"Old hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any danger of bein' wasted. You've made me want to meet my boy again; and I used to dread it; I didn't think I was fit for it. I don't know whether you expect me to thank you; I presume you don't; but I"—he faltered, and his voice shook in sympathy with the old hand that he put trembling into ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... before. "Therefore," said Mr. Pinkerton, "it was done by a new man, and although this new man had the nerve, brains and shrewdness necessary to successfully terminate his plans, yet he will lack the cunning and experience of an old hand in keeping clear of the detectives and the law, and will do some one thing which will put us upon ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... of the listening Perk he heard the sound of splashing gradually recede until finally it died away completely. This gave him a feeling bordering on relief, for while Perk was an old hand at the fighting game and stood ready to give a good account of his ability to defend their prize; at the same time he had no violent desire to open up on the two occupants of the unseen rowboat nor yet ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... When his original investigations failed to reveal a motive for the murder, he determined to return to London to ascertain what dangerous criminals were at liberty who might have committed the murder. His own view then was that the murder was the work of an old hand who had entered the moat-house to commit burglary, and had murdered Mrs. Heredith to escape identification. The isolation of the moat-house, the presence of guests with valuable jewels, the time chosen for the crime, and the scream of the victim, tended to ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... place on the south of Market Street, to a building which resembled a deserted, tumble-down stable or blacksmith's shop plastered with old hand-bills and posters. There were some dirty old window-frames in the second story, but I do not believe there was one whole pane ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... good girl, Frances," he said, rising to his feet and laying his trembling old hand on her arm. "I love you after my fashion, child—I am not a man of many words. By and by, when you are old yourself, Frances, you won't regret having done something to keep your old father for a short time longer out of his ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... in larger units with the advent of power machinery, the feeling of economic unity among the different ranks of industry was further weakened. The average workman had less opportunity of becoming a master, an employer. In the days of the old hand industry, master, journeyman, and apprentice worked side by side at the same bench. Almost every apprentice might hope to become some time a master, and many a one did so. To-day most wage-workers ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... to my acting at the Montreal Theatre? I am an old hand at such matters, and am going to join the officers of the garrison in a public representation for the benefit of a local charity. We shall have a good house, they say. I am going to enact one Mr. Snobbington in a funny farce ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... all right," says Jones, with a quiet reassuring smile, for Jones is a tough old hand, ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... written in an old hand the native of the "patient extraordinary" and author James Carkasse, and that of the "doctor" Thomas Allen. A little reading convinced me that the writer was a very fit subject for a lunatic asylum; but at page 5, I met with an allusion to the celebrated Mr. Pepys, which I will ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... is excessive in proportion to what is received. Four pounds of oakum is a great task to an expert and an old hand. To a novice it can only be accomplished with the greatest difficulty, if indeed it can be done at all. It is even in excess of the amount demanded from a criminal ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... printed in magazines, secretly shown to his proud mother, were now brought forth and chuckled over with glee by the Professor. The famous biologist struggled through one of the stories, vowed he had read them all, cheerily patted Bill's arm with his shaky old hand, and cheerfully abandoned the hope he had held of seeing his son ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... cried Mary. "Oh, girls, it is it! It is the lost orchid. Grandie had sewed it up in the doll! Look. See that stem!" She was shouting almost wildly, for there, shooting from the broken arm pit of the queer old hand-made doll was the unmistakable tendril of the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... accustomed to consider superior to themselves. Familiar with the surf, and full of mischievous fun, they began to shout and gesticulate with the settled purpose of making matters appear worse than they were, and of enjoying the white man's discomfiture,—all but the patrao, who was an old hand, and on whom depended the safety of us all. He kept a steady lookout seaward, and stood upright and firm, grasping his oar with both hands. With him it was a point of honour to bring the white men intrusted to his care safely through ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... was upon the point of fainting—a clay tint darkened the white of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... he said, to put Ralph