"Handy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anarchy and of despotism even in recent times. It was appurtenant no long time ago to the Bundela rajah of Ourcha: from him it passed by conquest into the possession of the Peishwa. These small districts were all too handy for being tossed over as presents to favorites: one finds them falling about among the greedy subordinates of conquerors like nuts thrown out to school-boys. The Peishwa gave Jhansi to a soubahdar: the British government ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... awake, that so I might ask any questions I wished. I examined the pitch-kettle, and the boat's sails, and the breakers. Breakers are small casks, holding about six to seven gallons of water, and are very handy for boats. I remained about an hour, and then went back to the cabin, carrying a fagot on my shoulder, Nero following with the fish in his mouth. We were met by the woman, who came out of the cabin; she no longer had the blanket round ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... buried but entire, are the lines of our herring boats of fifty years ago. Sharp and partly decked at stem and stern only, like those boats, the Viking ship could live, head to the waves, even in the roughest sea. It was, too, a living thing, a new type of vessel handy to row or sail, and far in advance not only of the early British ship and Pictish coracle[18] but also of the Roman galley with lines like those of a canal barge, and also far in advance of the Saxon ship of war or merchandise. The only points of difference between ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... all the knowledge and familiarity with the subject which he parades before an incurious and easily gullible public. This especial form of dishonesty has but lately succeeded to and ousted the classical English critique of Jeffrey, Macaulay, and the late Mr. Abraham Hayward, which was mostly a handy peg for the contents of the critic's noddle or note book. The Saturnine article ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... "Handy ain't no name for it," Benson replied. "It's something you don't see nowheres else in the show business; but I'll tell you the truth, Mr. Lubliner—the work is too much ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... the guns and pistols, putting everything "handy," as they called it, for a siege. We snatched a hasty meal, not knowing when we might have another opportunity; then laying ourselves down, we hid snugly in the brushwood, seeing ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... responded so promptly that before evening they had put 67 tons of coal on board, besides transforming the boat from a peaceful tug to a veritable gunboat by making such alterations as were necessary for that purpose. All were workers, and "handy men" either ashore or afloat, and that night everything was so snug and secure that they took up their quarters on board, fully provisioned for a cruise. Early next morning the "Rescue" steamed up to the Queen's Wharf and took on board her armament ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... anxieties, that Rose had persuaded her to go and lie down on her bed, since it would be better for her not to try to see Edmund till the promised protection had arrived, lest suspicion should be excited. Rose was busy about her household affairs; Eleanor, a handy little person, was helping her; and Walter and Charles were gone out to gather apples for a pudding which ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... favorable impression on the observer. They were kindly used by our officer and his subordinates, who mixed among them, and straightened out the confusion they got into at times, and perhaps sometimes wilfully. Their guards employed a few handy words of Spanish with them; where these did not avail, they took them by the arm and directed them; but I did not hear a harsh tone, and I saw no violence, or even so much indignity offered them as the ordinary ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... door—surprise visit, I guess, for he kept his life in water-tight compartments—he let her in, couldn't keep her in the street. She told him how she had traced him, reproached him. One thing led to another, and then with that dagger so handy the end soon came. It wasn't all done in an instant, though, for these chairs were all swept over yonder, and he had one in his hand as if he had tried to hold her off with it. We've got it all clear as if ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who would probably be engaged with the horse or the hens. She swung herself out, therefore, and let herself down by the thick stems. Then she dodged round the house to the bicycle-shed. She did not yet possess a machine of her own, but Wendy's stood handy, and she knew her chum well enough to borrow it. She wheeled it through the back gate, fortunately without meeting Miss Carr, and then set off ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... that an Ephesian was building a stable on the side of Mount Celion, and finding a pile of stones handy, he took them for his edifice, and thus opened the mouth of the cave. Then the seven sleepers awoke, and it was to them as if they had slept but a single night. They began to ask Malchus what decision ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... ago that I was twelve, an' I've kept track ever since. When I was sixteen, though, and it was time for me to be got a place somewhere, the matron put me back a couple of years; we were gettin' more babies from the poor-farm than usual, an' I was kinder handy with them. She had to let me go now because one of the visitin' deaconesses let out that she'd seen me there sixteen years ago herself, an' I was toddlin' round ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... his love of excitement, versatility, and daring demanded a livelier outlet than the slow toil of deep-sea fishing. To the most patient, persevering, and long-suffering of the arts, Robin Lyth did not take kindly, although he was so handy with a boat. Old Robin vainly strove to cast his angling mantle over him. The gifts of the youth were brighter and higher; he showed an inborn fitness for the lofty development of free trade. Eminent ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... I have already begged you to be seated;" and all immediately seated themselves. On the morrow, Madame de Saint-Simon received all the Court in her bed in the apartment of the Duchesse d'Arpajon, as being more handy, being on the ground floor. Our festivities finished by a supper that I gave to the former friends of my father, whose acquaintance I had always cultivated ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was floating away down the stream with a bullet in his head. The men in the boat paddled away after him, but that was more than I could stand, so I went after them. I saw the white man point his stick at me, but I dived in time and came up just beside them; then it was that my mouth came in so handy. I just opened it quite wide and then I closed it again, and, well, somehow the boat was upset and the men were all kicking about in the water, splashing and shouting and making no end of a fuss. But I let them go that time, I only wanted to give them a lesson. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... be used as a mascot or a school monkey," returned Marjorie. "You might come in handy at the nursing lectures, when we get to the chapter on 'How to Wash and Dress a Baby', or you'd do to practise bandaging on. Otherwise you'd ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... 'keep it and sell it for that; good day,' and I went off. The stone was sent after me that evening with a request for my cheque, and I sold it for a hundred two days afterwards.[1] You see old Van Harmer's training has come in very handy. I just tell you this little anecdote to let you see that though I'm new in the work I'm not to be done. Nothing in the papers here from Russia. I am ready, come when it may. What would you do if there should be any hitch ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... delighted with his handy work; "I did not think of this resort to a covering, but own it is effectual and very neatly done. You must kill another fawn and I will make you a new tunic to replace the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... concise and complete handy manual of General Information ever published. It contains the latest census statistics, postal regulations, salaries of all government officials, valuable tables, and a vast fund of useful information found only in a hundred books, each costing more than we ask ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... o' God, an' the firmament showeth his handy-work.' I used, whan I was a lad, to study astronomy a wee, i' the houp o' better hearin' what the h'avens declared aboot the glory o' God: I wud fain un'erstan' the speech ae day cried across the nicht to the ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... slow with regard to what they carried along, as they did not expect to be gone six months. If any garments gave out, why, there would be plenty of soap and water handy; and the fellow who did not know how to wash a pair of socks, or some handkerchiefs, had better take a few lessons on how to play ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... about it," answered the boatswain, shaking his head. "And by the same token, it belonged to the master of the Zodiac, for he used to be very proud of having his handkerchief marked in that way, as it was Mistress Bowse's own handy work; and, t'other day, when he was aboard of us, he, poor fellow, showed me that very handkerchief, and said his missis had worked him another set ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the contract, smiling, and mailed it at a handy postal and telegraph window at the spaceport before ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept them busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted her with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of them had been trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used axe and saw to some purpose in their time. In any case, Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel in a contemplative ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... this task, Rose received much useful advice from Josh, though his new assistant, Jack Tier, turned out to be a prize indeed, in the cabins. The first was only a steward; but the last proved himself not only a handy person of his calling, but one full of resources—a genius, in his way. Josh soon became so sensible of his own inferiority, in contributing to the comforts of females, that he yielded the entire management ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... say, except that I shall be walking near to him with the two guards, and, of course, if he were snatched away from us, and there were no boats handy in which to pursue, we could not help it, could we? Indeed, we priests, who are men of peace, might even fly at the ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... attempt it, and so started. They were to look the new building over for the first time, Miss E. being much interested in the inside arrangement of rooms, naturally, as it was to be her home and field of labor, and rightly thinking a womanly suggestion, perhaps, might make the kitchens more handy. ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... made coffee. He slipped a blaster into a pocket where it would be handy. He filled a small cup for Murgatroyd and a large one for himself, and then a ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... A rick stood handy in the yard, and on going to it I found that three or four dasses of hay had been carved out ready for removal to the stalls. I carried them to the shed, one by one, and mighty hot I was by the time I dumped the last on ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... plays at Handy-dandy, Jack-a-dandy, which will you have, upper hand or lower? if you happen to guess right, he slips whatever you are playing with into his other hand; and that you know is not playing fair; and so many of the boys tell him; but he does not mind any of us. And as he is clever at his ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... no wax figger, an' he only lay quiet a moment before he began to roll around an' groan. I picked up a neck yoke what was handy, an' I went for him. I hit him in the butt o' the ear an' on the back o' the neck an' in the center o' the forehead—I tried him out in all the most stylish places, until finally ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... held in Ford's, Albaugh's, the Garden and the New Theaters with well known speakers. Baltimore clergymen assisting at these meetings, besides those already mentioned, were the Rev. Dr. Frank M. Ellis and the Rev. Dr. J. W. Wills; the Reverends Kingman Handy, Henry Wharton and W. H. Baylor of the Baptist Church; George Scholl and Thomas Beadenkoph of the Lutheran Synod; Richard W. Hogue and George W. Dame of the Episcopal, E. L. Hubbard of the Methodist and Wynne Jones of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... way I feel, too," he said, "but they're mighty handy just now, Jim. They're keeping us safe on this island. You ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Sez I, 'Who'? Sez she, 'His granddaughter; that is Ellice's chile'. Sez I, 'How do you know so much'? Sez she, 'I was darning them liberry curtains, and I couldn't help hearing the wrangle'. Sez I, 'You picked a oncommon handy time to tackle them curtains; they must be mighty good to cure the ear-itch'. She axed me if I didn't see the family favor in the 'oman's face; and I tole her no, but I would see for myself. Sez she, to me, 'No yow won't, for the Gen'l ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... we have only got just enough for ourselves, today when we don't want them we have caught enough to sell for two or three guilders; for fish are scarce now in the town and fetch good prices. However, they will come in handy for our voyage." ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Nature, by this process, has attained much the same result as that at which a human artificer arrives by his operations in a brickfield. She takes the rough plastic material of the yelk and breaks it up into well-shaped tolerably even-sized masses, handy for building up into any part ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... pounds of mutton, cut in four or six pieces; three quarters of a pound of mixed vegetables, or three ounces of preserved, three and a half teaspoonfuls of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, and half a teaspoonful of pepper, if handy; five tablespoonfuls of barley or rice; eight pints of water; let it simmer gently for three hours and a half, remove this fat, and serve. Bread and biscuit may be ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... nor I on deck the betting is two to one that the hands on anchor watch will drop off to sleep. The skipper will be snoring by ten o'clock, and you had better turn in now. I will see to getting the guns loaded, and to having plenty of ammunition handy. I will call you at four bells. If we are going to be attacked it is likely to be ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... during the winter. Have an old box handy in which to put things you think you will want to take to camp. Boys usually talk over the experiences of the last camp until about January 1st, then they begin to talk and plan about the next camp. As you think of things jot them down in a little memorandum ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... and evening, and they'll be well in a month. Since you are running a trail hospital, you want to cater to man and beast. Of course, if you boys nurse this man through to health and strength, I'll make an appeal to Mr. Lovell to give you these ponies. They'll come in handy, in case you return to the Solomon, or start a little cattle ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... To be sure, she always came a-running at feeding time. But except when there was something there to eat, she didn't go near the henhouse. She "stole her nest," to use Johnnie Green's words, now in one place and now in another. And at night she roosted on any handy place in the barn or the haymow, under the carriage-shed ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... drawer placed upon a hanging shelf for fear of the rats. This was my bed all the time I stayed with those people; tho made more convenient by degrees, as I began to learn their language and make my wants known. This young girl was so handy, that after I had once or twice pulled off my clothes before her, she was able to dress and undress me; tho I never gave her that trouble when she would let me do either myself. She made me seven shirts, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... hold Lightnin' pretty high," he said, after a pause. "You see, some of us ranchers is holdin' a fast horse handy, a-waitin' fer word from the hills—an' when it comes, they's goin' to be the biggest horse-thief round-up the hill country ever seen. An' unless I miss my guess they'll be some that's carried their ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... rough, but it's handy t'ing enough, An' dey mak' it wit' de log all jine togeder W'en dey strek de swampy groun' w'ere de water hang aroun' Or passin' by some tough ole ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... up at the entrance of a short lane leading to a farm on the outskirts of the small country town—the centre of an active furniture-making industry, for which the material lay handy in the large beechwoods which covered the districts round it. The people of the farm were all standing outside the house-door, watching the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the last inch of your benevolent smile exactly how you work and smoke a cigarette and dress and have your pyjamas laid out. If the photographs are at all good, you seem to have got rather a comfortable billet. Talking of which, if you hear of any cheap and handy rooms within a hundred miles of Whitehall, you might keep me in mind. People out here tell me that London's rather ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... until waked by the sun shining into her eyes: she quickly dressed, but did not escape a scolding from her sullen master, who commanded her to make a fire, and get his breakfast for him. Margaret was remarkably quick and handy for a child of her age, as her affection to her mother and grandfather had prompted her to do many little things for them which so young a girl seldom thinks of; but her delicate white fingers were unused to ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... pulled a great rug over her shoulders, and heaped on more and more blankets, which she pulled expeditiously from under the bed. "They always stay here in the summer," said Biddy. "That's to keep them aired; and now they're coming in very handy. You have got four doubled on you now; that makes eight. I should think you'd soon be ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... brought me to the edge of the reedy marsh, and I was just returning, having found the quiver, when I heard a cry, followed by echoes as from a chain of sentinels all round the marsh—'Fire the reeds!' I ran back to the main land, climbed a tree which stood handy, and saw the marsh burst into fire in a hundred spots. It was lighted all round, while our men were in the midst. A chain of enemies surrounded it. I did my best to warn our lord or to die with him. I penetrated the marsh a little distance, when the flames ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... back to sew, taking with them a lot of white cheesecloth for lining for the bedroom we were preparing for Mrs. Holt. Mr. Stewart had had fine luck fishing, but he said he felt plumb left out with so much bustling about and he not helping. He is very handy with a saw and hammer, and he contrived what we called a "chist of drawers," for Daniel's room. The "chist" had only one drawer; into that we put all the gloves, ties, handkerchiefs, and suspenders, and on the shelves below we put ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... in that. Carlos is a Spaniard out of Malaga, where he was too handy with the knife, just as he has been elsewhere. Whatever I am, you're safer with me than you would be with Carlos, although he's a fine sailor ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bits of iron and dainty rubber ball. We played with pieces of stones. I suspect more deftness was needed in handling them than in using the new fashioned pieces. Certainly, in trials than I can remember, I never played the game through without a break; but then I was never half so handy as you are at such things: that, no ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... her clip. Tell her to put books out of her head and stick to the range, marry some good sheepman if one turns up to her taste, or pass them all up if she likes. But tell her to stick to sheep, whatever she does. She can be the sheep queen of this country in fifteen years; she's as handy with 'em now as I am, and I tell you, John, that's something that's hard for me to say, even of my own girl. But she is; she's as good a sheepman right now as I am or ever will be. But you don't need ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... miles or more, because the artillery must be guarded, and infantry only can do that. Now, suppose Beauregard finds that there is a gap somewhere between the forces stretching back, and he happens to have ten or fifteen thousand men handy? Why, he just swoops down upon us, and, if we can't defend ourselves until the rest of the army comes up, he has won what is called a tactical ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a black girl, the property of J. B., eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper and willing disposition. Inquire of her owner at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, in ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... appreciation of his skillful art in my case which made it possible for me to walk, even if on crutches. While I was living on Eleventh street, Dr. Shannon came in one morning to ask for the favor. He unfolded his plan, giving me a list of the members of the club and, because I was so handy with my pen and brush, wanted fourteen place cards for his banquet which was to take place in two weeks at his home. His idea was to have something different. The cards were to represent the different specialties of the physicians, and I was somewhat bewildered ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... handy," said Troop "an' don't go visitin' raound the Fleet. If any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak the truth—fer ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... Southerners," replied the lad, with a gay and careless patriotism; and as giving the handy pepper-box a shake, he began to dust the air with its contents: "I was born on an old Southern battle-field. When Granny was born there, it had hardly stopped smoking; it was still piled with wounded and dead Northerners. Why, one of the worst batteries ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... you settling down into a rut before it happened, and the old place needed a thorough going over anyhow. You know you couldn't have afforded it, Jerry, if it hadn't been for the fire insurance money coming in so handy like. Now, you'll all move back the first part of the winter, with the new furnace set up, and no cracks for the wind to whistle through. Jean will be started off on her path of glory, and I don't think Kit's a mite too young to be fluttering her wings a bit. Land alive, Elizabeth, ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... countenance while he watched events, Solomon got a rake and began gathering together the few autumn leaves which had fluttered down in his front yard. It was not useless labor, for they would "come in handy" later in ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... in different parts of the city, one of which I visited. The arrangements of this place appeared something like our northern horse-markets, having sheds, or barns, in the rear of a public house, where alcohol was a handy ingredient to stimulate the spirit of jockeying. As the traders appeared, lots of negroes were brought from the stables into the bar room, and by a flourish of the whip were made to assume an active appearance. 'What will you give for these fellows?' 'How old are they? 'Are they healthy?' ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... there a handy conspectus of Mr. Belloc's view on a period he considers cardinal in the history of what he would call "our own kind." This is one of the pillars of his conception of the world: what the other pillars are will appear later in ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... the yellow bag to her. (I must explain about this bag. It was made of ordinary yellow cloth and contained bamboo sticks of all sorts and sizes and are made to beat the eunuchs, servant girls and old women servants with.) This bag was carried everywhere Her Majesty went, to be handy in case of emergency. Everyone of us knew where this bag was kept. We took all the sticks from the bag and Her Majesty ordered us to go to the courtyard and beat the eunuchs. It was such a funny sight ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... begin," he confessed. "It's too confounded improbable. I hardly believe it myself, now that I'm sitting here in human clothes, surrounded by human beings. Old Scrubs, and the Nigger, and Handy Solomon, and the Professor, and the chest, and the—well, they were real enough when I was caught in the mess. But I warn you, you are not going to believe me, and hanged if I ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her grace. "Mr. Gay is only exercising commonsense. We all of us have a little of that commodity. If we could only have it handy when it's wanted how much better the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... clumsy compared with ours, with a cumbersome breech action and elevating gear. The French one was a Hotchkiss, made by the French company, belonging to Brabant's Horse—a smart little weapon, but not so handy, I should say, as ours. The British one was a 15-pr. field gun, of the 77th Field Battery, lost at Stormberg and recaptured the other day. It had evidently had hard and incessant use, and was much worn. Brabant's Horse were our escort to-day, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was well known she couldn't be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said, certainly we would have him. Next Mrs. Crupp said it was clear she couldn't be in two places at once (which I felt to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... and shape are the only things against friend Obiter. It is not what this sort of book ought to be, portable and potable, like the craftily qualified contents of a pocket-flask, refreshing on a tedious journey. Had Obiter been the size of either The Handy Volume Shakspeare, or of Messrs. ROUTLEDGE'S Redbacks—both the Baron's prime favourites—the Baron would have been able to dip into it more frequently, as he would into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... went to live in