"Underhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... habit of stopping, when she had climbed halfway upstairs, of suddenly jerking her head round to see whether any one were looking at her. You would have sworn, had you seen her, that she was deeply engaged upon some nefarious and underhand plot; yet it was not so-she was simply going to dust some of her hideous china ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... looking round, 'I'll take one, for I am fatigued with walking. And now, if you please, gentlemen, I wish to know—I demand to know; I have the right—what you have to say to me, which justifies such a tone as you have assumed, and that underhand interference in my affairs which, I have reason to suppose, you have been practising. I tell you plainly, gentlemen, that little as I care for the opinion of the world (as the slang goes), I don't choose to submit quietly to slander and malice. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the sharp reply, and then, as if relenting, "Well, yes, you may; but be brief, and no underhand dealing, mind, for if you attempt to help him you shall be a dead man the next moment, as sure as I'm a living one. An' you needn't be too soft, Westly," he added, with a cynical smile. "Your chum has—Well, it's no business o' mine. You can ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... always so. You take it as part of her character, as a ship, just as you take account of a man's peculiarities of temper when you deal with him. But with her you couldn't. She was unaccountable. If she wasn't mad, then she was the most evil-minded, underhand, savage brute that ever went afloat. I've seen her run in a heavy gale beautifully for two days, and on the third broach to twice in the same afternoon. The first time she flung the helmsman clean over the wheel, but as she didn't quite manage to kill ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... abandoned it, and when there was no reason whatever why the correspondence should not be public. This private correspondence of Mr. Markham's, now produced for the first time, is full of the bitterest complaints against Durbege Sing. These clandestine complaints, these underhand means of accomplishing the ruin of a man, without the knowledge of his true and proper judges, we produce to your Lordships as a heavy aggravation of our charge, and as a proof of a wicked conspiracy to destroy the man. For if there was ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... make out; it is something dreadfully bad, something mean and underhand, and not redeemed by audacity, as his mother's misdemeanors may have been. If he has never committed murder, he has at least turned his back and looked the other way while some one else was ...
— The American • Henry James
... "it will surprise you, I think. I want to do nothing underhand, and as you're linked to these people for life now, it is just that you should hear what is going to happen. There's the knowledge I once hinted to you that I possessed concerning William Blanchard. I have waited ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... wisdom, Had I not reason? when by Gerrards plots I should have first been call'd to a strict accompt How, and which way I had consum'd that mass Of money, as they term it, in the War, Who underhand had by his Ministers Detracted my great action, made my faith And loyalty suspected, in which failing He sought my life ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... to go. It seemed impossible to accuse this splendid impersonation of vigorous manhood of cunning and underhand methods, of plagiarisms and of theft. As he stood there he resembled more than anything a beautiful tiger-cat, a wonderful thing of strength and will-power, indomitable and insatiate. Yet who could tell whether this strength was not, after all, parasitic. If Ethel's suspicions were justified, ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... distance and see nothing but calm and peace everywhere. They descended below to the very bank. Even at this close range the water was still and smooth, and the agitated words of the restless people did not cause the broad sheet to stir. Misha picked up thin, flat stones and threw them underhand into the distance so that, touching the water, they skipped repeatedly on the surface. He did this habitually whenever the wrangling distressed him. His hands trembled, the little stones ricochetted badly sometimes; this annoyed him, but he tried to hide ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... Lady "Pat" Rourke might lead to trouble with her husband, was conceivable enough; but this was rather a matter for underhand private inquiry than for the attention of the Criminal Investigation ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... natural-born Count for strangers. He swore that he would sing his song whose bread he had eaten. A "fat militia captain" of the place, one Soyssons, on the other hand, privately informed Willoughby that Maurice and Barneveld were treating underhand with Spain. Willoughby was inclined to believe the calumny, but feared that his corpulent friend would lose his head for reporting it. Meantime the English commander did his best to strengthen the English party in their ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... some plan for cheating the workmen at the last. Here would be all this accumulation of capital, and by some successful coup-d'etat Winston and Darcy would swoop down upon it, and take the lion's share. They were very much afraid that the workmen were going to be wronged in some underhand way. A defaulting cashier, unprincipled managers, thieves and forgers, committed their crimes in an out-and-out way; but there was going to be a profound mystery about this—the most simple and above-board management, when every man knew, every six months, the best ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... tellable. He even knew a lot about China, too, which is more than most people do who have lived in China many years. Had he been of that sort, he might have written rather valuable books, containing his shrewd observations and intimate, underhand knowledge of political and economic conditions. But he was emphatically not of that sort, so continued to lead his disreputable, roving life for a period of ten years. At the end of which time he ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... all flushed and eager, thinking joyously how little men—the poor dubs—ever suspect how it's put over on 'em, and the next day, which was Friday, I thought of a few more underhand things she could do. So when she run in to see me that afternoon, the excitement of the chase in her eye, she wanted I should go along on this picnic. I says yes, I will, being that excited myself and wanting to ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... this very evening she has to join us at the Red Horse. Twilight is favourable to evasions, abductions, stealthy movements and underhand actions. We have to trust to the cunning of that girl. As to you, be sure to attend at the Circus of the Bergeres in the dusk. You know M. d'Anquetil is not patient, and it quite the ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... had occurred to her independently, but Diva was loath to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's invention by some odious, underhand piece of spying. What that might be must be investigated (and probably determined) later, but at present the business of Janet's ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... we can discern there is something very underhand in this meeting. But the count's widow is a cheery, easy-going person, despite her mournful black, and perhaps, after all, we may be ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... in great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I took their part; and, when I wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak out, and I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and underhand dealing from the majority. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... opposition. She would rather have faced a thunderstorm than her husband in his wrath, so she concealed Evadne's letter from him, and wrote to her again surreptitiously in order to reproach her for seeming to insinuate that she, her mother, would stoop to do anything underhand. Evadne sighed when she received this letter, and thought of letting the matter drop. Why should she dislike to see her father in the position unreasonable husbands and fathers usually occupy, that of being ostensibly ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Miss Ailie admits having given him half-a-crown to explain his system to her. But when he was gone she could not remember whether you multiplied everything by ten before dividing by five and subtracting a hundred, or began by dividing and doing something underhand with the cube root. Then Mr. Dishart, who had a microscope, wanted his boy to be taught science, and several experiments were described at length in the book, one of them dealing with a penny, H, and a piston, X Y, and you do things to the piston "and ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... consideration of a third delusive hope, that of the people regaining all their rights by the overwhelming force of numbers and armed resistance to tyranny— the advocacy of physical force, as it is called; in other words, the right and necessity of open insurrection, or underhand and secret associations, evidently requiring for success the cooperation of the numerous revolutionary societies of Europe: a criminal delusion, which has brought many evils upon the country, and which is still cherished ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... boulevard, with the leavings sent up by Mademoiselle Seraphine and the other cooks in the house, where they drink stolen wine and stuff themselves, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light of two candles which they put out at the slightest noise in the corridors. Such underhand performances are repugnant to my character. But when I received an invitation on pink paper, written in a very fine hand, as if for a ball given by ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... kindly word: and now, to please this fanatical priest, you would turn away the best servants I have, and put useless, dirty slatterns in their place, that happen to be Papists. You did not use to be so uncharitable, nor so unreasonable. 'T is the priest's doing. He is my secret, underhand enemy; I feel him undermining me, inch by inch, and I can bear it no longer. I must make a stand somewhere, and I may as well make it here; for Jenny is a good girl, and her folk live in the village, and she helps them. Think better of it, dame, and let the poor wench stay, though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or out, ending in high over-knee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished; Day and Martin with their ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... so far as to admit the priest, but no argument could persuade him to leave him alone with the invalid. He was the agent of the family, and it was his duty to see everything that went on. He would have nothing underhand in the matter! ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... for extended executive and administrative duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not at all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, Mr. Grish Chunder De, Esq., M. A., will uphold the prestige of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue and peshbundi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians, some of which will now have to serve under a despised native and take orders too. How will you like that, Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to substantiate himself ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... voluntarily or carelessly, threw open to women the gates of all the arts, to say nothing of the crafts. And all the while he not only continued to antagonize woman, proud and eager in her awakened faculties, with stupid interferences, embargoes and underhand thwartings, but he permitted her to struggle and die in the hideous contacts with life from which a small self-imposed tax would have saved her. Some of the most brilliant men the world will ever know have lived, and administered, ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... in Lothian, with the air of one who was well acquainted with the subject, "it's not the most cautious that are least suspected o' breakin' the law. Now, I ken a man that not one here would suspect, an' he has been carryin' on the business underhand this many a day. But tak' my word for it, the fox has his eye on him for all that, and it isna long before he'll be dropped on the same ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... spirited Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, written by himself, of his enterprise against the kingdom of Naples, we find a curious account of this political art of marking people by odious nicknames. "Gennaro and Vicenzo," says the duke, "cherished underhand that aversion the rascality had for the better sort of citizens and civiller people, who, by the insolencies they suffered from these, not unjustly hated them. The better class inhabiting the suburbs of the Virgin were ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... man, has, as is customary in such case, a special AMT (Government District) set apart for his support; the "Amt of Ruppin," where his business lies. What the exact revenues of Ruppin are, is not communicated; but we can justly fear they were far too frugal,—and excused the underhand borrowing, which is evident enough as a painful shadow in the Prince's life henceforth. He does not seem to have been wasteful; but he borrows all round, under sevenfold secrecy, from benevolent Courts, from ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... employed contrary to the end for which it was given: if the people shall find the ministers and subordinate magistrates chosen suitable to such ends, and favoured, or laid by, proportionably as they promote or oppose them: if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand favoured, (tho' publicly proclaimed against) which is readiest to introduce it; and the operators in it supported, as much as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet approved still, and liked the better: if a long train of actions shew ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... Little men like the one before him wasted his time and irritated him. It was always this way—some underhand business. Then the better side of ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... good deal more about them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand information. In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any thing about me. Like all other girls—and perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys—I had strong though hazy ideas of caste. The noble sense of equality, fraternity, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Linden, walking gravely up to her, "if there is any person in this room towards whom you entertain and practise malicious, mischievous, and underhand designs, you are hereby sentenced to indicate the person, declare the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... me, you can write in the ordinary course of post. I am not ashamed of any slight correspondence we may have together; but I refuse to countenance, or to be in any sense a party to, what may even seem underhand. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... from before the Revolution. Since the Treaty of 1783 the English seemed to act deliberately with studied truculence, as if the Americans would not and could not retaliate. They were believed to be instigating the Indians to continuous underhand war. They had reached that dangerous stage of truculence, when they did not think it mattered whether they spoke with common diplomatic reticence. Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General of Canada, and to-day better known as Sir ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... of Bolingbroke. A savage controversy followed, which survives only in the title of one of Bolingbroke's pamphlets, A Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent Man living—a transparent paraphrase for Warburton. Pope's behaviour is too much of a piece with previous underhand transactions, but ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... sentries; for they suffered me to pass very patiently upon being informed who I was. At my entrance Captain Coote presented me with a commission from Admiral Watson, appointing him governor of Fort William which I knew not a syllable of before; and it seems this dirty underhand contrivance was carried on in the most secret manner, under a pretence that I intended the same thing, which I declare never entered my thoughts. The affair was compromised by the admiral consenting that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... army, whether I have not cautiously avoided offending Gen. Gates in any way. I am sorry his conduct to me has not been equally generous, and that he is continually giving me fresh proofs of malevolence and opposition. It will not be doing him injustice to say, that, besides the little underhand intrigues which he is frequently practising, there has hardly been any great military question, in which his advice has been asked, that it has not been given in an equivocal and designing manner, apparently calculated to afford him an opportunity ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the title and fiction of a democracy,) must practise and admit corruption in its own and in its agents' dealings with the nation. Accordingly, of cheating contracts, of ministers dabbling with the funds, or extracting underhand profits for the granting of unjust privileges and monopolies,—of grasping, envious police restrictions, which destroy the freedom, and, with it, the integrity of commerce,—those who like to examine such details may find plenty in French ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was not disposed to be sympathetic or agreeable about Lady Mary's engagement. Firstly, she had not been consulted about it. The thing had been done, she considered, in an underhand manner; and Lady Maulevrier, who had begun by strenuously opposing the match, had been talked over in a way that proved the latent weakness of that great lady's character. Secondly, Miss Mueller, having herself for some reason missed such joys as are involved in being wooed and won, was ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and kind-hearted woman, and it now struck him that she must certainly have been in the right when she accused Marcus of designs on her pretty niece. At the time he had refused to believe it, for he had never in his life detected his young master in any underhand or forbidden courses; but, after all, Marcus was his father's son, and, in his younger days, the old man had often and often had to risk his skin in Apelles' love-intrigues. And now it was the Son's turn—and if he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the honor of letting them alarm us. In America, the women take care of themselves. He has got my promise to meet him, as you say; and I must keep my promise. Only think," she added, speaking more to herself than to me, "of John Jago finding out Miss Meadowcroft's nasty, sly, underhand ways in the house! Most men would ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... Turkish fashion.] And his lookes loftie, as if he aspyr'd To dignitie, and sdeign'd the low degree; That all which did such strangenesse in him see 680 By secrete meanes gan of his state enquire, And privily his servant thereto hire: Who, throughly arm'd against such coverture, [Coverture, underhand dealing.] Reported unto all that he was sure A noble gentleman of high regard, 685 Which through the world had with long travel far'd, And seene the manners of all beasts on ground, Now here arriv'd to see if like he found. Thus did the Ape at ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... little lady, don't think that what happened came of his playing truant. I know it isn't a pleasant thought that there was that little hitch of underhand doings; and if he'd only mentioned the going to the Tor, we could have told you all snow was coming, thanks to the glass. But, mind me, we don't get our deserts in that way, or we should be always having a whipping. And I never give up hope with a patient till the last remedy has been tried ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... to every word of this conversation with deep interest. From it he discovered that Macklin was a tool of Hardwick as well as Ferris and both were in the habit of doing underhand work ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... girls were coming to Haddo Court, she recalled the incident of what she was pleased to regard as the stolen packet. It had haunted her while she was at Craigie Muir; it had even horrified her. Her whole nature recoiled against what she considered clandestine and underhand dealings. Nevertheless she could not, she would not, tell. But she had very nearly made up her mind to say something to the girls themselves—to ask Betty why she had taken the packet, and what she had done with it. But even on this course she was ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... Germany is a curious mixture of underhand diplomacy and boastful threats. If she desires to impress the neutral States, she vaunts the great conquests that she has been able to accomplish. She points out, especially to Roumania and to Greece, how terrible is her vengeance on States which defy her, such as Belgium and Serbia, while ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... know my notions On sartin pints thet rile the land; There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns Ez bein' mum or underhand; I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur Thet blurts right out wut's in his head. An' ef I've one pecooler feetur, It is a nose ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of Weishaupt's admission into Freemasonry his whole conduct was a violation of the Masonic code. Instead of proceeding after the recognized manner by successive stages of initiation, he set himself to find out further secrets by underhand methods and then to turn them to the advantage of his own system. Thus about a year after his initiation he writes to Cato (alias Zwack): "I have succeeded in obtaining a profound glimpse into the secret of the Freemasons. I ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... association is successful in combating the underhand business methods of the unscrupulous real-estate men is very difficult to say. The fact is this, that the association favors public registry and regulation of the real-estate trade and at present is working toward that end, supporting ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... skin felt tight,—"I see that I must be more underhand in my actions, and contrive to see my friends ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... he has bought, and the house he is building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in obligations. It may take him two or three years to come even on it; but it is a prepossession with him. Now can't you see that if we go to him and tell him this sordid, underhand, unmanly tale, how his fine nature is going to be hurt, how his big heart is going to be wrung, how his home-house that he is building with such eager watchfulness will be a weighty Old Man of the Sea clinging to his back? Do you think, Mr. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... course these talks had to be all confidential. It was not to be supposed that the Dictator would allow, if he knew, that any work should be made about any personal danger to him. Therefore Hamilton and Dolores had to talk in an underhand kind of way, and to turn on to quite indifferent subjects when anyone not in the mystery happened to come in. The talks took place sometimes in the public corridor—often in Dolores' own little ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... She knew Miss Arleigh was naturally frank, open and candid; that she had an instinctive dislike of all underhand behavior; that she could never be induced to look with favor on anything mean; but if the romance and generous truth of her character could be played ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... now be tolerably familiar with the platform on which I stand. Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. If she means that I have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... and close on Cline. Roger had made no mistake in judgment, and, despite the Texan's effort to baffle the hitter, Cline managed to bump a roller into the diamond. Cooper, charging in, scooped the sphere and snapped it underhand to Eliot; for Larkins, having started to dig gravel with the first motion of Grant's arm, was ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... aroused there is no better neighbor than the Turk, he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover, he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor is he at all underhand—he ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... various underhand attempts to remove the champion of orthodoxy. She endeavoured to raise the people against him. Failing in this object, next, by scattering promises of place and promotion, she set on foot various projects to seize him in church, and carry him off into ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... original disciples who stood nearest to Jesus, and of the group of three whom He kept specially at His side. Their present place might well lead them to expect pre-eminence in the kingdom, but their trick was mean, as being an underhand attempt to forestall Peter, the remaining one of the three, as putting forward their mother as spokeswoman, and as endeavouring to entrap Jesus into promising before the disclosure of what was desired. Matthew tells that the mother was brought in order to make the request, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... I'd like to have them court-martialed!" muttered the commander of Company A. "Such underhand work is ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... "That's the most underhand cow ever I seen!" said Tommy. "She runs into them there bamboos and pretends she's going to run right clean through to Queensland, and when I go in after her, she wheels round and hunts me for my life. Near had me twice, she did. Every time I fire the old carbine, it jams, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... he started the game with a rush. With Dorr up, the Star infield played for a bunt. Like clockwork Dorr dumped the first ball as Blake got his flying start for second base. Morrissey tore in for the ball, got it on the run and snapped it underhand to Healy, beating the runner by an inch. The fast Blake, with a long slide, made third base. The stands stamped. The bleachers howled. White, next man up, batted a high fly to left field. This was ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... certain that the man who bowled me out was a direct descendant of Julius Caesar. He delivered the ball underhand at a rapid rate. It came twisting along, now to the right, now to the left; seemed to disappear beneath the surface of the soil, then suddenly came in sight again, shooting past the block. Eventually they told me it removed the left bail, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... members of the family as I could wish, gradually becoming more so; there is a circulation of common life through the household, rendering us an organization, although as yet perhaps a low one; I am sure of being obeyed, and there are no underhand out-of-door connections. When I go to the houses of my rich relations, and hear what they say concerning their servants, I feel as if they were living over a mine, which might any day be sprung, and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... accept the invitations he gets, nor stop brooding about the ones where he's left out. What I'm afraid of is that the wound's ulcerating. He had always one of those dark, secret, angry natures - a little underhand and plenty of bile - you know the sort. He must have inherited it from the Weirs, whom I suspect to have been a worthy family of weavers somewhere; what's the cant phrase? - sedentary occupation. It's precisely the kind of character to go wrong in a false ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be unfair to me and to the other men not to say frankly that the whim was not taken up in any malicious or underhand spirit. Given the idea as it first came to the man in the bookshop, the rest flowed naturally out of it, urged by high spirits. I must tell you honestly that the characters of that letter became very real to us. We speculated endlessly on their personalities, tastes, and ages. ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... conviction prevails that whatever fraudulent methods Vanderbilt employed in his later career, he was essentially an honest, straightforward man who was compelled by the promptings of sheer self-preservation to fight back at unscrupulous competitors or antagonists, and who innately was opposed to underhand work or fraud in any form. Vanderbilt is in every case portrayed as an eminently high-minded man who never stooped to dissimulation, deceit or treachery, and whose first millions, at any rate, were made in the legitimate ways of trade as they were ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... another became the scapegoat for the popular indignation. Then the General Staff was freely censured, and whispers went round that the Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of the Czar, was not only incompetent to conduct a great war, but guilty of underhand dealings with the contractors who defrauded the troops and battened on the public funds. Letters from the rank and file showed that the bread was bad, the shoes were rotten, the rifles outclassed by those of the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Secretaries' Bureau can be shifted down from the platform; on the President's chair be slipped this cover of velvet, 'of a violet colour sprigged with gold fleur-de-lys;'—for indeed M. le President has had previous notice underhand, and taken counsel with Doctor Guillotin. Then some fraction of 'velvet carpet,' of like texture and colour, cannot that be spread in front of the chair, where the Secretaries usually sit? So has judicious Guillotin advised: and the effect is found satisfactory. Moreover, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... is natural for a dunce (I repeat the word), who has been in the habit of writing the most childish nonsense, to break on the world suddenly as a genius, and startle every one with her wonderful thoughts? It stands to reason that some underhand work has been going on; and such being the case, I prefer to hold myself aloof from one who could be guilty of any ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... opticions. Drink, you say! It's chiefly that folks haven't enough charitableness, mind you. They blame all these poor devils that drink and they think themselves clever! And they're envious, too; if they wasn't that, tell me, would they stand there in stony peterified silence before the underhand goings-on of bigger folks? That's what it is, at bottom of us. Let me tell you now. I'll say nothing against Termite, though he's a poacher, and for the castle folks that's worse than all, but if yon bandit of a Brisbille weren't the anarchist he is and frightening everybody, I'd ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... revolutionary party assembled that evening at the Jacobins, deplored their defeat, accused every one, and mutually recriminated on each other. "See," said their orators, "what underhand work has been accomplished in one night; what a triumph of corruption and fraud! The members of the former Assembly have mixed with the new members in the chamber, and have infused into the ears of their successors those concessions that have ruined them. After the sitting of that ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... time seemed to be by far the most formidable rival, but partly also because Crawford was in fact unable to resist the temptation to use ignoble means for attaining an end which he coveted too keenly for his own honor. It was only by degrees that Adams began to suspect the underhand methods and malicious practices of Crawford; but as conviction was gradually brought home to him his native tendency towards suspicion was enhanced to an extreme degree. He then came to recognize in Crawford a wholly ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... take umbrage at the continual aggrandisement of the Pacha of Janina. Not daring openly to attack so formidable a vassal, the sultan sought by underhand means to diminish his power, and under the pretext that Ali was becoming too old for the labour of so many offices, the government of Thessaly was withdrawn from him, but, to show that this was not done in enmity, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... retire now," continues Wilhelmina; "but he would not by any means. He led out the Queen, and did the other ceremonies, according to rule; had a very bad night, as we learned underhand;" but persisted stoically nevertheless, being a crowned Majesty, and bound to it. He stoically underwent four or three other days, of festival, sight-seeing, "pleasure" so called;—among other sights, saw little Fritz drilling his Cadets at Berlin;—and on the fourth day (12th ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... apologetic titter. They are quite emancipated, they say; I have misunderstood them. Their emancipation is like those horrid white lizards that grow in the Kentucky caves out of the sunlight. They tell you they don't see why they shouldn't do this or that—mean things, underhand things, cheap, vicious, sensual things.... Are there, I wonder, the same dreadful little caverns in men? I doubt it. And then comes a situation that really tries their quality.... Think of the quandary I got into with you, Stephen. And for my sex I'm rather a daring person. ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... town boys and bull-dogs; free vent was given to spite, and a broken or bruised head, or body, might be the result; but we made no complaint; as loyal subjects we had done our duty in protesting against all such underhand doings as "Gunpowder Plot;" and, after a hearty supper, given by our kind Head Master, we enjoyed the rest, well earned by the exertions and trials ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... the impromptu vivacity of her sister, but was lively in games that engaged her mind. Her music was very correct, but entirely cultivated by practice and perseverance. Anything underhand was detestable to both Mary and Martha; they had no mean pride towards others, but accepted the incidents of life with imperturbable good-sense and insight. They were not dressed as well as other pupils, for economy at that ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... sollicit my Favour: These are Inconsistencies, such as discover thy Reason depraved. To be brief, I never desire to see your Face; and, Sirrah, if you go to the Work-house, it is no Disgrace to me for you to be supported there; and if you Starve in the Streets, I'll never give any thing underhand in your Behalf. If I have any more of your scribling Nonsense I'll break your Head the first Time I set Sight on you. You are a stubborn Beast; is this your Gratitude for my giving you Mony? You Rogue, I'll better ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... worse for young Latisan if they hadn't got rid of him by this underhand way. Now that he has quit and has gone larruping off on his own hook, you may as well get what comfort out of it you can," he said, trying to ameliorate her distress. "There's no telling what they might have been savage enough ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... reached a crisis. Even if I had to lob it underhand, I must send the ball over the net with ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... examinations at the end of term. Those were fair enough. You knew exactly when they were coming, and could make your arrangements accordingly. But to spring an examination on you in the middle of the term out of a blue sky, as it were, was underhand and unsportsmanlike, and would not do at all. Pillingshot wished that he could put his foot down. He would have liked to have stalked up to Mr Mellish's desk, fixed him with a blazing eye, and remarked, 'Sir, withdraw that remark. Cancel that statement instantly, or—!' ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... said, "and wait. Put the window in back of you down so I can talk. I'll tell you where to go presently. Now, Walter, sit back as far as you can. This may seem like an underhand thing to do, but we've got to get what that woman won't tell us ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... decency. With them Billy was at home—he scarcely missed the old gang. He made his friends among them, and his enemies. He picked quarrels, as had been his way since childhood. His science and his great strength, together with his endless stock of underhand tricks brought him out of each encounter with fresh laurels. Presently he found it difficult to pick a fight—his messmates had had enough of him. They ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... reason ought to be convinced, and of this she had little hope. Miss Brandon was the first to break silence. That word subterfuge rankled, as it must in any honourable mind, and she began—'I wish you would do Theresa justice. No one can have a greater contempt than she for anything underhand.' ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the provincial Government on a lesser count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the influence of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the privilege, underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well to keep up communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he was free; he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been made with an Intention rather to discover Beauties and Excellencies in the Writers of my own Time, than to publish any of their Faults and Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from some of my underhand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me so far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor shall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, so long as I ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... perhaps will go into the great corporations that are now ceaselessly paraded before you as wolves and as public enemies—you will find there the same kind of human nature that you find here in college, the same estimation of probity and of fair dealing. If you do mean or underhand things, you will find that they are branded in the same way there as here. You will find that manliness and integrity are the rule and not the exception, and I will venture upon the prediction that ...
— Morals in Trade and Commerce • Frank B. Anderson
... agreeable. It is probable that if he had been trained in another sphere and in different circumstances he might have been a better man. As things stood, he was unquestionably a pleasant one, and Captain Romer found it hard to believe that he was an underhand schemer. ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... registrations he must stand the consequences. I want you to understand, sir, that I do not countenance any underhand dealing." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... a series, fixes upon the managers of the series, who permitted its introduction, a strong presumption of that underhand intent with which they were charged. At the same time it is honorable to our liberty that this series could be published: though its promoters were greatly shocked when the Essayists and Bishop Colenso[74] ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... he said: Thou art a man at last. And yet they tell me, thou dost nothing all day long but sit playing thy lute. Canst thou really be my son, or art thou some musician's brat, foisted into my son's place by some dark underhand intrigue, when I was looking the other way? For who ever heard of a Yuwaraja,[10] destined to sit upon the throne when I have entered the fire, neglecting all his duties for the sake of a lute's strings? Come now, ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... course Nell had said, Take it and go, but Nell could have had no idea of the use to which the wagon was to be put. If Waring left the garrison with the intention of using the equipage to take Madame Lascelles driving, it was the most underhand and abominable thing he had ever heard of his doing. It was unlike him. It couldn't be true. Yet had not Braxton shown him the letter which said he was seen on the levee with her by his side? Had not Dryden further informed every man and woman and child with whom he held converse during the ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... danger of being swayed in religious inquiry by our sympathy rather than by our reason. I was in great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I incurred the charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness and underhand dealing from the majority. But I have never had any suspicion of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... was as particular about keeping up an outside appearance of respectability, as any aristocratic member of a rich city church might be to cover up their own glaring deficiencies. It would have ruined him as completely in his little circle, to have been found out in his underhand tricks, as though he had been of the consequence in other people's estimation that he was in his own. He had never, in all his life, been accustomed to mingle with but one class of women, and that the ignorant, ill-bred gossip-mongers of his own village. Consequently, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Shame and confusion overwhelmed him. Up to that date he had been honourable, upright, straightforward; as far as the world's estimation went, irreproachable. Now, in his own estimation, he was mean, false, underhand, sneaking! ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourne bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word, I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. It is true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... deposit box. In case of my death, it will be left to responsible parties. When you die, it will be destroyed. I am not a rich man, Mr. Brown, but I shall devote a part of my income to having you watched; watched lest indirectly and by the underhand methods you know so well you again attempt to influence public opinion. After ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... very conservative Catholics we had invited to meet them. "I know what these gentlemen think; I would like to talk to some of the others, those who think 'le clericalism c'est l'ennemi,' and who are firmly convinced that the soutane serves as a cloak for all sorts of underhand and unpatriotic dealings; I can only see them abroad, never in Rome." He would have talked to them quite easily. Italians have so much natural tact, in discussing difficult questions, never ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... was to write the note, and Tony to deliver it, but their father's remark, and his look, touched their consciences. Dan, too, for some reason or another, was against it; he said he thought that after all it was a bit sneaky and underhand, and he wasn't going to have any more of it. Betty felt the foundations of her world shake, and life bristled with new difficulties; but Dan had said it, so no one questioned. After Dan had put things in that light, Kitty suddenly realized that their conduct in the matter had ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... know is this," Trego propounded cunningly: "had Lyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question, had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason to suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not have betrayed him to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... letter that lay before him, and in the interval a fresh vicissitude of mind had befallen him. He, Westray, had been singled out as the instrument of vengeance; the clue was in his hands; his was the mouth that must condemn. Yet he would do nothing underhand, he would take no man unawares; he would tell Lord Blandamer of his discovery, and give him warning before he took any ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Simon as he rose to take his departure, "really very odd that you should have mentioned that chap just now—what's his name—Ulysses; as far as I remember he was a very cunning person, uncannily cunning, and I'm afraid really quite underhand, so to speak, and sometimes deceitful in his methods; and do you know, my boy, you rather remind me of him, now I come to think of ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... poor girl. It was, 'Where have you been, child?' 'Who did you see?' 'Who was that letter from?' 'Why were you so long out when you had only to go to so-and-so?' just as if Molly had really been detected in carrying on some underhand intercourse. She answered every question asked of her with the simple truthfulness of perfect innocence; but the inquiries (although she read their motive, and knew that they arose from no especial suspicion of her conduct, but only that Mrs Gibson might be ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... room, and yet she asked the American to take her portrait.... Is she guileless?... Is she a hypocrite? Or is she tormented by doubt-divining, not divining-believing, not believing in-her mother? Is she underhand in any case, with her eyes the color of the sea? Has she the ambiguous mind at once of a Russian and an Italian?... This would be a solution of the problem, that she was a girl of extraordinary inward energy, who, both aware of her mother's intrigues and detesting them with an equal hatred, had ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... a shudder, certain looks of Clameran, she guessed the truth, that the object of all this underhand work was to force her ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... ford and cross road were such as are inseparable from a campaign, and breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there was nothing secret or underhand ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of old Eldon, and broke off with him entirely. He is disgusted at his opposition out of doors, and at his having been the constant adviser of the Duke of Cumberland and all the foolish Lords who have been pestering the King at Windsor; and he is acquainted with all his tricks and underhand proceedings, probably with more of them than we know of. He thanked the Opposition for their support—thanks which they well merit from him—but of course nobody is satisfied. He was before accused of ingratitude in never ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... admitted of no rash experiments, he had no fear of the result if his own prudent system were persevered in. What might be the consequences of any other system, Dr. Jones would not say, because he was too high-minded to express his distrust of the rival who had made use of underhand arts to supplant him. But Mr. Vigors was convinced, from other sources of information (meaning, I presume, the oracular prescience of his clairvoyants), that the time would come when the poor young lady would herself insist on discarding Dr. Fenwick, and when "that ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thanked, wee escaped from their hands by avoiding a surprize. And in that place my Brother told me of his designe to come and see new England, which our servants heard, and grumbled and laboured underhand against us, for which our lives were in very great danger. Wee sent some of them away, and at last with much labour & danger wee came to Port Royall, which is inhabited by the french under the English Government, where some few dayes after ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... is strictly applicable!—that all unknown to him the police hold him suspect, and are endeavouring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion——" ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... licking of lips and moustaches to get the lingering flavors, no dalliance. They were as restless and suspicious here as everywhere; their feast was the horrid hasty orgy of ghouls in a church-yard. But an even distribution was made: I don't think any one got more than his share. Of course there were underhand attempts in plenty and, at least once, open violence—a sudden rush from opposite sides, a growling and spitting like sparks from a smithy; and then, with ears laid flat, two ill-favoured beasts clawed blindly at each ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... myself there were constant feuds, in which Nessy MacLeod never failed to take the side of Betsy Beauty, while my poor mother became a target for the shafts of Aunt Bridget, who said I was a wilful, wicked, underhand little vixen, and no wonder, seeing how disgracefully I was indulged, and how shockingly ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... many more specific charges of as serious a nature; but the above suffice for my present argument, which is, that up to and including the April number I have made these accusations and that the only way they have been met is by underhand mud-slinging and by alleging that the incentive for my attack was that I could not secure insurance from any of the American companies; and I have met this with absolute proof, which must stand until it is disproved, that I have been during the past ten years importuned ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... can," said a gentleman opposite. "He is some strolling player. He got, it would seem, access to Lady Gambit's ear in some underhand way; and he has done now what our young friend Walter suggested a little while ago that he might as well have done sooner. Having taken other people off, he has taken himself off also, and has contrived to carry some twenty pounds of her ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... world: this cheating and screening Of cheats! this conscience for candle-wicks, Not beacon-fires! this overweening Of underhand diplomatical tricks, Dared for the country while scorned ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