on the Colorado ranch and "give the boy some responsibility." Ralph would have the help of Wested's foreman, an old hand in the cattle business, who had agreed to stay on under the new management. Mr. Wheeler assured his wife that he wasn't taking advantage of poor Wested; the timber on the Maine place was really worth a good deal of money; but because his father had always been so proud of his great pine woods, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... gray-headed. I have seen thrilling times in my life, and have been the hero of adventures, that, were I to relate them to you, would make each particular hair of your heads stand on end, like the quills of a punched hedge-hog. I am—if you will kindly permit me to use a slang expression—an old hand at the business of hunting and trapping, and have accomplishments in which I can not be beaten. Among them, stands my ability to whip a grizzly bear in a fair fight, with no weapon but my knife. I have hunted wild gorillas in the streets ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... of English fiction to include within its pages some rules for the writing of novels;—or I might perhaps say, with more modesty, to offer some advice on the art to such tyros in it as might be willing to take advantage of the experience of an old hand. But the matter would, I fear, be too long for this episode, and I am not sure that I have as yet got the rules quite settled in my own mind. I will, however, say a few words on one or two points which my own practice ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... thought a great deal depended. They had driven out of town early, and if they drove back late they would not be seen, as all the cacklers were sure then to be dressing for dinner, and he would not pass the Clubs. 'I couldn't suggest it,' he said. 'But Dannisburgh's an old hand. But they say he snaps his fingers at tattle, and laughs. Well, it doesn't matter for him, perhaps, but a game of two . . . . Oh! it'll be all right. They can't reach London before dusk. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for something, with your heart on tenter hooks. There is no answer. God might have been dead, to adapt the words of Catharine Luther, so far as any answer reaching them is concerned. But you cannot befool Daniel in that way. He is an old hand at prayer. Apparently he has no thought of quitting. He goes quietly, steadily on. Twenty days pass, with no change. Still they persist. Then the twenty-first day comes and there is an answer. It comes in a vision whose glory is beyond human strength to bear. By and by when ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... certain fairs, and had carried the pleasure of his society, they very gravely asserted, considerably beyond a joke; so that the state of the prisoner's affairs took a very sombre aspect, and the counsel—an old hand—intrusted with his cause declared confidentially that there was not a chance. But a yet more weighty accusation, because it came from a much nobler quarter, awaited Clifford. In the robbers' cavern were found several articles ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an old hand at rifling wolf dens. Occasionally a pup would dart from another exit, and the shotgun was an effective weapon with which to check his flight. But never had he seen such a mad outpouring of pups as this, and in all his long life ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... your hearts Memory the least of wrong?' The monks replied: 'Father, within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath, But love, and love alone.' And he: 'Not less Am I in charity with you, my sons, And all my sins of pride, and other sins, Humbly I mourn.' Then, bending the old head O'er the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord To be his soul's viaticum, in might Leading from life that seems to life that is; And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made, He sat upon his bed, and spake: 'How long Ere yet the monks begin ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... them this time, but that was because the boarding officer was a green one. If an old hand at the business comes aboard it may be necessary to chuck him over the side and run for it. Therefore it is right you should know things, in order the more intelligently ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... youngster; he can't run the mills. They'll have to shut down till the old master comes to, or this one gets old enough,' said a shrewd old hand. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... BELLOWS. An old hand at the bellows. A colloquialism for a man up to his duty. "A fresh hand at the bellows" is ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "If they were old hand-woven, herb-dyed, knitted quilts, they are worth fifty dollars apiece in New York to-day. I paid that for one not five months ago," I said, staring haughtily into the calmly doubting faces of the mountaineers in the jury box ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... ideal headquarters for a troop that desired to specialize in engineering. On the first floor were the old hand-forges, bellows, lathes, work benches, planing machines, and various other appliances. They were all out of date, to be sure, and some slightly rusty, but still quite usable after they had ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... promised Grafton. Don't be afraid, Mistress Edda, I'm not going to stake Bridgefield and reduce you to beggary. I'm an old hand, and was a cool one in my worst days, and whatever I get I'll ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in breathless silence, while the sound of wheels came down the street towards the empty door. Then—an old hand-cart appeared in the doorway and behind it William in his strange attire, and Joan in her fairy-like white—white cloak, white dress, white socks and shoes—her bright curls clustered ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... had just finished an essay called Down with Government by the Greyhaired; and I was full of arguments and illustrations. I said the proper thing was to combine the experience of an old hand with the vitality of a young one. Hang me if he didn't take me at my word and alter his will—it's dated only a fortnight after that conversation—appointing me as ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... With the old hand plough a binder required more care and caution to produce an even edge throughout than with the new cutting machine. If a careless workman found that he had not ploughed the margin quite square with the text, he would put it in his press and take off "another shaving," and sometimes ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... conceal, and which his companion purloined. It's precisely what such a simpleton would do. We have him as safe as a linnet in a cage; and could wring his neck round as easily. Oblige me by acting under my guidance in the matter, Sir Rowland. I'm an old hand at such things. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his slow brain comprehended the fact that this speech was but another way of announcing that he and his men would find no welcome at the Three Bar from that moment on. Harper caught his arm and jerked him back. The albino was an old hand and ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her withered old hand, and staring intently in the direction ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... silence. I told her I would bear any thing and do any thing, if in time I had hopes of obtaining her forgiveness. I begged of her to pity me, for my dead mother's sake. And she did pity me. She did not say, "I forgive you;" but she looked at me lovingly, with her eyes full of tears. She laid her old hand gently on my head, and murmured, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... in good spirits; if anything went wrong with one of the locks, he would soon unscrew it, take it to pieces, file it, oil and clean and set it in order, and put it back in its place again; "I am an old hand at it," he used to say. Not only so, he knew all about ships, the sea, France, foreign countries, men, business, law, great houses and prisons,—there was nothing that he did not know. If any one complained rather more than usual, he would offer his services at once. He had several times lent ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... She's an old hand at the game and has learned to take things as they come. She'll be at work upon some other case within a week and will have forgotten that ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... hopeful," answered Phil. "And my father says he's one of the best oil experts to be found anywhere. He's an old hand ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... designedly, a short way off, and then, as he held out his friendly old hand to me, had sat down on the edge of his bed. "What is it," I asked, "that ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... Equity. After giving as much of a shock to her mother's mild nature as it was capable of receiving by her unexpected return, she had gone to her own room, and remained ever since without seeing her father. He put up his thin old hand and passed it over her hair, but it was long before either ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... a striking instance. But he soon corrects himself, and writes for twenty folios (to the recto of folio 27) with more or less care in his clear Roman hand. Thence he begins to return rapidly, but by perceptible degrees, to the old hand, until, on the recto of folio 31, and a page or two before it, he writes, illegibly to most modern eyes, as in fac-simile No. 3, "a proverbe." Thereafter, except upon certain rare and isolated occasions, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... grandfather and grandson, and had seemed to doze in the sun and not hear anything. But when the room resounded with Meir's passionate exclamation, and Saul had risen, angry and threatening, she rose also, and silently advanced a few steps, until with her poor old hand she shielded her great-grandson. Saul's hand dropped. Having exclaimed to Meir in an already softened voice, "Weg!" (Get out) he fell into a chair, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... were laid, and the civilian element began to plunge a bit on Orme, word having passed that he was an old hand at the game, whereas I was but a novice. Orme took some ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... was taken from the box, dusted by blowing on it and carefully examined. I really had before my eyes the pseudochrysalis of some Meloid. Its shape was unfamiliar to me. No matter: I was an old hand and could not mistake its source. Everything assured me that I was on the track of an insect that rivalled the Sitares and the Oil-beetles in the strangeness of its transformations; and, what was a still more precious fact, its occurrence amid the burrows of the Mantis-killer ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... her Grace, standing close by her chair, and holding the old hand between her own two, which were so white and velvet warm, "and 'twas you who held him in your arms when he was but a little new-born thing, and often sang him to sleep, and were so loved by him. And he played here—" and she looked about the ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... charity of the passerby, and to attract this wavering attention of the public, the man resorts to all sorts of subterfuges, from holding up pencils and gum to grinding out popular tunes on a wheezing old hand organ. Sometimes these men have families and feel they must make this effort to maintain them. Many of them try to sell newspapers on the corners of our principal streets, but here, too, the competition is ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... asleep, and the fellow's first action was to rifle Jim's valise with the skill of an old hand, taking every scrap of paper he could find, a few letters and a memorandum book; these he glanced through; they were not what he wanted, at least the paper that he had been told to bring was ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... the girls present; if he could catch an apple in his teeth, she would be his next year's valentine. Fun, splashing, and laughter followed for five minutes; then time was up, and three more boys took their turn. After many such trials Posy's big cousin (an old hand, with a big mouth) brought up a little apple, another fellow caught an apple by its stalk, and Bob (good at a dive), after plunging his face to the bottom of the tub, and holding his apple steady between his nose and chin, rose with it in ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... think that, as an old hand at playing the buffer in family jars, you had a much greater experience. Yesterday she was like an electric eel! And she gave her shock, too! The boy has not been home since. I am almost glad of ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Macomer entered the room, having been informed of the presence of a visitor. The Duca looked up, and his head shook involuntarily, as he at once began the slow process of getting upon his legs. But Macomer was already pressing him into his seat again, holding the old hand in both of his with an appearance of ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... referred to as knotting. A fancy weave of twisted and knotted threads in close imitation of some old hand laces. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... and his friends had no such delusions. Mr. Baxter was an old hand at the game, and, though he had been in Alaska but once before, he knew that any gold that was to be obtained by miners would be found only after hard work and much suffering. Hunting a treasure was different, and probably ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... neck and crop into a cab, with a short-handled shovel and a sharp-tongued old hand. It nigh breaks their backs, but ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... are stacked in gleaming tiers from floor to ceiling. The higher ones are fetched down by means of a long pole provided at one end with a sort of inverted hook. It is a most dexterous and pleasing trick, only to be attempted by an old hand. An inexperienced practitioner would certainly bring down an avalanche of hat-boxes on the heads of the customers. On one side of the room there is a patent stove in which several irons were heating, not for torture, but for the improvement of hats. Several aproned attendants were bustling about, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... Out of his freckled face there beamed two honest light-blue eyes. His forehead was broad and slightly bulgy; his carroty hair was cut short to his head. Mrs. Church raised her wrinkled old hand and laid it for a ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... the door brought her to her senses. She put a withered little old hand, very like a sparrow's claw, upon the window-sash to shut it hastily, and then, too proud to deceive, turned boldly to meet ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... or later. He's an old hand at the game, or he wouldn't be so anxious to let us know he's still in ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in the skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket on him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hope you don't mind—what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look on this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if I have a pal with me I want ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... beardless youth—had run off to California after gold bubbles, and whom little good had been heard of when anything at all was heard of him. Know him? Of course he did not; but, as he sat down beside him on the settee and shook his old hand, David put his arms about his neck, and hung his head upon his bosom, and saw, in imagination, the thriftless boy of long ago whom he loved for all ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... few books carefully covered in a corner shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) to his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... crew, an old hand, had been injured by a blow from a block, and the rest were young men, willing and active enough, but not able to take entire charge of the cutter. Still, old Paul was a determined man, and as long as there was a chance of meeting a vessel to pilot ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... dull you must have found those humdrum people at that village where we left you—but the savages were very kind to you, child!" said Madame de Bernstein, patting the young man's cheek with her pretty old hand. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that he and Mrs. Welden have little quarrels about the colours I wear. It seems that they find my wardrobe an absorbing interest. When I put the book on the table, I felt Doby touch my sleeve with his trembling old hand. He thought I did ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... day in July, 1858, two women carrying well filled market baskets, were crossing the old Hand Street bridge that spans the Alleghany River between ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... says I. "But if I'd been Piddie I think I'd have hung the assignment for that on some other hook than Hollis's. He didn't know what a bond looked like until a year ago and that piece of work called for an old hand." ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... had caught the tap of your knuckles and he had thrown wide the green door, what a welcome would have awaited you! How warm the grasp of his fine old hand; how cordial ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... almost cried at the sight of this destitute, tottering, honest old man, and before the latter could get farther in his lament another shilling was in his palsied old hand, and the grey old forelock ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Here was the real hobo, the irrepressible absolute. Cheyenne stepped up and swung to the saddle with the effortless ease of the old hand. Bartley noticed that the pack-horse had no lead-rope, nor had he been tied. Bartley did not know that Filaree, the pack-horse, would never let Joshua, the saddle-horse, out of his sight. They had traveled the Arizona trails ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... about such people? There were references, I believe—as valuable as references usually are. She must be an old hand. But I'm sick of the subject; let's drop it.—You were interrupted, Hollings. What ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... old hand at the game,' he replied, noticing the tinge of disappointment in her thought. 'With ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... appealed, her eyes big and terrified at the recollection of what had passed. "No, he didn't hit me, Joe; but he choked me. He grabbed me by the throat and shook me—his old hand's as hard ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... spoken of as the American eagle. If one will take the trouble to compare this figure in every position in which it is displayed upon our coins, with the effigy of "the winged hound of Zeus," so common on the coins of Greece, he will find the identity complete. The only difference will be that the old hand-struck coins show the vigor of original work, as compared with that ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... been in her romping and playing so firm and decided; and now that she has entered the married estate, and has the run of affairs in that mansion, she must have reaped so much the more experience, and have become quite an old hand! I've been thinking these last few days that outside my eldest cousin, there's no one else who could come to my help; and, aunt, if you don't do it for the face of your nephew and your nephew's wife, do it, at least, for the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... we both went out together, and, perhaps naturally, drifted to the smoking room of his hotel. He was an old hand on the road, and full of stories of his own and others' experience. I tried to be a ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... glad to welcome you to Old Harpeth, Count. How did you make the trip down? said my Uncle, the General Robert, as he held out his large and beautiful old hand and gave to the Count Edouard de Bourdon such a clasp that must have been to him most painful. And as I beheld that very tall grand old soldier of that Lost Cause look down upon that very polished and ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a sight as an old hand-loom worker in a factory attempting to make his clumsy machine compete with the flying shuttles about him, is a workingman equipped with knowledge so meagre that he can get no meaning into his life nor sequence between his acts and ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... Hodson took his seat and the names of the jurymen were called over. Kemp entered the witness-box with a more confident air than he had worn the previous day. Mr. Walters rose to begin his cross-examination, and the witness faced the barrister with the air of an old hand who knew the game, and was not to be caught by any ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... near hers and sat down. The old hand, in which the pulses moved so slowly, clasped the younger ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... search in the course of a few days, at the risk of lowering my character in the eyes of the brave Hippus; for our trick of making thieves feel safe by means of superficially searching them may indeed answer with novices, but would never avail with this old hand. It is certain that we shall find nothing at our ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the group. "Bah! I say. Your 'Thousand and One Nights,' your fairy stories, all the wonders of nature,"—here he waved his trembling old hand excitedly,—"all these are but as nothing compared with ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... Fil-de-Soie went on, "at Brest you are sure to get some beans at the third turn if you dip your spoon in the bowl; at Toulon you never get any till the fifth; and at Rochefort you get none at all, unless you are an old hand." ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... people," who he knew would keep him prisoner for ever and a day. There was no good in resisting. He grew bewildered, and yielded himself passively to his fate, and emerged from the glen on the platform above; his captor's knotted old hand still on his arm, and looked round on the tall mysterious trees, and the gray front of the castle, revealed in the imperfect moonlight, as upon the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... came for was to get the work started," he was continuing. "The Federation Government felt that an old hand should do that. Well, it's started, now; you and Tony and whoever come out on the Schiaparelli must carry it on. You said it, yourself; you have a whole new world. This is only one city, of the last Martian civilization. Behind this, you have the Late Upland Culture, ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... her deep armchair, she looked old and broken to-night, far older than she would look a few days later when she lay in her coffin. Rachael had brought her a cup of hot bouillon, and had knelt, daughter fashion, to see that she drank it, and now the thin old hand clutched her shoulder, and the eager old eyes were close ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had in his desk but never brought out except when he was alone, and waited for Captain Baird to ask his question. Captain Baird turned ...
— Test Rocket! • Jack Douglas
... of this sudden comedown, we shall pull through," he said. "After all, we have four thousand five hundred francs before us. I will turn my new position in Royalist journalism to account. To-morrow we shall start the Reveil; I am an old hand now, and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... sleeves. He liked the brown wheel and the yellow floor and the beautiful bit of blue cloth thrown over the wheel-base. Then he saw how beautifully the white kerchief and apron and wall caught the light. He saw the helpfulness of the rugged old hand, worn and scarred as it was, yet patient and firm in ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... have heard her say, was revealed to her—a reason above reasoning—and without her own agency, as it seemed (for she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, which to her were anxious ages; and from that moment a deep peace fell upon her heart, and she knew the quality ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... was not large enough to permit of my seeing Mrs Willis herself as she sat in her accustomed window with the spout-and-chimney-pot view. I could only see the withered old hand held tremblingly out for the smoking cup of tea, which the boy handed to her with a benignant smile, and I could hear the soft voice ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... Gazette, which is still in circulation, the present voluminous and influential journalism of the Metropolis of the Dominion had here its origin in the setting up of this old hand printing-press, similar to if not the same which is now preserved in the Patent Office at Washington. For it Franklin sometimes made his own type and ink, engraved the wood cuts, and even carried in a wheelbarrow through the streets of Philadelphia the white paper ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... is also a complete MS. copy of the first four Books of this History belonging now to Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Bookseller in Edinburgh, which formerly belonged to the late Reverend Mr. Matthew Reid, Minister of the Gospel at North-Berwick; it is written in a very old hand, the old spelling is kept, and I am informed that it exactly agrees with the Glasgow MS., with which it was collated, during the time this edition was ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... finger at her. "Haw! Haw!" he laughed. "There's other people that's noticed a policeman hangin' round. He's a dandy, he is!—not. He let that old hand organ man give ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... the adventure joyously. It is the first time she has experienced mutiny, but she is such a thorough sea-woman that she appears like an old hand at the game. She leaves the deck to the mate and me; but, still acknowledging his leadership, she has taken charge below and entirely manages the commissary, the cooking, and the sleeping arrangements. We still keep ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... sanded floors, are still the fashion in some parts of Georgia. This done, they went about the business of raising crops, and stocking their farms with cattle. The women and children were just as busy. In every cabin could be heard the hum of the spinning wheel, and the thump of the old hand loom. While the men were engaged in their outdoor work, the women spun, wove, and made the comfortable jeans clothes that were the fashion; while the girls plaited straw, and made hats and bonnets, and in many other ways helped the older people. In a ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... a copy of Florio's first edition of his Worlde of Wordes in my library, which evidently belonged to his friend William Godolphin, as his name is written in it, there is also written in an old hand, under Florio's name on ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... just out of reach of the bland old hand, which stretched itself out to chuck her under the chin, and was left patting the air with infinite ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... that I have some 3,000 to 4,000 American chestnut sprouts that range anything from 1 to 18 feet in height. But more promising—I have a cluster of fine young seedlings that I have been caring for. All the woods were cleared away from them to give them plenty of light. They are watered by the old hand bucket method in dry spells. I report on them occasionally to Mr. G. F. Gravatt and Mr. Russell B. Clapper of the U.S.D.A. They are ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... he said again and again, "I do marvel where the lad got so much knowledge, at his age. He is like an old hand at the sheep business. He knows more than any shepherd I have,—a deal more; and it is not only of sheep. He has had experience, too, in the handling of cattle. Juan Jose has been beholden to him more than once, already, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... were in the yard in my father's time; they have not been worth their salt these ten years. When the business was turned over to me I didn't discharge any old hand who had given his best days to the yard. Somehow I couldn't throw away the squeezed lemons. An employer owes a good workman something beyond ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Malcolm Sage. "The thief might have been an old hand at the game, and too clever to fall into a rather obvious trap. In that case I might have been forced, as a foreigner, to salute the hands of all the ladies in the house. I learnt to click my heels years ago in Germany." Again there was a suspicious movement at the ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... at that age; the nose was already long and rather flat than sharp, and the large straight lips, even and close set, would have seemed strong even in a grown man's face. The boy sat upon his small grey Andalusian horse as if he had lived a lifetime in the saddle, but his twelve-year-old hand was heavier on the bridle than ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... place fertilizer and rattlesnake poison in one class. But Jurgis was too ill to think of drinking—he could only make his way to the street and stagger on to a car. He had a sense of humor, and later on, when he became an old hand, he used to think it fun to board a streetcar and see what happened. Now, however, he was too ill to notice it—how the people in the car began to gasp and sputter, to put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and transfix him with furious glances. Jurgis only knew that a man in front of him immediately ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... song, So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong, You hardly could distinguish one in ten. He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: His gesture spoke ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... an old hand, is Tim, and if he can't get them for dinner he gets them for breakfast. He catches them with night-lines and snares, and all sorts of poaching tricks. I know he bought a bag with four or five pounds of lime at Torres Vedras, and ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... right again now, Major. I am not surprised at her fainting; old hand as I am at these matters, and I think that I have seen as much or more juggling than any man in India. I felt very queer myself, specially at the snake business. As I said, I have seen that ascension ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... she said, "you just take all the fear away. I kept feeling that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone now. Jed said"—here Nancy wavered—"he said the ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... in the country with the broad fields, the shady woods, the bright blue sky and the merry pipe of birds calling him out to active exercise and unaccustomed sport. He is sure to think himself a sportsman, even if uncertain whether the shot or powder should first enter the gun; and if an old hand at the trigger, his uneasiness while in the house becomes almost painful. Every article of hunting-gear is overhauled again and again; boots are greased, shot-pouches filled, powder-charges remeasured, guns cleaned and ramrods oiled; and I once had a fine Manton—as sweet a piece as ever came ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... false fires, his life ignoble, wayward, erratic, unclean? Would it not be John rather than Alan Massey Tony Holiday would choose, if she knew all? This ugly, venomous, sin-scarred old rascal held his fate in the hollow of his evil old hand. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... what. I always apportion the rheumatism wrongly, but she never does. There she stands just by the church-gate, with the little sunny lights running up and down upon her snow-white gown, shaking each grimy old hand with a kind and ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... You'd cast un off because he've sinned? Ecod! I've seldom heard the like. Who is you? Even the Lard God A'mighty wouldn't do that. Sure, He loves only such as have sinned. Lad," he went on, now, with a smile, with a touch of his rough old hand, compelling my confidence and affection, "what's past is done with. Isn't you l'arned that yet? Old sins are as if they never had been. Else what hope is there for us poor sons of men? The weight o' sin would sink us. 'Tis not the dear Lard's way t' deal so with men. To-day ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan |
