy with us is a duty; you give way to the slightest distaste without scruple. You are scarcely decent in leaving a mistress, the possession of whom, six months before, was your glory and happiness. She may consider herself well off if she is not punished by the most ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... century or two ago, was supposed to have forfeited all claim to the ordinary decencies of life. Now I can say, and can say with real satisfaction, that I do not find any difference of creed, however vast in words, to be an obstacle to decent and even friendly treatment. I am at times tempted to ask whether my opponent can be quite logical in being so courteous; whether, if he is as sure as he says that I am in the devil's service, I ought not, as a matter of duty, to be encountered with the old dogmatism and arrogance. I shall, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... and of course shall publish the fact if your cowardice prevents you from answering it. Indeed nothing shall induce me to rest in this matter till I know that I have been the means of restoring to Margaret Mackenzie the means of decent livelihood. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... metamorphosed into a decent, dear little room, about nine by eleven, and commanding the sun on the four sides of its quadrangle. In fact, it was a veritable sun-bath; and how dainty was the tip-drip of the icicles from the big elm-bough, upon the little roof! To this spot I used to travel down in all weathers; sometimes when ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... reddened under the scraping. Probably he would not find another cabin in which a miner would part with his beard for an Eastern trip. Probably he would have to go to the barber the next time. He also succeeded, with soap and water, in removing a stain from his collar. It was still a decent collar; not ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... didn't look for that much sense in you. If you'd shown it sooner it might have saved your employers a large wad of bills. If you'd taken the trouble to be decent when I went to you in a friendly way a very little would have been enough. But now I've got to be paid. What do you say to five thousand as ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. "I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... my youthful eyes, confused by the naphtha glares and the violent shadows cast on the many tiers of pink faces, loomed as vast as a Roman amphitheatre. It was a noble tent, a palace of a tent, the auditorium being but an inconsiderable section. There was stabling for fifty horses. There were decent dressing-rooms. There was a green-room, with a wooden, practicable bar running along one end, and a wizened, grizzled, old barman behind it who supplied your wants from the contents of a myriad bottles ranged in perfect ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... were entertained at one place with Musick and Dancing. The Musick consisted of 3 Drums, and the Dancing was mostly perform'd by 2 Young Women and one Man, and this seem'd to be their profession. The dress of the women was such as we had not seen before; it was neat, decent, and well chose, and in many respects not much unlike a European dress; only their Arms, Necks, and Shoulders were bare, and their headdress was the Tomow stuck with Flowers. They made very little use of their feet and Legs in Dancing, but ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... and I'm not going to blame you, Mr Eames. They've made the house unfit for any decent young gentleman like you. I've been feeling that all along; but it's hard upon a lone woman like me, isn't it, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... much too far ahead, and had converted a fly into an elephant; that, so far as she had heard their story, she was persuaded that nothing of any seriousness had occurred; that it would surely be better to wait until something did happen; that the prince, in her opinion, was a very decent young fellow, though perhaps a little eccentric, through illness, and not quite as weighty in the world as one could wish. The worst feature was, she said, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... find that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness, for they so ordered the matter that all the whole Bible, or the greatest part thereof, should be read over once in the year . . . But these many years past this godly and decent order of the ancient fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected by planting in uncertain stories, legends, responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and synodals that commonly, when any book of the ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... "Defection," said I, "is inevitable. The soldiers are drinking in their barracks the money which you have been giving them for some days past to purchase their fidelity. They say Louis XVIII., is a very decent sort of man, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... him to the public schools," Mr. Clarke said with the air of detached paternity peculiar to American fathers. "I went to the public schools. They gave me a decent start in life; that's about all you can expect ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... the morning to Pynaar's River, which consists of a station on the railway, and a few gutted houses. A fine iron bridge over the river had been blown up, and was lying with its back broken in the water. We camped here about one, and thought we were in for a decent rest, after several very short nights. I ate something, and was soon fast asleep by my saddle; but at three "harness up" was ordered, and off we went, but only for a few hundred yards, when the column halted, and after ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... sabots made of some animal closely connected with the hippopotamus! A dernier ressort, vraiment! for my choice was that, or cooling my feet on the burning pavement au naturel; I who have such a terror of any one seeing my naked foot! And this is thanks to war and blockade! Not a decent shoe in the whole community! N'importe! "Better days are coming, we'll all"—have shoes—after a while—perhaps! Why did not Mark Tapley leave me a song calculated to keep the spirits up, under depressing ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the influence of Noel's deposition, was shocked at this apparently unseasonable joy; although he felt the safer for it. He looked severely at old Tabaret, saying,—"Hush, sir; be decent, compose yourself." ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... prominent form; for his parliamentary and official talents made all his faults conspicuous. His courage, his vehement temper, his contempt for appearances, led him to display much that others, quite as unscrupulous as himself, covered with a decent veil. He was the most unpopular of the statesmen of his time, not because he sinned more than many of them, but because he ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his words to bear on his unfitness for death, and judg'd them very decent and properly spoken: and took occasion to hint this in my attempts to ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... easy isolation to the dangers and complications which would inevitably attend the final establishment of a just system of public law; or else it would mean that the American people believed more in Americanism than they did in democracy. A decent guarantee of international peace would be precisely the political condition which would enable the European nations to release the springs of democracy; and the Americanism which was indifferent or suspicious of the spread of ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... after he struck. The seventy-foot fall broke his neck and crushed his skull. And right there Young Dick learned death—not the ordered, decent death of civilization, wherein doctors and nurses and hypodermics ease the stricken one into the darkness, and ceremony and function and flowers and undertaking institutions conspire to give a happy leave-taking ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... which goes with it, are too much idolized by creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic. It is said, that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... of our mouths on our sleeves. One man with a gloomy malformation of brow—a homicidal worker in white-lead, to judge from his blue tone of colour, and a certain flavour of paralysis pervading him—got his coat-collar between his teeth, and bit at it with an appetite. Several decent women arrived upon the outskirts of the crowd, and prepared to launch themselves into the dismal coach-house when opportunity should come; among them, a pretty young mother, pretending to bite the forefinger of her baby-boy, kept ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... in coming to America was to get money to go back to Italy; and the whole document had so fictitious an air that it made us doubt even the nationality of the bearer; but we were put to shame by the decent joy she manifested in an Italian salutation. There was no longer a question of imposture in anybody's mind; we gladly paid tribute to her poetic fiction, and she thanked us with a tranquil courtesy that placed the obligation ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... contrasts the inhabitants of easternmost Asia ("like such individuals, who are not wanting in clean, decent, and comfortable dwellings, clothing, and surroundings; but who never feel the necessity for a higher enlightenment") with the Greeks ("in the case of the Greeks, even among the most educated inhabitants of Attica, the contrary often happens ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... to counteract somewhat the misery of this crowd of helpless women, so-called "Bettinen houses" were instituted in many cities, and placed under municipal supervision. Sheltered in these establishments, the women were held to the observance of a decent life. But neither these establishments, nor the numerous nunneries, were able to receive ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... semi-barbarians, the offscouring of society, bred in bar-rooms. Alas! for poor human nature, should this scum ever overlay the surface of American freedom! It would indeed be the nightmare of intellect, the incubus of morality. A commonwealth well managed may be a decent government for an honest man to exist under, but a loaferism, to use a Yankee term, would indeed be frightful. The recklessness of life among the least civilized portions of the States is quite sufficient already, without its assuming a power and ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... a decent end, Shrewder fellows than your friend. Fare you well, for ill fare I: Live, ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... charitable? Besides, no decent-minded fellow could be anything else here. Who told me of the League of Charity, I should like to know? Who put me into it? Who aroused my pity for these poor beggars? Who but a stout German cynic ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... infinite sadness, and he sighed even while the smile came back on the face he turned to us from the door as he said: "Sometimes I think he is studying law with old Charley Hedrick and sometimes I think he is in the bank with John Markley; but he is always with me, and was such a decent boy when I had him out to the College. But I saw him with Joe Nevison last night, and I knew he'd ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... generally received opinion, in England, that the natives of Africa go entirely unclothed; but this supposition is very unjust: they have a kind of dress so as to appear decent, though it is very slight ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... The Ladle; which is introduced by a preface, neither necessary nor pleasing, neither grave nor merry. Paulo Purganti; which has likewise a preface, but of more value than the tale. Hans Carvel, not over-decent; and Protogenes and Apelles, an old story, mingled, by an affectation not disagreeable, with modern images. The Young Gentleman in Love has hardly a just claim to the title of a tale. I know not whether he be the original author of any tale which he has given us. The adventure of Hans ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... shut. "You don't? And who-all might you be, young fellers?" he asked. "This here Bonbright man has come up on Turkey Track to give us a show at law. If they's persons engaged in unlawful practices on this here mountain top, mebbe he'll knock up against 'em. Them that keeps the law and lives decent has no reason to fear the law. Ain't that what you say, Blatch?" turning suddenly ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... "He'll never write a decent book in his life if he clings to that theory," said Kelly, after Harley had departed. "There's precious little in the way of the dramatic nowadays in the lives of people one cares to ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... Charities. Well it's too bad, of course, but somebody's got to take the blow, V.V., and I imagine it's going about where it belongs. Serves her right, I say, for the sort of mother she's always been, doing her best to educate all the decent feeling out of Cally, and then trying to break her when she was doing the best thing she ever did in her life. In fact—I don't want to brag, but I expect the talk I've spread around town has had a good deal to do with the way things have ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... He was not so cruel as Pedrarias, but he was {108} ruthless enough and his fame is forever stained by atrocities and treacheries from which no personal or public success can redeem it. In passing judgment upon him, account must be taken of the humble circumstances of his early life, his lack of decent, healthy environment, his neglected youth, his total ignorance of polite learning. Take him all in all, in some things he was better and in other things no worse ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and practice, to such a pitch that they were beginning to find it rather insipid: and in the world of letters attempts were being made to support it by a new invention: the prostitution of young girls,—I mean regularized, universal, virtuous, decent, domestic, and, above all, social prostitution.—There had just appeared a book on the question, full of talent, which apparently said all there was to be said: through four hundred pages of playful pedantry, "strictly in accordance ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... preparation. The cats knew her better than I did. Their suspense was really shocking to witness. While she was rolling her sleeves up and tying on her apron—she was poor, evidently, but very neat and wholesome in her black dress and the decent cap which crowned her hair—while she unpacked the contents of the bag—two newspaper parcels full of rather distressing viands, scissors, and a pair of gloves which had done duty more than once,—while all ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... facts—atmospherically. But that John, a man of science, enlisted under the banner of truth, should back this assertion of his wife's, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, really required resignation to put up with; argued a blindness, an infatuation, which seemed to his sister hardly decent. Because after all, facts were facts, and you didn't alter them by pretending that they ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... less than—cockroaches!—called Prossaki (Prussians) by the Russians, as they are sometimes called Schwaben (Suabians) by the Germans. Possibly they may be found in the huts of the serfs, but they are rare in decent houses. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... to be more agreeable to Christian Simplicity, not to judge of any Man by his Habit, if it be but sober and decent. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... second quality of Eau de Cologne is given, to show that a very decent article can be produced ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... girls for Kenneth with their boyfriends lolling all over the sofa. I wouldn't have an easy minute while we were away. Anyway, when we do get out I don't notice you bending over backwards to get tickets for anything decent. It's always something you want to see. Those silly Marilyn Monroe movies, ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight
... just a kid, and if you send him over the road he's a criminal for life. I believe I can make a decent man of him. I want to try, anyway. So you just leave me this deputy's badge, and make my commission regular and permanent, and I'll keep an eye on him. Give me a paper so I can get a requisition and bring him back to stand trial, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... stay here for a few days," he said to Cuthbert, as the latter started the next morning for England. "I am quite safe for the present, and after a long course of horse-flesh I really cannot tear myself away from decent living, until Paris is re-victualled, and one can live there in comfort again. I wish you every success in your search. The more I think of it the more convinced I am that we are not far wrong as to the manner in which Brander has got hold ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... other person's, business for the annual report, and would pay his own dues promptly on the first intimation from the secretary. Members whose dues for the year are not paid will not receive the annual report and, after a decent interval, their names will automatically drop from the roll of membership and not appear in the next ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... "You're terribly decent about leaving 'em," said Jim, who knew how Julia hated to be away from Anna and George at night, "but, really, I think this'll be fun—cards, you know, and a ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... admitted thar's good men amongst ye, an' we've agreed ter punish them briggatty fellers thet kilt Pete Doane, so thar hain't rightfully no grudge left outstandin'. I takes up my stand on this side of thet line, along with Parish Thornton, an' I summonses every man thet's decent amongst ye all ter come over hyar an' stand with us. We aims ter hev our hangin' without no deefault, but with a diff'rent man ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... family resemblance. If it be true, that "the king had ever reason to be jealous," and yet that no single criminal act of the queen's has been recorded, it must be confessed that one or both of the parties were singularly discreet and decent; for the king never complained, and the queen was never accused, if we except this burthen of an ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... ab initio or intrinsically a she-fiend like Valerie or Lisbeth. She does not do harm for harm's sake, nor even directly to gratify spite, greed, or other purely unsocial and detestable passions. She is a type of feminine sensuality of the less ambitious and restless sort. Given a decent education, a fair fortune, a good-looking and vigorous husband to whom she had taken a fancy, and no special temptation, and she might have been a blameless, merry, "sonsy" commere, and have died in an odor of very reasonable sanctity. Poverty, ignorance, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... anyone so like a queen," said Fred. "No, nor anyone so beautiful, though she is so pale and thin. People say you are like her in her young days, Henrietta; and to be sure, you have a decent face of your own, but you will never be as beautiful as mamma, not if you live ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Governors and declare, according to reports in the native press, that Parliament was of no importance at all, the only important thing being for China promptly to declare war. That some sort of public investigation into Peking diplomacy is necessary before there can be any hope of decent relations between China and the Powers seems indisputable. [Footnote: Since this was written certain diplomatists in Peking have been forced ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... I'll bet anything you want to name that your men have walked back and forth across his hideout. I'll bet that decent, respectable people live within mere yards of him and do not know it. We'll get to him the second he makes a mistake of any kind. Maybe he'll make his first one when he tries to get Saret Balisle—Good Lord, I forgot something. Tyler, phone again and ask Headquarters if the coroner found anything ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... Rather than go into the workhouse he would totter round in the face of the blasts that might cover his weak old limbs with drift. There was a sense of dignity and manhood left still; his clothes were worn, but clean and decent; he was no companion of rogues; the snow and frost, the straw of the outhouses, was better than that. He was struggling against age, against nature, against circumstance; the entire weight of society, law, and order ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the Board, I'm ex officio his enemy and persecutor. It wouldn't be right, it wouldn't be decent, for me to continue that after it was known that you were going to marry his daughter. It wouldn't be possible. I must resign, I must withdraw from the Board altogether. I haven't the stuff in me to do my official duty at such a ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... as the deepest philanthropy and benevolence. In representing such men, and in such a cause, though by the most feeble means, one would suppose that, on the floor of the Senate of the United States, order, and a decent respect to the opinions of others, would prevail. From the causes which I have mentioned, I can hardly hope for this. I expect to proceed through scenes which ill become this hall; but nothing shall deter me from a full and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... men and women that they should live a life of hopeless virtue because it is part of the divine order that they should be so held down by hard times and small earnings as to make marrying and having children an unattainable luxury. Continence and clean living as preparations for decent and reasonably early marriage and the raising of a healthy family are the highest of ideals, and ought to be preached from every housetop. Continence as a life-long punishment for the impossible demands of an oppressive social and ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... put him there because they knew they could count on him!" roared old Powhatan, with the accumulated truculence of eighty quarrelsome years. Of course the General was intemperate; but, as the Judge observed facetiously, "it was refreshing, in these days when there was nothing for decent people to drink, to find that intemperance was still possible. With the General fuming over corruption and Benham preaching morality, there is no need," he added, "for ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... good cause, they discarded you," continued Mr. Reed, without noticing the interruption, "and my father, for Kate's sake, did all in his power to win you to a decent life, but in vain. Later, in dire want and trouble, when even your worthless companions threw you off, you appealed to me, and I induced Mr. and Mrs. Hinsley to give you one more trial. But you ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... like. But you must really, though we're having such a decent month, get straight away." In pursuance of which, when she had replied with promptitude that her departure—for the Tyrol and then for Venice—was quite fixed for the fourteenth, he took her up with alacrity. "For Venice? That's perfect, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... last, just as I was again within seventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old Impala ram from behind a mimosa thorn. He ran straight for the waggon, and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine; over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into rather a better ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... right, mates," I returned cheerfully. "It's across the blue water, of course, but better than the Indies. We'll fall into the hands of Englishmen out there, and they'll be decent to us." ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... your fingers, I dare say," he admitted. "I'm afraid you are too good for this rude country, and I have no use for you. I could afford to be decent? Perhaps so, but I earn my money with considerably more effort than you seem willing to make. The cook will give you dinner with the other men to-day; then you can resume your search for an easy billet. We have no room in ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... comes Mr. Edgar Lee Masters and invents vers libre. It is too early yet to judge the full effects of this man's horrid discovery, but there is no doubt that he has taken the lid off and unleashed forces over which none can have any control. All those decent restrictions which used to check poets have vanished, and who shall say what will be ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... a woman gave her an irrevocable hold over him for life. And that touching of hands, she knew, would give that woman an irrevocable claim—to be seduced. And she so despised Florence that she would have preferred it to be a parlour-maid. There are very decent parlour-maids. ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... its benevolence, its active charity, and its mission of good will, I admire. When death's unwelcome presence rests within our portals, and obedient to his call a loved one has gone hence, we should give the mortal remains of the departed brother a decent sepulture; fondly cherish the remembrance of his virtues, and bury his frailties "beneath the clods which rest upon his bosom." We should then direct our thoughts and cares to the desolate home, where the ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... and being no more to be removed than the hairs from a man's arm. At the end of that time La Trape came to me, bringing the Spaniard; who had appeared again at the gate. The stranger proved to be a small, slight man, pale and yet brown, with quick-glancing eyes. His dress was decent, but very poor, with more than one rent neatly darned. He made me a profound reverence, and stood waiting, with his cap in his hand, to be addressed; but, with all his humility, I did not fail to detect an easiness of deportment and a propriety ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... read were fully informed that the American Legion was an organization for veterans of the army, navy, and marine corp; that it was non-partisan and non-political; that it stood for law and order, decent living, decent ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... provides that the Altar be covered with a carpet of silk, or some other decent stuff; also with a fair linen cloth at the time of the ministration. It is usual in many churches to vest the Altar in different colours to mark the various seasons of the Church. Thus at Christmas, Easter, and festivals, other ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... heard her so frankly own; (and no doubt was very glad it was past and done;) besides apprehending the danger of delay, and having some little Jealousies and Fears of what Effect might be produced between the Commands of his Father and the Beauties of Juliana; after some decent Denials, she consented to be Conducted by him through the Garden into the Convent, where she would prevail with her Confessor to Marry them. He was a scrupulous Old Father whom they had to deal withal, insomuch that ere they had perswaded him, Don Mario ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... he is a dealer in "Imported and other liquors." Next door to Mr. Korner's tipsy looking grocery lives Mr. Muffin, the coffin-maker, who has a large business with the disciples who look in at Korner's. Mrs. Downey, a decent sort of body, who lives up the alley, and takes sixpenny lodgers by the dozen, may be seen in great tribulation with her pet pig, who, every day, much to the annoyance of Mr. Korner, manages to get ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... against than sinning, was his humane judgment of these unhappy outcasts, and when he could, he helped them. Many a besotted creature had him to thank when the end came and short shrift little better then that accorded a dead dog awaited her—that at least she got a decent burial. The boys knew his attitude on the woman question, and it was a tribute to the regard in which they held him that, in his hearing at least, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... and Holloway, too. He felt freshly unhappy. When you come to consider, it was so damned unjust for one man to be thirty-five while another—just as decent a fellow in every way—was ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... cordially not to go that I stayed on; but in a little while I noticed that the beer got less and less in quantity, and one day when I ventured to ask for a second bottle at lunch he told me that it cost a great deal and that he could not afford it. Of course I made some decent pretext and left his house as soon as possible. If one has to suffer poverty, one had best suffer alone. But to get discomforts grudgingly and as a charity is the extremity of shame. I prefer to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... of the Belgian nation, to which his ministry had been sacrificed; for then, he said, he would be suspected of poisoning the very source of that power, whose outlets only he had hitherto been charged with corrupting. He therefore sent him to Burgundy, his native place, for which a decent pretext fortunately presented itself. The cardinal gave to his departure from Brussels the appearance of an unimportant journey, from which he would return in a few days. At the same time, however, all the state counsellors, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of Browning ignores his passion for colour, it altogether scouts the suggestion that he had a peculiar delight in form. By general consent he lacked the most ordinary and decent attention to it. No doubt he is partly responsible for this impression himself. His ideals of literary form were not altogether those commonly recognised in literature. If we understand by form the quality of clear-cut outline ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... war was a little hard on us, but we're picking up,' says he. 'They're still selling hams way below a decent price over at Henshaw's. I don't see ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... his cane down on the floor with a thump. "What do you mean by sitting there staring out of the window like mad and not answering when I ask you a decent question?" ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... to the compromise, did exactly what all sincere men who agree to compromise, do. For the sake of the enormous advantage of giving the rudiments of a decent education to several generations of the people, they accepted what was practically an armistice in respect of certain matters about which the contending parties ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... not," replied Westerfelt. The corners of his mouth were drawn down and his chin was puckered. "I have fought some in my life, and sometimes I get as mad as the next one, but I still try to be decent before ladies. This is no place to settle ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Antelopes also some mule deer; this speceis of deer seems most prevalent in this quarter. saw some gees ducks and other birds common to the country. there is much appearance of beaver on this river, but not any of otter. from the apparent decent of the country to the North and above the broken mountains I am induced to beleive that the South branch of the Suskashawan receives a part of it's waters from the plain even to the borders of this river and from the brakes visible in the plains in a nothern ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Khan, in a tone of great contempt. "The Chinese have a proverb," he added, "that such a people as they ought to have a god for their emperor; but it seems they do not know how to choose even a decent man." ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... never read The Sewer, this part of the attack was an utter waste of Billingsgate so far as he was concerned. What did surprise and annoy him was to find that The Inexpressible, which, though well-known to be a stupid, was generally considered a decent paper, had taken the enemy's side, and published some very impertinent paragraphs about him. Afterwards he discovered that he had been the victim of a principle. The Inexpressible and Blunder and Bluster had a little private quarrel of their own, and the former felt bound to attack every ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... whole, the Stevensons may be described as decent, reputable folk, following honest trades—millers, maltsters, and doctors, playing the character parts in the Waverley Novels with propriety, if without distinction; and to an orphan looking about him in the world for a potential ancestry, offering a plain and quite unadorned refuge, ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... petitioners, consisting of the United Empire Loyalists and their children, took refuge in this Province after the American Revolution, under the impression that they possessed the same constitution as that of the Mother Country, which includes a decent provision for the administration of the Word and Sacraments according to the forms of the Church ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Mr. Marshall, when he had finished with it. "So Larry's knocked out at last—always thought he would be—always expected it. Sorry, too. He was a decent fellow. Well, are ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... How?—by the agents of the Committee of General Security. She and the old woman! Basta! that's all I know. Now I am going back to bed, and you clear out of the house. You are making a disturbance, and I shall be reprimanded. I ask you, is this a decent time for rousing honest patriots out of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... any decent woman would be to whom such a thing happened. She certainly didn't encourage Maxwell; but she found an appointment already made for her to go on the river with him. No doubt she took an exaggerated view of her—of your—good ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... shouldering his treasure. He turned down the path, but after going a short distance stopped and faced about. "I say, there!" he cried. "Oh, Taylor. Just a moment. I wouldn't mind having you over any evening, you know. You are a devilish decent fellow." ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... own, than they forthwith became admirers of Wellington. And why? Because he was a duke, petted at Windsor and by foreign princes, and a very genteel personage. Formerly many of your Whigs and Radicals had scarcely a decent coat on their backs; but now the plunder of the country was at their disposal, and they had as good a chance of being genteel as any people. So they were willing to worship Wellington because he was very genteel, and could not keep the plunder of the country out of their hands. And Wellington ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of their lives, I now saw, was merely pretended. The appearance of sanctity and heavenly mindedness which they had shown among us novices, I found was only a disguise to conceal such practices as would not be tolerated in any decent society in the world; and as for peace and joy like that of heaven, which I had expected to find among them, I learnt too well that they did ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... "There's already been rumours about, and you'll be doing a public service by going to dock with dyspepsia. Binnie will be so stricken by remorse that he'll at once start providing the Mess with decent food." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... if he's under the protection of Strickland," said Mrs. Sam. "James Strickland is the most successful of the decent lawyers in New York. One never knows when one may want his services, and he's merciless, positively merciless, if he gets down on anybody. We'll ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... manner! Don't you see how Miss Bloomfield has soiled her frock? and that Master Bloomfield's socks are quite wet? and both of them without gloves? Dear, dear! Let me REQUEST that in future you will keep them DECENT at least!' so saying, he turned away, and continued his ride up to the house. This was Mr. Bloomfield. I was surprised that he should nominate his children Master and Miss Bloomfield; and still more so, that he ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Theodore remarked. 'But of course if you think it'll be of any use, you had better go down and tell your Prince Eugen that that million can be fixed up, if he really needs it. I expect there'll be decent security, or Sampson Levi wouldn't have ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... not anticipate the possibility of their becoming old maids, and they cannot become brides of the church. I should honestly be glad to have either of them marry almost anybody, provided he is a decent fellow. I should not even object to their marrying foreigners, but the difficulty is that it is almost impossible to find out whether a foreigner is really decent or not. It is true that the number of foreign ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... flipper, old fellow, and we will be good friends!—only, tell your people to keep decent tongues in their heads, and their hands ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of it all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La Touche all at once its notoriety as well as its favorite, its great man as well as its friend, he was nowhere ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... mad," he rejoined, with a laugh. "Gulden's the mad one. He's crazy. He's got a twist in his brain. I'm no fool.... I've only lost my head over you. But compare marrying me, living and traveling among decent people and comfort, to camps like this. If I don't get drunk I'll be half decent to you. But I'll get shot sooner or later. Then ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... yer pay through the nose for yer gas and yer water, and baker's bread and ready-made togs; and you've got nothin' left out of yer bit of wages, and you're as poor as ever; and you're only a "hand" at machines in the damp and smoke, instead of bein' in your own house an' decent like. What are you fussin' about, Girard? Don't you see that we can't go back to the old times now? A woman ain't got a house now, only a little room with nothin' but a dirty bed to sleep on! And I tell you, Girard, you've got to let us earn our livin' like that now, because it's you and the ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... hurt her feelings. But, of course, I can't have those pauper children at my party—Amy and Gummy. 'Gummy!' What a frightful name! And his pants are patched at the knees. They wouldn't—either of them—have a decent ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... fatigues and a rather severe pulled-back hairdo, this was a handsome woman. He found himself liking her, and this caused him a feeling near self-loathing. She was a suspect. He couldn't afford to like her. But the Bullones were being so decent, taking him in like this. And how was their hospitality being repaid? By spying and prying. Yet, his first loyalty belonged to the I-A, to ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... fourth shearer, Susan Tall's husband the fifth, Joseph Poorgrass the sixth, young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer, and Gabriel Oak as general supervisor. None of these were clothed to any extent worth mentioning, each appearing to have hit in the matter of raiment the decent mean between a high and low caste Hindoo. An angularity of lineament, and a fixity of facial machinery in general, proclaimed that serious work was the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... She recalled her parting with Bixler McFay in the late winter, when she had left Leavenworth for the Coast, saying it wasn't decent not to know anything about the place where all your income came from, and he had left Leavenworth to rejoin his regiment in Arizona. How his voice had trembled that morning as he bade her good-bye, declaring he should always consider himself engaged to her, even if she did not consider herself engaged ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... of necessity some dusky villain with an evil eye. In Germany, says Madame Blumenthal, people play at roulette as they play at billiards, and her own venerable mother originally taught her the rules of the game. It is a recognised source of subsistence for decent people with small means. But I confess Madame Blumenthal might do worse things than play at roulette, and yet make them harmonious and beautiful. I have never been in the habit of thinking positive beauty the most excellent ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... for three rubles you can give him a decent treat. Let me have the money and I will order everything for you. I had better ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... at a quarter to 7. I was not among the lucky ones, but had to hold on for the second train at a quarter past 8, and so did not reach this city till after 10, or twenty-six hours from Paris, though, with a little enterprise and a decent boat on the Channel, the trip could easily be made in 14 hours—four for the French side, six for the Channel, two for the English side and two for Custom-House delay and leeway of all kinds. If Commodore Vanderbilt or Mr. Newton would only take compassion ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... them home; the German soil once cleared of them, much will be possible; till then nothing.' KAISER: 'Well, give me back my Bavaria; my Bavaria, and something suitable to live upon, as Head of the Reich: some decent Annual Pension, till Bavaria come into paying condition,—cannot you, who are so wealthy? And Bavaria might be made a Kingdom, if you wished to do the handsome thing. I will renounce my Austrian Pretensions, quit utterly my French ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... threshold of a new era, in which the value of personality would reappear among the things taken for granted. Strictly speaking, of course, Mahon machines were not persons. But they reflected the personalities of their owners. It might again seem desirable to be a decent human being if only because ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Sukey for me," said Dic. "I'll have nothing more to do with her. I want to be decent and worthy of Rita. I want to be true to her, and Sukey is apt to lead me in the other direction, without even the excuse on my part of caring for her. An honest man will not deliberately lead himself ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... that Gene'll give it to me good if he ever knows I let you look and told you what's what. Well, decent-like Gene is seen' them poor devils get a square meal. They're only a lot of calf-thieves in this country. Across the border they're bandits, some of them, the others just riffraff outlaws. That rebel bluff doesn't go down with us. I'd have to see first ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... until the return of Rudri. For there are, if I mistake not, many matters to attend to beyond the burial of the slain. The men of Colonsay, as I hear, have played sad havoc with your homesteads, and it were well that these were put again into decent repair." ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... there could, and did: the marvellous Czar Paul that was to be. Concerning whose exact paternity there are still calumnious assertions widely current; to this individual Editor much a matter of indifference, though on examining, his verdict is: 'Calumnies, to all appearance; mysteries which decent or decorous society refuses to speak of, and which indecent is pretty sure to make calumnies out of.' Czar Paul may be considered genealogically genuine, if that is much an object to him. Poor Paul, does not he father himself, were there nothing more? Only that Peter and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... seven discharged and four sent on to the Superior Court. Four of those convicted and transported were boys. There were brought to trial only four free Negroes, one of whom was discharged and three held for subsequent trial were finally executed. It is said that they were given decent burial.[11] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... has seized the general's arm; and he points the other to the sails of the vessel fluttering in the breeze, while the fire of his inward enthusiasm glows through his dark complexion, and flashes in tips of flame from his eyes. Another pale and emaciated person, in neglected and scarcely decent attire, and distinguished by the abstracted fervor of his manner, presses through the crowd, and attempts to lay hold of Pepperell's skirt. He has spent years in wild and shadowy studies, and has searched the crucible of the alchemist for gold, ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... de other room. My bed on one side en Sue bed on de other side. Put chillun on quilts down on de floor in de other end of de room. Baby, whe' dem curtains you say you gwine give me? I gwine hang dese up in Sue room. Dey help me fix up de room nice en decent like." ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... manila rope and Carpenter Pete being actively employed between drinks upon a pine box about the length and breadth of Mr. Gilson. Society having rendered its verdict, there remained between Gilson and eternity only the decent formality of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... loss to know what the Tasmanian devils were and at first were led astray by a sign on a tree in the devils' inclosure. "Look, they're Norway maples," cried one curator. In the same way we thought at first that a llama was a Chinese ginkgo. These errors lead to a decent humility. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... Had she much property? She was a decent saving body. And who is to get it? Not that you can know, however, till the will ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... a centralized effort after the trials which all the people have suffered together to reconstruct the social fabric so that all the people of the country, with the exception of those who are lazy or criminal, shall have the means by which they may be able to secure a decent livelihood and need have no fear of poverty-stricken old age. I foresee the disintegration of the older political parties and the building up of new ones, in which the great contending features will be the means and methods by ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... once spread abroad that Matson has jumped into the new league, it will start a stampede of contract breakers. I tell you straight, Westland, it's dirty business. If you want to start a new league, go ahead and do it in a decent way. Get new players and develop them, or get star players whose contracts have expired. Play the game, but do it without ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... which offer to every traveller a secure night's shelter, there is in every village the Medhafe of the Sheikh, where all strangers of decent appearance are received and entertained. It is the duty of the Sheikh to maintain this Medhafe, which is like a tavern, with the difference that the host himself pays the bill: the Sheikh has a public allowance to defray ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... don't work decent," observed Step Hen. "It misses an explosion every third one, and acts like it might go out of business any minute on us, ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... at Cleveland, Horace thought that was the last of them. Miss Gerty was "decent-looking, looked some like Cassy Hallock; but he couldn't bear to see folks giggle; hoped he never should set eyes on those people again." Whether he ever did, you shall hear one ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... But to the country people this was no mystery. Kilgorman had an evil name, and for twelve years, since its late master died, had stood desolate and empty— tenanted only, so it was said, by a wandering ghost, and no place for decent Christian folk to ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... of anger, and sorrow of denunciation. Neighbors went hastily to the old tumble-down hut, in which she had secured little more than a place of shelter from summer heats and winter cold: some with grave-clothes for a decent interment of the body; and some with food for the half-starving children, three in number. Of these, John, the oldest, a boy of twelve, was a stout lad, able to earn his living with any farmer. Kate, between ten and eleven, was bright, active girl, out ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... came to pass that Eugene did not receive the letter for nearly two months and did not know of his recovered liberty all that time. For Haddington, in his joy, easily promised silence for a little while; it seemed only decent; and even Ayre could not refuse to agree with him that, though Eugene must be told, nobody else ought to be until Eugene had formally signified his assent to the lady's transfer. Ayre could not take upon himself, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... recently been divorced? I must speak—I am speaking. It is too soon, I dare say, for you to be willing to think of marriage again—but I offer you the love and protection of a husband. My means are small, but I am able now to support a wife in decent comfort. Selma, give me some hope. Tell me, that in time you may be willing to trust yourself to my love. You wish to work—to distinguish yourself. Would I be a hindrance to that? Indeed, you must know that I would do every thing in my power to promote your ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... a place of despair. Yet there were men who managed to get along somehow, and to raise families and keep decent homes. If one had the luck to escape accident, if he did not marry too young, or did not have too many children; if he could manage to escape the temptations of liquor, to which overwork and monotony drove so many; if, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... things—the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a Government clerk; he regretted all the gossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government offices. "If I had had a decent brother-in-law," Carlier would remark, "a fellow with a heart, I would not be here." He had left the army and had made himself so obnoxious to his family by his laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brother-in-law had made superhuman efforts to procure him an appointment ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... authority; and yet the Counsellor creeps up to be my Lord of the Treasury; and his son aspires to my hand, as of a Royal alliance. Well, 'honour among thieves,' they say; and mine is the first honour: although among decent folk perhaps, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... commanded crisply, "until further orders. If he is hungry, feed him; and see that he has a decent place to sleep. The petty officers' ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... beast; so don't mind him, but have a cup of tea, and go to bed. You can make your gown decent to-morrow; and, if I see the tricksy peddler, I'll ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... a Good Samaritan and tell me where to find a restaurant in Broadway, somewhere where crowds of people go but not what they call a fashionable place. I want to get some dinner—I haven't had anything decent to eat for I don't know how long—and I want to breathe the same atmosphere ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it too good that you're not satisfied. That Flora Kemble, that never has a decent thing to wear, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... but, perhaps, the crafty Frenchman would have been equally complaisant, had I been in the habit of indulging worse feelings than those of indolence and aversion to mercantile business. As it was, while I gave a decent portion of my time to the commercial studies he recommended, he was by no means envious of the hours which I dedicated to other and more classical attainments, nor did he ever find fault with me for dwelling upon Corneille and ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and on the steps of the club; and talks about 'Bo' in all societies. It is his drag which carries down Bo's friends to the Derby, and his cheques pay for dinners to the pink bonnets. I don't believe the Perkinses know what a rogue it is, but fancy him a decent, reputable City man, like his ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... imp, for example, a sort of sucking devil, whom your friend Glena——Glenamuck there, has sometimes in his train. To look at him, he is about fifteen years; but he is a century old in mischief and villainy. He was playing at quoits the other day in the court; a gentleman, a decent-looking person enough, came past, and as a quoit hit his shin, he lifted his cane; but my young bravo whips out his pistol, like Beau Clincher in the "Trip to the Jubilee," and had not a scream ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... them a lift would not have penetrated his mind had not Elsie herself requested it. Yet the man was no worse than his fellows, and had an element of unselfish kindness in him, which was shown by his giving them the old sack to sit upon. Under happier auspices he would probably have been a very decent sort of person, but the hopeless hardship of his existence had gradually wiped out every ambition and hope, till at last he had sunk into something scarcely ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various |