a garrison-town t'other side o' Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at seampstering in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very respectable widow-woman who takes in work of that sort. She only got handy the Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester. Why she left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a lie, why, I wouldn't tell it. That's the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it's wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don't need to unstick the envelope to know what's inside here. It's the raspberry, ma'am, or I've lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and proud-looking she was! I ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... throng they were, with the native violence of the sun-warmed Italic temperament and the abundant animal spirits of a crude civilization, tumbling into the theatre in the full enjoyment of holiday, scrambling for vantage points on the sloping ground, if such were handy, or a good spot for their camp-stools. In view of the uncertainty as to the actual site of the original performances, this portraiture is "atmospheric" rather than "photographic." (See Saunders in TAPA. XLIV, 1913). At any rate, we have ample evidence of the turbulence of the early Roman ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... who came on board tell the lieutenant in command of the brig what they were, and I saw them in the drawer of the cabin table. I supposed that the lieutenant put them there that they might be handy to throw overboard, should he find at any time that the brig was likely to ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... come and seen me, and done me. They planned out how they'd do it, and I didn't never suspect a thing. Uh-huh! Seems like I was unfortunate, just gettin' a start in life like I be.... Bonds, says they. Uh-huh! They'll place 'em, and place 'em handy. First int'rest day there won't be no int'rest, and them bonds'll be foreclosed—and where'll I be? Mighty ingenious fellers, Crane and Keith.... And I up and walked right into it like a fly into a molasses barrel. Them fellers," he said, ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... be found out at a glance that Lady Diana O'Malley was twenty-three; but even if a person is a cad or a cat, he (or she) is often too lazy to go through the dull pages of Debrett or Burke; and besides, there is seldom one of the books handy. Therefore, Di had a sporting chance of being taken for eighteen, the sweet conventional age of a debutante on her presentation. Every one did know, however, that Father had married twice, and that there must be a difference of five or six years between Diana and the chocolate child. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the saws are going.[90] We may begin by and by with wrights, but I cannot but think that a handy laborer might be taught to work at them. I shall insist on Tom learning the process ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... nothing short handy, is there?' said the Chicken, generally. 'This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man as lives ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was a new weapon to them. The trappers at first were afraid the savages would surely try to kill the mules, but soon reflected that the Indians believed they had the "dead-wood" on them, and the mules would come handy after they had been scalped; so they felt satisfied their animals were safe for a while anyhow. The men were taking in all the chances, however; both kept their eyes skinned, and whenever one of them saw a stray leg or head, he drew a bead on it and when he pulled the trigger, its owner tumbled ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... lesson in elocution: that is to say Mr. Repton, the visiting-master for this branch of study, was reading aloud, in a sonorous voice, a chapter of HANDY ANDY. He underlined his points heavily, and his hearers, like the self-conscious, emotionally shy young colonials they were, felt half amused by, half-superior to the histrionic display. They lounged in easy, ungraceful postures while he read, reclining one against another, or sprawling forward ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... nor would he, on the other hand, find the best of accommodations in the deserted house of his father. It had been a great home in its day, but that day was past, and the water connections too, and somebody must be handy to ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... who was it then that told you to come here about the children to ask the way, so that you could take them home, you know, and get the reward all nice and handy? You thought maybe you'd get it straight away, and that we'd send 'em home for you—was that what ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... me spot o' vinegar. Give meself! What's that for? A purty weddin' gift, says I? Handy thing to have in the house! Use me for a clothes-horse, or shtand me in the garden for a fairy bower- aw yis, wid a hole in me face that'd ate thim out o' house ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... days, when people used to buy things to last hundreds of years. Why, just before the wife and I were married, an uncle of mine died up in the North and left me his furniture. I was thinking of furnishing at the time, and I thought the things might come in handy; but I assure you there wasn't a single article that I cared to give house-room to. All dingy, old mahogany; big bookcases and bureaus, and claw-legged chairs and tables. As I said to the wife (as she was soon afterwards), "We don't exactly want to set up a chamber of horrors, do we?" So I sold ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... buffoons in 1740, was nearly as large as ours; but in front stood six cannons of ice; they were often fired without bursting; there were also mortars to hold sixty-pound shells; so we could have some formidable artillery; the bronze is handy, and falls even from heaven. But the triumph of taste and art was on the front of the palace, which was adorned with handsome statues; the steps were garnished with vases of flowers of the same material; on the right stood an enormous elephant, ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... very clever milliner, and a handy girl enough. Stanley says he thinks her pretty, but I don't see it. He makes a great fuss over both her and her sister, but ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... feelin's of mercy. They shore does her credit, said motives does, an' if she had asked Cherokee or Jack Moore, or even Texas Thompson, things would have come off as effective an' a mighty sight more discreet. But since he's standin' thar handy, Nell ups an' recroots Dan Boggs on the side of hoomanity, an' tharupon Dan goes trackin' in without doo reflection, an' sets the Mexicans examples which, to give 'em a best deescription, is shore some bad. It ain't ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... fingerboard—a narrow one is often clung to as "so nice and handy," etc., but it is forgotten that the strings in consequence have to be brought closer together than clean fingering requires; and, moreover, the E string must, of necessity, be brought too near the edge of the ebony for firm stopping; so I have no sympathy whatever with a narrow ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... street lamp-irons being found, by the - French sansculottes, a handy substitute for ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... she was the sort that's obliged to be beaten sooner or later if thar was anybody handy around to do it," remarked my mother. "Some women are made so that they're never happy except when they're hurt, an' she's one of 'em. Why, they can't so much as look at a man without ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... cole was consumed slipt down into the croslet, that was I say directly vnder it.) The Priest perceaued not the fraud, but receaued the ingot of siluer, and was not a little ioyfull to see such certen successe proceed from his own handy worke, wherein could be no fraud (as he surely conceaued) and therefore very dilligently gaue the knaue forty pounds, for the receit of this experiment, who for that summe of mony, taught him a lesson in Alcumistry, but he neuer ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... utmost good nature, "here is mine; I haven't any trunk, so it is handy; and it has rained on my old alpaca for ages; can't hurt that, so wrap yourself up and come along, for I believe in my ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... theme more fit for this hour and place than handy-craft. I begin by saying "handy-craft," for that is the form of the word now in vogue, that which we are wonted to see in print and hear in speech; but I like rather the old form, "hand-craft," which was used by our sires so long ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... can find, my dear. I've got a third dog, who comes in at dessert—a drunken old sea-dog who has followed my fortunes, afloat and ashore, for fifty years and more. Yes, yes, that's the sort of glass we want. You're a good girl—you're a neat, handy girl. Steady, my dear! there's nothing ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... this Album up in five sections so a collector is able to purchase such branches as he desires at a comparatively low cost. It is 9 inches long and 7-1/2 inches wide, very handy; there is but one set of stamps to a page artistically laid out. Spaces have been provided for imperforate and part perforate pairs and the beauty of all; it is right up to the minute. What is more we will add new leaves ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... rolled up in a nice light form, however, the miner was back in the cabin, looking for something of which to fashion a body and head for the lady-to-be. There seemed to be nothing handy, till he thought of a peeled potato for the lady's head and a big metal powder-flask to supply ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... a blank note and a bill of sale, and drawing from his pocket a pen and a small ink bottle, said to me: 'Thar, Mr. Kirke, ye fill up the note, and I'll make out the bill o' sale. I'm handy at such doin's.' ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... horseback getting, Weapons handy, forth were setting Silently from the redoubt: Musketeers, dragooners also, Bravely fought and made them fall so,— Led ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... milk-pails,—though at a very early date as an aid in extinguishing fires each New England family was ordered by law to own a fire-ladder. Occasionally the town's ladder and poles and hooks and cedar-buckets were kept in the meeting-house, and thus were handy for Sunday fires. ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... two to be given at night, and the other the following morning. If these medicines should not be handy, give a large purging ball of aloes, to be followed by a full dose of salts. When the inflammatory action is not sufficiently high to demand depletion, warm bathing, friction and keeping the dog wrapped up in blankets before a fire will generally afford relief. If the pain ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... was exactly similar to those used by the natives, came in very handy on this occasion. These lanterns are the most ingenious things that can be imagined for the money. Each has a wooden bottom, and a bent cane acts as a handle. A nail is provided in the centre of the wooden bottom, wherein to stick the candle, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... rehearsal plan must interfere. She wondered how she could send him word, and finally decided to see him herself for a moment early in the afternoon. Mark, originally employed as office boy, pure and simple, had now made himself a general handy man, reference and filing clerk, in the big piano house of Pomeroy and Parke. He had all the good traits of his race, and some of the traits that, without being wholly admirable, help a man toward success. No slur at himself ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... camps used a lot of water and to make things handy, they used to dig wells near the cook shanty. At headquarters on the Big Auger, on top of the hill near the mouth of the Little Gimlet, Paul dug a well so deep that it took all day for the bucket to fall to the water, and a week to haul it up. They had to run so many buckets that the well ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... skipping up and down upon the tombstone, calling out to his myrmidons—"Good friends! Sweet friends! Let me not stir your spirits up to mutiny. Though that cairn of granite stones lies very handy and inviting, I pray you refrain from it. Touch it not. I humbly entreat my friend with the dirty shirt not to break the sconce of the respectable gentleman whom I have in my eye, with that shillelah of his—though I must admit that he is labouring under strong and just provocation." "For mercy's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... a very soothing effect. You will remark to a friend—or whoever may prove handy—something like this: "What do you want me to do anyhow? Suppose that Cecilia and I were living in a nice house, where we felt perfectly comfortable, and which had a splendid view that pleased us very much, and a wonderful garden where we liked to take walks together. ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... tell what'll please yer aunt. At least, that's been ma experience for quarter o' a century. But it'll be best to tell her—through the 'phone, of course. A handy invention the 'phone. Bide here till ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... Long after, the son would point to the stock, hung up against his wall, and say "But for that bit of leather there would have been no Henry Maudslay." The wounded artilleryman was invalided and sent home to Woolwich, the headquarters of his corps, where he was shortly after discharged. Being a handy workman, he sought and obtained employment at the Arsenal. He was afterwards appointed a storekeeper in the Dockyard. It was during the former stage of William Maudslay's employment at Woolwich, that the subject of this memoir was born ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... for her nurseries blew up or leaked or lay down on the job in some way, so that the worker and I confronted each other, ignorant and unbossed. I will not dwell on the week that followed. The lady gardener gave almost vicious orders by telephone and the worker did his best, but it is not a handy way to direct a garden. When the last rosebush is in, including some that Will is gloomily certain will never grow, I think I shall go away for a rest to some place where there is only ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a patent of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the citizens, but they rarely indulge in suicides because—well, there are no hospitals handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too risky ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... ground we occupied was a large old cottonfield not under cultivation that year, and had been frequently camped on by other troops who had destroyed all the fences and other materials ordinarily found so handy in building hasty breastworks, so that on this occasion our only resource was the earth thrown with the few spades ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... mouth awry. You just take things as they come, and when it seems as if everything was goin' to smash and you couldn't help it, put on your overalls and paint a fence, or hammer tacks, or any old thing that comes handy. What has that rascal Bascom been doin'? Excuse me—my diplomacy's of the hammer-and-tongs order; you're not gettin' your ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... a man could be a poet and still work in a bank—the salary was handy; and there was no money in poetry. In fact, he himself was a poet, as his father had been before him. To be a bank-clerk and at the same ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... descriptions and shapes. They have much in common, but differ widely in particular. No locality is destitute of this venerable and classic falsehood. The ancients used it, the moderns still cling to it; the poor find it handy, the rich could not keep house without it; it abounds in every clime and thrives in every latitude. The polite hostess says to the departing guest: "We have been delighted by your visit; do us the favor to come again," when she sincerely hopes that ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... garments. You cannot tell a gambler from a clergyman by his attire. Dress exactly as if you were going to the swellest party on Fifth Avenue. The only addition to your toilet will be a revolver, if you happen to have one handy. If you do not, I have several and will ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... well enough to suit him, and he was obliged to fill his writing- room with hired scribes. He supplied them with daily rations out of the brethren's and cellarer's alms-food; such provision was always handy, and the scribes were not retarded by leaving their work.[3] Sometimes scribes were employed merely to save the monks trouble. At Corbie, in the fourteenth century, the religious neglected to work in the writing-room themselves, but allowed benefactors to engage professional ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... it," boomed Rakitin, obviously abashed, but carrying off his confusion with a swagger. "That will come in very handy; fools are ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... see you, and I shall expect you on Sundays to dinner if on no other day; and whenever the time shall come when you feel, dad, that you'd rather give up work, there will be a cottage for you and mother somewhere handy to me, and enough to live ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... skipper, and at the same instant executed the order himself by jamming the tiller hard down to leeward. "Haul the fore sheet to windward! Clear away the long-boat! Be handy, lads! We'll save the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... mention Armies which they always have; some skilful Admirals withal,—La Gallisonniere, our old Canada friend, is one, very busy at present;—and mean to try seriously the Question of Sea-Supremacy once more. If an Invasion did chance to land, the state of England would be found handy beyond hope! How many fighting regiments England has, I need not inquire, nor with what strategic virtue they would go to work;—enough to mention the singular fact (recently true, and still, I perceive, too like the truth), That of all their ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... the society of this country is a non-alcoholic beverage that can be drunk in quantities similar to the quantities in which highballs can be drunk. A man who is a good, handy drinker can lap up half a dozen highballs in the course of an evening—and many lap up considerably more than that number and hold them comfortably; but the man does not exist who can drink half of that bulk of ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... "I've been meaning ever so many times to ask you about her, and something else has seemed to come up. I can't imagine Judy grown up. She hasn't pinned up that great long braid, has she, that used to be so handy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... to have one or two of ours with them. Sometimes a party is detached altogether and acts with another column, and there are always two or three with the staff. Besides acting as guides they are interpreters, and handy men generally. All these little subtractions reduce our main body to about a hundred, or a little less; and this main body, under Rimington himself, acts as scouts and ordinary fighting men. In fact, a true description of us would ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... said. "I'll have to owe you a cent. But here's a mince pie I've just baked. Take it home to your ma. Maybe it'll come handy. I'll try to think of the other cent next time you ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... for a boy it should be remembered that such a one as this tends to make him handy, skillful and self-reliant, and that the boy would probably choose ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... a boy for your garden; and you cannot do better than take young Bill Summers. He was with me for a bit last year, when the boy I have now was laid up with mumps or something of that sort, and he was very favorably reported on as being handy in the garden, able to milk a cow, and so on. By the way, Mrs. Greg, I have taken the liberty of sending down a cow in milk. I expect she is in your meadow now. I have seven or eight of them, and if you will send her back when her milk fails I ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... also their ideas and learning something of geography. Thus, in the course of time, it has come to pass that Japan is a country of which almost every square mile is known, while it is well threaded with paths, banded with roads, and supplied to a remarkable extent with handy volumes of description and of local history.[17] Her people being well educated in their own lore and local traditions, possessed also a voluminous literature of guidebooks and cyclopedias of information. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... Seeing she was getting playful, the cunning lord, who had not been used to maidens, but knew from experience the little tricks that women will practice, seeing that he had much associated with ladies of the town, feared those handy tricks, little kisses, and minor amusements of love which formerly he did not object to, but which at the present time would have found him cold as the obit of a pope. Then he drew back towards the end of the bed, afraid of his happiness, and said to his too delectable spouse, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... feet! Go down, and stick there. Business, I tell you, is going to die here, and who would want to read what a stripling like you would write outside of business? You would print that this one had failed, that that one had failed, and one don't collect bills handy from people who have failed. I tell you that the whole province is about to fail, and Philadelphia is going to ruin, and I advise you to turn right about and pack up, and go to some other place. There will never be any ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the notorious criminal! She bore it nearly in the same spirit as Caesar did Brutus's dagger, except that in the former case truth formed the basis, while in hers only wicked malice. The kitchen-maid seems more handy than the former ill-conducted beauty; she no longer shows herself,—a sign that she does not expect a good character from me, though I really had some thoughts of giving her one. The kitchen-maid at first made rather a wry ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... right into her plankin'. Nobody'll ever suspect her name's been changed. I notice that the official letters and numbers cut into her main beam is F-C-P-9957. I'll change that F to an E, the C to an O, and the P to an R. A handy man with a wood chisel can do lots of things. He can change those nines to eights, the five to a six, and the seven to a nine. I've seen it done before. Then we'll rig a foretopmast and a spinnaker boom on her, and bend a fisherman's staysail. Nothing like it when ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... converge &c. 290; crowd &c. 72; place side by side &c. adv. Adj. near, nigh; close at hand, near at hand; close, neighboring; bordering upon, contiguous, adjacent, adjoining; proximate, proximal; at hand, handy; near the mark, near run; home, intimate. Adv. near, nigh; hard by, fast by; close to, close upon; hard upon; at the point of; next door to; within reach, within call, within hearing, within earshot; within an ace of; but a step, not far from, at no great distance; on the verge ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a while she blew her nose and wiped her eyes and I had no further trouble. But I was afraid to trust either her or Miss Susanna with their money, so I took the checks back and told them it was better for me to keep them, as money had such a queer way of disappearing. Any that was handy was used when needed, and when the time came to get the things the money was for there might not be any to get. They handed it back as meek as ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... griping occur to the child brought up by handy this derangement will generally be found to result from overfeeding: abstinence and diminution of the quantity of the food will generally be all that is necessary here. It will be well, however, for the mother in ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... purposed to place there as inhabitants, or at least to set on work there upon my account while I stayed, and either to leave them there or carry them forward, as they should appear willing; particularly, I carried two carpenters, a smith, and a very handy, ingenious fellow, who was a cooper by trade, and was also a general mechanic; for he was dexterous at making wheels and hand- mills to grind corn, was a good turner and a good pot-maker; he also made anything that was proper to make of ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... local (Chapter XIII) is for bold, Leaf is imitative for lief, i.e. dear. Dear itself is of course hopelessly mixed up with Deer... The timorous-looking Fear is Fr. le fier, the proud or fierce. Skey is an old form of shy; Bligh is for Blyth; Hendy and Henty are related to handy, and had in Mid. English the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... splendid specimens were cut from a huge drooping bough which was held down by the men while the collector operated with a handy little axe, bringing down as well insects innumerable, many of which were of a stinging nature, and, to the dismay of both boys, first one and then another brilliantly marked snake of some three feet ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... so much the better for Goldenborough, for it is a pretty place, and honest Englishmen in it. Only see that there be not too many Frenchmen crept in when I come back, beside our French friend Herluin; and see, too, that there be not a peat-stack handy: a word is enough to wise men like you. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... darkness was broken in one place, and one only, by a plateful of light proceeding from a tiny bulb of incandescence in its centre. This blinding atom of white heat lit up a hand hardly moving, a pen continually poised, over a disc of snowy paper; and on the other side, something that lay handy on the table, reflecting the light in its plated parts. It was Raffles at his latest deviltry. He had not heard me, and he could not see; but for that matter he never looked up from his task. Sometimes his face bent over it, and ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... was tied up at a dock, and into this they tumbled. The line was cut, and off they steamed, amid a perfect shower of stones, lumps of dirt, old bottles, and anything that came handy to the Lakeview ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill |
